Green Hell

Mostly PC, but console and mobile too
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

This review is written after a single evening of playing. I'll return to update it when I've gotten further into the game.

This is a whole lot like The Forest. Same book to track knowledge, there's a story, you're on an island, you can build/craft, etc.

You're some dude who traveled to the island with his girlfriend. She happens to be one of the only humans who can make contact with a tribe there that otherwise shuns all contact. Shit goes sideways as things always do...

As of today, this is probably one to avoid IF you're looking for an accurate survival experience.

Here's the problem, as soon as the survival portion started you'll see how unbalanced the game is currently. First, you get zero help, so I guess the goal is to have players hitting reset on their adventure non-stop. Not a good plan, imho. Second, you have four "needs": thirst, carbs, protein, and mental. If one of them suffers, you lose health. The thirst and food related ones drop WAY too fast. How fast? You can die of thirst within a day. The mental one is silly. If you have a leech on you, your mental health will rapidly drop to where you're hearing voices and whatnot. Really? Stupid. All of these things lead to a death spiral that's almost impossible to get out of, and I haven't even gotten to exhaustion yet. Your guy gets exhausted and will pass out within a day by just doing basic survival things. He will pass out before even getting a single shelter built. You, literally, have no time to explore or find a good spot. If you haven't started at the word go, you're fucked. Oh, and when you pass out you'll become infected with worms driving you more insane. All hope becomes fleeting at that point as the screen goes black from the edges WAY too fast.

FYI: This is on Normal difficulty. There are two difficulty levels above this where they increase the speed for the hunger, thirst, and sanity to hurt you. WTF?

So yeah, the survival part is ridiculously broken unless you're someone who enjoyed Pac-Man for learning the patterns and play over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and you get the point.

The good news is that you can turn all that off and just experience the story. There's a mode for that! You can also customize your mode to turn certain things on or off. I'm going to be attempting that mode soon.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I've tried to play this on and off the last few days, but it's just not fun. It's not paced well at all. The learning curve is crazy high versus nutrient depletion.

Plus, I'm a survivalist, why wouldn't I know this shit? I guess because I have amnesia? Reality! The problem there is that forces the die, respawn, die, respawn mechanic and that's not realistic.

I'm waiting until it gets a bit more fine tuning to try playing again.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Stranger
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Green Hell

Post by Stranger »

Leisher wrote: I've tried to play this on and off the last few days, but it's just not fun. It's not paced well at all. The learning curve is crazy high versus nutrient depletion.

Plus, I'm a survivalist, why wouldn't I know this shit? I guess because I have amnesia? Reality! The problem there is that forces the die, respawn, die, respawn mechanic and that's not realistic.

I'm waiting until it gets a bit more fine tuning to try playing again.
Maybe give WoW Classic a shot for a change of pace. I think you'd like it.

i dunno, just a thought.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

Stranger wrote: Maybe give WoW Classic a shot for a change of pace. I think you'd like it.
Ha! Honestly, I had forgotten all about it. I started Battletech last night. (Tactical turn based game featuring mechs.)

Tell you what, in the interested of not derailing this thread, start a new WoW Classic thread and tell me what I should be doing when joining the game. What class, what server, mistakes to avoid, yada, yada, yada.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Stranger
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Post by Stranger »

Leisher wrote: Ha! Honestly, I had forgotten all about it. I started Battletech last night. (Tactical turn based game featuring mechs.)
cool. let me know what you think about this one. ive been interested in it for a while.

Leisher wrote: Tell you what, in the interested of not derailing this thread, start a new WoW Classic thread and tell me what I should be doing when joining the game. What class, what server, mistakes to avoid, yada, yada, yada.
I'll do that a little later today when i get some time.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I went back to this recently to give it another go. The insane water, sleep, parasites, fat, carbs, protein, being dirty, insanity, etc. bullshit is still just poorly designed IMHO. People don't die of starvation, thirst, or go insane within 24 hours. Other games (Rust, The Forest, etc.) are much better designed for those aspects of survival.

So I turned that garbage off and just went through the story.

The story starts off a lot like Firewatch. You're on your own trying to figure out what's going on and your only link to anyone else is through a walkie talkie to a woman located elsewhere. This woman, Mia, is your wife and she's the crux of the story. Initially, you start off just trying to survive and get to her, but eventually the story changes and gets dark. The farther along it goes the more you'll start checking the calendar and looking up when this was made because it REALLY hits home right now. I cannot overstate that. This was clearly made way before 2020, but man it applies.

The story is good, but I don't think it's as amazing as other reviewers.

My real issue with the game is that all the deep survival stuff is not tied very well to the story. It's the biggest flaw. I spent a lot of time, this go around, setting up a camp, building various structures, and so on, but realized I could just abandon it all and simply focus on exploring to further the story.

The other big issue is that nothing is explained very well. Why the little furnace? How do you use it? Why a big furnace? The molding system was way too much work for not enough reward. There are other examples here, but the biggest comes at the end. There's something you need to do to get the good ending. Thing is, the process isn't explained and the key ingredient is completely unknown to you. So how are you expected to discover it? Trial and error. So nothing in the story tells you to do it, doesn't tell you how, doesn't tell you what's involved, and worst of all, you can complete the game with the bad ending and only get told about the missing task when it's too late. By the way, there are a lot of items to try out.

Overall, a beautiful game with some great elements and a relevant story, but ultimately is more of a mish mash than a fluid experience.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

I thought this was going in a different direction:
Leisher wrote: The insane water, sleep, parasites, fat, carbs, protein, being dirty, insanity, etc. bullshit is really bothering me, so I'm playing games to take my mind off
I thought you were describing your current diet/exercise routine and was like "Damn dude, what have you been doing? OOOhhhh. It's IN the game."
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I mean, is that diet plan effective?
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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