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ATLAS: The ultimate survival MMO of unprecedented scale with 40,000+ simultaneous players in the same world. Join an endless adventure of piracy & sailing, exploration & combat, roleplaying & progression, settlement & civilization-building, in one of the largest game worlds ever! Explore, Build, Conquer!
[New reviewer Darsch will be taking on ATLAS, the new MMO from Grapeshot Games, in an ongoing diary of gameplay, join us in Discord if you’re playing and chat about your experiences! ~Lonesamurai]
ATLAS. The pirate survival MMO I never knew I needed, surrounded by controversy over its rough early access launch rendering it unplayable for many players. Then there are game files which are copied from ARK Survival Evolved and its expansions. Many people believed upon this revelation that the game was just an ARK asset flip. Players bemoaned the “launch” saying the game was not ready. More on this in a moment first I want to tackle the ark asset flip accusations.
What is Atlas? For starters it sure as hell is not ARK. The only thing the same about the two are shared game file names, the survival theme, and game engine. Ark had stat points and engrams which are just blueprints you learned to be able to craft items, Atlas has skill trees that modify everything about your character, unlocks special abilities, teaches you how to make things, and unlocks additional skills lines, while forcing you to specialize. For example my character unlocked the bow skill line as well as the taming skill line from the basic survival skill line. From there I went down the bow skill tree learning how to make fire arrows and zipline arrows and how to do the special attack penetrating shot which penetrates armor and hits all mobs in a straight line. These special abilities are called feats and are something ark does not possess. Atlas is not an asset flip, all the art assets are new, new game mechanics such as managing your vitamin levels, having to catch the wind with your sails at the correct angles to even be able to move your ships and raft are all new, the files sharing the same name as ARK’s I can completely dismiss as Atlas feels so much different.
“Well the game was launched incomplete, broken, buggy, and laggy!” some would say. They are just plain wrong and ignorant of what early access means. So time to get this off my chest, early access is a fucking paid alpha people, its an incomplete game sold at a discount to get money to continue development and test the game! The game has not even officially launched yet, that won’t be for another two years as the devs have said in multiple interviews.
Yes the game’s early access start was terrible with server pings of 250 ms, terrible frame rate , and some game breaking bugs. The devs worked non stop on the game, some putting in 24 hours a day even to get this game playable. The servers have 120 ms ping still on official servers but I have not experienced any more lag or frame drops. Considering everything wrong and that they did numerous patches the first week that we went from version 1.0 to 7.0 and higher now is astonishing and the devs even apologized for the the rough early access start. I have never in all my years been this impressed and humbled by a game dev team, color me impressed. The was playable on the 27th of December 2018. On top of all the hard work they were doing on their own game servers they helped groups like TwitchRP set up and fix their own private servers
The devs have gone above and beyond the call of their duties, worked endlessly on the game, and care about their players and game. They continue to fix things and balance things while trying to give us the best play experience possible for a game still in the development stages and in testing. Also this game is fucking great.
ATLAS is available now in Early Access on STEAM – https://www.playatlas.com/
Keep an eye here for more news and play diary’s as we dive more into the game
To celebrate the release of Fallout 76, Sanitarium.Fm’s patrons received exclusive artwork of the games Scorchbeast boss by our artist in residence, PhaseChan.
Check out the process behind the portrait below:
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Relentless rogue-like shooter/brawler coming soon to a host near you. SNATCH, ZAP and REPEAT your way through a dystopian 1980’s as a mysterious organism bent on world domination.
Troglobytes games’ HyperParasite is a top down twin stick shooter with a twist.
The first thing people will notice about HyperParasite is probably the obvious homage to the 80’s, the game looks like it was dunked in a tank of 80’s neon sheen, the soundtrack is full of awesome 80’s inspired dark synthwave, and the whole concept of the post apocalypse filled with various themed gangs (which isn’t exactly what the game is, but with character classes being very specific and appearing together a lot in waves it does have a slight Warriors vibe).
So gameplay wise, you play as the titular HyperParasite, a mass of shadowy smoke like tentacles, the Parasite has the ability to move around freely, dash (which can be used to avoid attacks and to smash various objects), and a tentacle swipe (and here is where the gameplay twist comes in) the tentacle swipe is used to infect your enemies and hijack their bodies, the effect of this is twofold, not only do you used them as a literal human shield to protect your fragile parasitic lack of a body, but you also get to use their strengths, each enemy has their own attack, special and stats, generally a melee character will be stronger and have a higher amount of hit points, while a ranged character will be weaker and survive fewer hits with the trade off of being able avoid more damage while on the run and still scoring hits.
Outside of the two main classes, each enemy character has their own playstyle, cops are ranged and can fire their pistol with moderate strength straight in the direction you are facing they also have a clip limit so they need to reload once their shots are spent, whereas the paper girl, while also a ranged unit throws two newspapers that do low damage and split out in a small V formation in the direction you are facing, they also have unlimited papers so no need to reload or watch your clip count, similarly melee characters will have different range and damage to their attacks that you will need to take into consideration when selecting a host for your parasite.
Now what if you are surrounded by units you don’t like? Should you stay as the parasite? Well no, it’s never really a good idea to stay as the parasite because it’s super squishy, and at any point if you see a better unit you can destroy your current host and snag them, assuming they don’t destroy you before you grab them, you also have the choice of throwing a potential host at your enemies instead of taking them if you grab the wrong one by mistake, using them as a decently strong ranged attack.
Each run you do is procedurally generated, and the waves of enemies are randomised as well, so it’s more about quick reactions and luck than planning things out, some areas will have things like barrels and cars strewn about as well, some of these contain nothing, others have pickups, mostly in the form of money which can be used to purchase upgrades if you find a store, and the rest of them blow up, prior to blowing up you will see a ring which indicated the area of effect the explosion will cover, so you can know how far to move to avoid it, and if you are lucky and skilful enough you can also lure enemies in to feel the effects of the blast.
Some certain enemies also allow you to take their DNA after you defeat them, this can be used to power up your parasite and make it more formidable, and with roguelike elements, you can gain power ups that will apply to future runs, making things easier for subsequent attempts, which would be helpful as I found the difficulty even in the first area very hard to overcome.
Overall the game is well made, with a winning art style, music and over all feel, the replayability is high, with some runs going well enough to think, I’m going to take another shot and see if I can push it further, and other runs ending so quickly that you think, that was a mulligan, one more try, the game is still also in pre-alpha at the time of this review so they have time to add more and balance the difficulty if it turns out I’m not alone in being absolutely destroyed.
Write your own epic odyssey and become a legendary Spartan hero in Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey, an inspiring adventure where you must forge your destiny and define your own path in a world on the brink of tearing itself apart. Influence how history unfolds as you experience a rich and ever-changing world shaped by your decisions.
Assassins creed odyssey is the 11th game in the long running series developed and published by Ubisoft. The series gained huge popularity receiving great reception with releases of assassin’s creed II and Brotherhood, largely claimed by many to be the pinnacle of the series. However, with each new release more and more fans departed from the series being disappointed again and again.
Ubisoft heard the fans disappointment and have decidedly responded by reinventing the game series through the last two titles. The first being Assassins creed: Origins and most recently Assassins creed: Odyssey. The question is, Is odyssey a return to good form? And is it worth the high price point of £49.99
The assassins creed staple idea was that you as the player went back in time to control a powerful hero in moderately sized open world based on a particular period of history. By experiencing and reliving the memories of these characters players would traverse through a plot connecting the future and past together. The series always liked to encourage stealth gameplay although the combat mechanics were very simple and abusable making almost every encounter easily completable with little to no stealth. However, with the release of origins Ubisoft have decided to move the game towards being an RPG. Including staple RPG elements like a levelling system, Gear stats & requirements and Character progression just to name a few that have inspired the gameplay within Origins. With reasonably good reception Ubisoft have continued this new theme bringing many of those elements back for Odyssey while expanding on many more.
Odyssey takes place in Greece during the Peloponnesian war (431 BCE to be exact) retelling its own take on the war between Athens and Sparta. Given the grand scale of the theme and setting the map size has also been given an upgrade making it over double the size of the previous within origins, Making Odysseys map the largest in game area seen in the whole series to date. Every corner of the map is beautifully crafted with each of the Greek islands feeling original and well made. The soundtrack takes key instruments and elements from Greek culture allowing it to blend into the surroundings perfectly which brings together the overall setting and theme of the game. Initially the game gives the player two new choices upon starting. The first being to choose between playing a female or a male character. The second being the choice to turn exploration mode on. The choice of character is permanent but a nice addition to see within the new RPG setting. It’s a simple change but helps the player feel as if the story is a more their own rather than playing a set characters events. The second choice however can be toggled off and on via the options at any point although personally after playing through the game with exploration mode on I think it adds so much to the game while simply doing so little. All exploration mode does is it removes most markers like quest objectives from the map and HUD pushing players to investigate the surroundings and gather more information to complete quests. It takes away the mindless cycle of receiving a quest, heading straight for the marker and handing it in. The added layer of mystery and investigation surprisingly adds a lot to the game and thus I think it’s a welcomed addition.
As mentioned earlier, Odyssey is a character-based RPG meaning that as you progress through the game your character gets stronger and stronger with the addition of more abilities and better gear which all ties in to character level. At its core all the main elements of the game are tied to this system, the questing, the combat and even exploration features. This simultaneously one of the best elements of the game and one of the biggest downfalls.
The levelling system is what gives players access to the three skill trees; Hunter which focuses on bows, Warrior which focuses on hand to hand combat and assassin which focuses on stealth. As you level up ability points are awarded to you to be spent in any skill tree meaning you aren’t locked into one choice although by diversifying into many you will have less progress in each. Each provides a unique set of gameplay however after playing through the first few hours players will notice that all have their uses making them all viable but some are objectively stronger than others, especially for the early game areas. The story is very slow to be introduced therefor much of the early game is the player hopping from side quest to side quest levelling and slowly building up an arsenal of better gear and more powerful abilities. While doing this the game slowly introduces some new mechanics like the bounty system, a new ship system and naval combat. The pacing of which these new features are shown and introduced feels good and well timed. Most of the core features are available to you by about 1-2 hours of playtime which is when you are prompted to depart from the first island, this is also where the main story starts to take place and unveil itself to you. However, this is where the first major issues start to show.
Due to the levelling systems running alongside the main story quests, each of the quests within the game have a suggested level, letting the player know if it’s appropriate to do. The player can usually do quests that are 1 to 2 levels higher but any higher becomes incredibly challenging as the opponents you face along those quests statistically are out of your range in damage and health. This means that throughout the game the player is forced to constantly be increasing their level to keep up with the content of the newer regions. For most of the additional content I believe this would be okay, but it is impossible to keep up with the main story of the game without taking constant breaks from it to grind out multiple side quests that will raise your level to the resume the main story. Not only does this take away from the commitment and investment into the story with constant breaks but it also means that the creative, fun and genuinely interesting story of the game is diluted with simple mundane side quests. Which brings the game to its second biggest problem.
The side quests are incredibly tedious making the fact that you must do them to keep progressing incredibly frustrating. While I will admit some of them offer a breath of fresh air most of them revolve around you “The hero of Greece, armed with legendary weapons and abilities” running errands and chores for the people. An exception to this critique would be the side quests to hunt the 4 main mythical creatures present within the world which is something that was done previously in Origins against the Egyptian gods. Within odyssey you can face medusa, a minotaur and even a cyclops each with their own original fight and individual themed loot dropping from each.
As mentioned previously Odyssey includes an new ship system for both management and sailing. This works by allowing the player to upgrade various components of the ship to help in naval battles. Upgrading weapons, hull, figure heads and even choosing what crew mans the ship. While adventuring through Greece the player can use non-lethal takedowns to recruit enemies to join your ships crew adding them to a roster of people who can be enlisted on your ship, each providing buffs of their own benefiting the ship further. The ship management meshes incredibly well with the main game and never detracts from the main experience, so a player can easily spend hours focusing on upgrading their ship or simply upgrading from time to time throughout the story.
A surprising new feature within Odyssey is the “bounty” system that could be compared to an altered version of the nemesis system within the “Shadow of Mordor” games. As the player performs certain actions throughout the world their bounty level will increase forcing unique individual enemies known as “Bounty hunters” to try and kill you. These bounty hunters are specially geared enemies often with their own flare. For example, one could be accompanied by a creature as a pet that will aid it in combat while another may use fire as a weapon, with each of the bounty hunters also having unique weaknesses and strengths against things like poison damage, assassination damage & fire damage etc. This closely follows the system in place in Shadow of Mordor allowing the player to engage each unique opponent with a new strategy that they are weak too. While I think this system needs work and some time to become its own it defiantly is a nice addition to the game, but for now at its simple implementation many people will simply compare it to its clear inspirations.
The final new addition to the game is the narrative system of choice which present through most of the main story and a few moments of the side content. This isn’t a new idea but its not one that I would have expected from an assassins creed game however It surprisingly works well. One of the biggest issues when games provide “choice” is the false illusion of choice, being able to choose something but the end result being exactly the same regardless, a common issue the persisted through many “choice based” titles. However in odyssey the few choices you do get are fairly big ones each having their own effect on the story and eventually your ending. This continues to further the RPG idea of playing your own character and not being shoehorned into playing someone else’s vision or story.
Assassin’s creed: Odyssey is definitely not a return to form in the sense that the game is so strikingly different from previous titles however that doesn’t take away from the fact that the new RPG formula is a good refreshing way to return to the series. If you’re looking for a game to sink a lot of time into or you’re simply just interested in the setting, theme and elements that go into making odyssey great then this is a good game for you. However, acknowledging the flaws when it comes to its repetitive grind needed to progress is crucial but all in all I don’t think its flaws take away enough of its positives to warrant it being anything a but a fun and interesting start to a potential rebirth of a once beloved series.
6/10 – A beautiful and hopeful foundation for a new era of the assassin’s creed series.
To celebrate the release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Sanitarium.Fm’s patrons received exclusive artwork of Lara Croft by our artist in residence, PhaseChan.
Check out the process behind the portrait below:
Love this illustration? Sanitarium.FM patrons get exclusive Game Of The Month artwork every month, support the station today to start receiving your prints.
