Foghorn’s been posting some pretty rad screen shots from Star Citizen, so I figured I’d look into it a little more just to get a better idea of what the gameplay is like. Which means that this gentleman’s been keeping me company at work for the last couple hours, since everyone else is out and it would otherwise be pretty lonely up here:
(NB: The first two videos he’s playing on the Australian server so none of the shop items populate correctly; once he switches to the US server in the third video that problem goes away.)
Preliminary thoughts: gorgeous, but in a slightly frustrating way. It’s the kind of thing that used to drive me nuts about Portal 2–all this world out there that I can see in fabulous detail, but am fenced off from in one way or another because it’s not exactly … there. To a lesser extent, of course–it is an open world instead of a series of escape rooms, but there’s still that niggling sense of “don’t look behind the curtain”. My frustration with that kind of thing is why I find myself playing mostly survival/sandbox games nowadays, where if it’s onscreen, it can be interacted with in some way, even if it’s just to turn it into kindling so you don’t freeze to death.
(I’m probably going to write a post about gaming–philosophies? mentalities? something along those lines–because I do think it’s an interesting topic and one that perhaps fits into some of the cultural discussions going on around here.)
But anyway, I can see why the flight jockeys are so intrigued with this game, and the visuals truly are breathtaking at times.
4 replies on “Checking out this “Star Citizen” thing”
Lydia, the vid is great, but it his playthrough was exceptionally glitched (which can happen, it’s in Alpha). Lots of things weren’t populating into the Verse with him, so it gave a real impression of the development being much farther behind where it is really at.
If you like, the Aurora Republic is running a mission tomorrow evening in which you will be able to see much more of where the development is at currently. Link to watch below:
7:30 PM on Twitch, Exercise VIGILANT FORGE
The third video he switches to the US server instead of the Australian one and that solves the item population problem.
Thanks for the invitation, but I’ll be at a wedding–if you guys upload the recording, though, I’ll definitely check it out.
It’s really interesting to compare the progress of Star Citizen as a game through alpha with the one I’m currently playing (Empyrion: Galactic Survival)–also in alpha, but the developers are very focused on consistently and frequently improving the mechanics, and there are so many players uploading ship and base templates to the Steam workshop that you could probably spend several weeks doing nothing but testing out all the different builds. But there are enough hostile aliens and creatures for fairly engaging combat/exploration as well. The graphics are a couple steps down from Star Citizen, but there’s a pleasing solidity to the universe you’re interacting with.
Two very different development models, but the one does seem to be producing rather higher player satisfaction than the other.
That being said, there’s so much promise to Star Citizen that it would be a real shame if it never comes to full fruition.
Yup. In the end you have to be able to deliver at least a substantial portion of what you’re promising or people will give up on the whole thing.