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Finished and posted my Savage Lands review (original transcript below) so that I can start on The Witcher 3 next. I'm also starting to think about doing more experimental format stuff, but I've gotta draft that up before I say any more.

Please ignore the errors, what you are seeing is my script and being dyslexic having spelling errors in it actually helps me to read/speak it.

RMR6 – Savage Lands

Intro

Special thanks to: Randomise User for his tutorials and letsplays on tnhis game

Hello and welcome back, I am redmage and this is my review of Savage Lands, an indie action adventure survival multiplayer game currently in early access on steam.

 The game starts with you waking up on the beach of a deserted island with virtually nothing, and it is up to you as to how to progress, as you fight against biting cold, wild creatures, starvation, skeletons, and giants while the everpresent threat of a dragon circles you overhead.

As you progress thorugh the game you collect raw materials, these are mined from rocks, picked from the landscape, or taken off defeated animals or foes. These materials are used for the crafting of various tools, weapons, armors, and even structures to help turn your basic survival into total thrival as by the end you are the master of the island. Odly one of the greatest ways you progress is by building bigger and better backpacks to carry goods in as high end items require lots of components.

At present there isn’t much story in the game except what can be gleaned by looking through the beastiary. But more is being added with every patch. And devs plan to add additional story through the use of a journal system or perhaps notes found at various locations.

Speaking of the devs, the game is being built by Signal Studeos, the group best known for the XBLA “Toy Soldiers” series of games. Their attempt at building a game in Unity is admirable, but only time will tell if they can tame the system into doing the tricks they want it to perform. 

I have to give them props for jumping head first into the mainstream PC gaming masterrace’s kiddie pool that is the early access environment; a place as equally filled with bullies, trolls, and pee as you may expect.

 At present they are doing a good job of listening to the community, taking community suggestions and prioritizing community requests, also they post regular updates, patches, and vlogs showcasing the game’s development. Currently they have plans for more enemies, more items, in game magic, improved story, and eventually the ability to fight that dang dragon.

As far as survival games go, this one is fairly unique in that it is attempting to blend itself not with some form of post-apocalyptic state, or zombies, but rather with a fantasy setting.

It should be noted that this game is in deep early access (v.0.6.0) and there is still lots of planned content that has yet to be introduced into the game. I bring this up because my current experience is somewhat lacking, the game plays well, but doesn’t feel quite complete.

Don’t get me wrong, in comparison to all the other early access survival games, this one stands out as a gem amongst its buggy incomplete rivals, but It doesn’t really hold my interest. I don’t feel like the story is complete enough for me to even get a basic picture of who I am and what I am doing other than trying to not die.

I suppose the goal is to fight the dragon at the end but what is my motivation to do so other than to kill him before he kills me, the game progress feels slow, and the game is difficult in single player due to enemies sometimes spawning in reasonable numbers and sometimes not. Gathering resources ends up feeling grindy, there is really nothing special about the sound, and high end content currently only consists of walking for hours, lost in the woods to find hard-to-find place X to maybe kill a rare spawn Y who may drop a rare item Z.

What I want from this game:

1. More story, tell me who I am, give me a reason to be, a reason to fight, a goal to strive for; what is the conflict, the threat, the tension of the story that hangs over me? Right now just surviving gets old.

2. more fantasy aspects, I hear magic is planned which is good, if your going to call yourself a fantasy game you need fantasy elements. Having a dragon and undead is good, if a bit cliché, but that;s what fantasy is today, so grab your wizard hat, pick up your dwarven axe, and add some goblins, caves, and dungeons to the game that have valuable treasure horded away in their depths.

3. more customization, I mean this in items, in structuers, in character creation, in everything. This is a multiplayer game, I don’t want to look the same as another guy, hold the same weapons, and live in the same house.

4. a map, this island is huge and hard to navigate. I get that this may be part of the allure but think about giving me a map that I can optionally build and must fill in as I explore, that way I can find my way back to the cool places and not wander for hours looking for them again (like the monolith, found the blasted thing once and then couldn’t ever find it again). If you make it a buildable and an option then the hardcore players won’t feel forced to use it, and the casuals will not feel like they are always lost when you have so many sights to see, Win win right?

Now on to the scores:

Now its time for the totals.  (two score catagories, general and in genera)

Story/Characters/Dialogue: D / B

Not much story, no characters to interact with in the non-violent talking way other than other players, who you may often interact with in the violent non-talking way. But there is more here than other survival games have as they didn’t just tell you the story was “… zombies…”

Gameplay/Interface – C / B

The game is simple enough to understand, the interface works, and there are no real falaws or bugs, and it doesn’t feel too sticky or too awkward. Yes it could have more, but it really doesn’t need it. Impressively (for an early access indie game) most collisions, items, and movements work just fine.

Graphics/textures/animations/visuals/art = C / B

This game looks decent. It’s not a triple A title with a huge team working on it, and frankly for an indie game it looks good.

Sound/music = D / C

The sound is decent, its properly timed and located, and there doesn’t appear to be any music. This may be an artistic choice as the game does try to make you feel alone and isolated as you hear the waves crash against the nearby shore while the wind wistles past and wolves howl in the distance, but its been done before and this game adds nothing new.

Panache: Meh

Clearly the devs do care about this game and are working hard on it. Though it doesn’t yet feel like its all come together. Frankly it feels a bit like just aobut every other survival game I’ve played, and this game has the chance to do more with its inclusion of the “fantasy” genera.

Learning Curve: Mid/high –

Not really a game you can just pick up to play and have a good time in 10 min; this game takes lots of work, a bit of grinding, hiding indoors at night, slowly gearing up, and eventually heading out just to get helplessly murdered by furys (my first bear encounter… and there were four…) . But the recent updates have made the game more forgiving and atleast now you can find your corpse and collect all your lost goodies after your terrible death at the hands of an entire sleuth of bears.

Overall: general score: D+/C- / Contextual score: B

Not a bad game in its current state, it just needs more, and with the team doing what they are it should become a decent game in short order.

Definitely

So… Should you buy this game?

If you like survival games then you likely should

If you like fantasy games you should consider this

If you download the hardcore and realistic survival mods for your games then you should

This game is decent, even in its current state. I am excited to hear that the Devs are working to implement many of the things I want fixed the things I had problems with. Should they accomplish this, then Savage Lands will be a good all around game. Even at present it is much more polished and playable than many of the survival games out there.

I’ve been your host RedMage, never stop gaming.

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