SilentDarkness Reviews: Don't Starve

Silent_Darkness Reviews: Don't Starve

I'll admit it, i'm such a sucker for sandbox. I'm not sure what it is exactly that calls me to it. Perhaps it's the lack of linear objectives, the total absence of "Go here and do this in a time limit while everyone else takes pot-shots at your walking corpse" mentalities.

But, every now and again, you want more out of a sandbox. You want survival to be the challenge. Well, if that's your in, then Klei(No, you pronounce it Clay, not  Entertainment has quite the game to pitch to you. Don't Starve. It sells itself hard as THE creatively-well-planned survival game worth looking into. Having put in over 300 hours on the game, I can vouch for it, to some extent. It may lack the total creative prowess for players that the seemingly immortal Minecraft has, but it still is worth the, honestly, bargain price. How so? Well, sit down by a fire pit, throw some logs on the fire to keep dear Charlie away, and i'll tell ya all about it.

You'll spend many a night curled up by a slowly dwindling fire, hoping Charlie doesn't have you for a snack.

If you came to this game looking for a storyline, you're not getting much, but i'll address the reason why later on. The starting character you can play as is Wilson Higgsbury II, a scientist who has been tricked and trapped in the unforgiving wilderness world by a dapper fellow called Maxwell. Who is actually a demon. Go figure.

You are thrown into a hostile wilderness where it seems like even the "docile" creatures are out to get you in some way or another. Beyond that, and a simple hint, you are on your own!

"Say, pal, you don't look too good. You had better find something to eat before night comes!"

And with that, you are thrown into the thick of things, with no real rhyme or reason. Left to fend for yourself in a hateful world.

How is the gameplay, you might ask? It's got layers of complexity all over the place. Initially, you're left with 3 stats to manage, health, sanity and hunger. And honestly, one problem I have with this is that if you lose all your health, of course, you die. And if your hunger meter empties out completely, you lose health slowly. But if your sanity hits 0, the screen goes blurry and wierd, and hallucinational monsters come out to attack you, which is nothing to a player who knows what the heck he's doing. Sanity comes off feeling like a much-less-than-vital statistic.

But, yes, like I said, there's a hunger mechanic. But, unlike another much-blockier sandbox game that I won't mention, not tending to hunger WILL kill you eventually, as opposed to leaving you near-death. Thankfully, there are a wide variety of types of sustenance to keep you. Ranging from wild berries, to haunches of beef, to fancier dishes cooked up yourself in a pot, there are so many ways to not starve.

And here's where the game has a bit of a problem. Food is usually abundant enough that you're never in any real danger of starving, unless you're so awful at this game that you run away from every lone spider in your path, can't farm, and generally are having rotten luck. Funny, since the game's name is "Don't Starve".

No, more likely, you'll get brutally murdered by one of the denizens, over something or other. This game is much like Minecraft in that there's never a clear goal, ahead of not starving and not getting killed. You have to find your own entertainment beyond a certain point. What would that be? The game doesn't have the full creative possibility that Minecraft, Terraria, or similar games have. And that, I have to leave up to the reader.

So far, it may sound like the game is rubbing off badly on me, but I think it's great from a mechanics standpoint. All 3 stats mesh in reasonably, from night-time sanity loss due to your own fear, to stat tradeoff from eating certain foods(I.E, eating cooked monster meat to satisfy hunger, but losing health and sanity as a tradeoff) to adding a purpose to do certain things you might not think of doing normally, such as picking flowers to regain sanity or purposely going mad to get some nightmare fuel from the hallucination monsters.

And yet.....

Talking about the game with my friends did make me realize one thing: The sandbox has absolutely no real endgame content that has the difficulty scale upwards on the survival end. Once you reach a certain point, the game ceases to be a challenge, and you're wasting time. Not to mention, some things in the game could use a bit more balancing, even though the game is technically complete and functional. Oh, sure, you could go down into the caves, but the way the caves are built up, with little food, lots of dangers, ect ect, is the game's way of telling you to not stay down there too long. Not to mention, there isn't a single thing down there you NEED to get anywhere in the game. Sure, the Bunnymen and Thulecite Ruins are cool and all, but it's hardly substantial to the gameplay in the least. It's all optional, only needing to be done if you want to.

     The caves may seem like an interesting prospect, but curiosity is the only serious reason to go down there at all.

This is not to suggest that the game is easy at the start. The game has permadeath, and the only ways to revive are to have activated a single-use Touchstone, have a Meat Effigy built, or to be wearing a Life-Giving Amulet when you die. But, once you have the required faculties going, meat and tree farms, a way to deal with the weekly hound attacks, everything, it's not a problem in the least unless you deliberately do something very stupid. At that point, the only real recourse short of killing yourself epicly and leaving the game for a long time, is to attempt Adventure Mode. Adventure Mode sends you on the route to find the demonic Maxwell, in search of a way out. And while I won't completely spoil everything therein, it does not end the game at all. Matter of fact, the game still has no end, so one could possibly call it incomplete. The game does promise that there is more to come, however.

My main love with this game, and yet, my main gripe, at the same time, is most certainly with the storyline. The Adventure Mode update seriously upgraded the game's storyline beyond "You are a gentleman scientist, now survive that dapper demon's eternal hatred". I do not want to spoil, again, but I like what was done, even if some find it cliche. But, another problem I have is that there's almost zero exposition in the sandbox. The Ruins deep underground quietly throw some revelations in your face, but the lionshare of the story exposition is in the Don't Starve Praecantor, and the forums, generally. If Don't Starve's story handout is to be an example of how Klei handles things, then they may have a bit of work to do before they make a fully coherent story.

But, again, maybe it's too early. The game is unfinished, believe it or not. Also, I think it's worth noting, at the time of this review, that there is a DLC called Reign of Giants, that's in beta. I considered putting the review on hold, but it's obvious to me now that it doesn't add anything truly substantial. Again. It's just more content to pad out the sandbox, which really doesn't seem to address most of the problems. Such as the balance of the initial content.

In my personal opinion, if you were looking for something interesting in the game, story-wise, a mod could serve you better than this DLC. But, by all means, if more filler is up your alley, then wait for the DLC to be in a "finished" state, then get it. Not now, though. It's ultra buggy, and even more so if you're not using Windows.

Also, it sounds like I may not have been very descriptive as to what you're going to run into when you start a game. And that's because it's randomly generated. That's right. RNG forever. Who knows? Maybe your first playthrough will be screwed beyond all recovery due to a lack of rocks, or grass.

                  As it turns out, being a careless firestarter is it's own curse AND reward...

So, at the end of the day, it has to be asked: Do I recommend Don't Starve? Well, personal opinion says yes, but in the name of trying to act professional: Look at your games library. If Minecraft or Terraria, or, heck, even Rust is in there, and you're feeling creative, then totally give it a try. Otherwise, you might be better served giving this game a pass. If you do get it, I would recommend Humble Bundle, or whenever Steam has a sale, Don't Starve gets discounted rather easily nowadays. Have fun, stay well-fed, and make sure to keep things quiet in the darkness.
-Silentdark12

Silentdark Reviews Unreal: Gold Edition

Unreal Review

Unreal. Un-Real. Anyone who is old enough to remember a lot of old games, probably knows Unreal. Hell, i’m sure there’s a lot of gamers who have generally heard of Unreal. But, what do they think of? Unreal Tournament? The gaming engine that is in currently in it’s fourth iteration, right? Unreal seems to have been permanently overshadowed by Unreal Tournament, a game that is, all things considered, geared towards hot and fast multiplayer matches, rather than a developed single-player campaign. Not that I have any grudge at all against Unreal Tournament. It’s a fine game in it’s own right, and feels true to the gameplay style of Unreal: A hard, tricky FPS experience that will kick you in the balls every 10 to 15 minutes, just to keep you from thinking you’re pro, or anything stupid like that.

At the time, Unreal's title sequence was certainly a jawdropper.

But, seriously. Was Unreal so shitty that Unreal Tournament kicked it out of line as THE game that carried the Unreal title into the future? Well, I happened to have a copy of Unreal Gold edition kicking around in my library, so I took a few days playing through the whole thing on hard difficulty to come to a serious conclusion. My conclusion, is that this game got unfairly buried.

Unreal was initially released in May of 1998 for ye olde’ computer, Mac and Windows PC, by Epic Games, then Epic Megagames, back when making a succesful game meant being colorful and innovative. Imagine that.  It featured an engine that was new and state of the art back then. The Unreal Engine. Now, i’m not going to harp on the engine. This is a review for the game, not the engine. But it seemed destined to compete with the Quake engine that ID Software used for Quake 2 at the time, and actually, it did quite well.

Now then, how about the actual game? Well, there are plenty of space-faring games that have you as either a military-type or some virgin, grand old soul with tons of combat experience. Unreal kicks that concept in the balls. You are Prisoner-849, stuck onboard a prison vessel headed for a certain moon. Since you are never given an exact name or a show of why you were imprisoned, you could make up the backstory yourself. Maybe you’re totally innocent and got framed? Maybe you’re an eco-terrorist, or something equally barbaric.

Well, whatever the reason, you’re stuck in a metal box, waiting out your eternity until you get to the next prison moon. That is, until the prison vessel crashes on a hostile alien planet, leaving you at the mercy of fate and the Skaarj, a fierce, serpentine alien race with advanced technology at their disposal. Who are all more than glad to repurpose your corpse into a claw sharpener.

The crashed Vortex Rykers seems like it would've been a shit place to stay when it was fully functional....even if you're not a prisoner.


When you start the game, there’s no flashy cutscene, you just get dropped right into your now un-protected cell, nearly dead from beatings that come with the prison lifestyle, and nothing except the clothes on your back. From there, it’s up to you to get off the ship, and survive the forces that want to skin your sorry ass. Maybe find some weapons to “level the playing field”.

So, now you gotta wonder. There’s a lot of interest about the graphics, and the storyline sounds pretty engrossing. So is the gameplay actually any GOOD? Well, it’s flawed, but it’s functionally sound. It’s the standard old-school FPS action. Health packs, ammo, shooting dudes, so on and so forth. How is it flawed? I’ll get to that in a bit, hold your non-existent horses.

First thing, there’s no real stuff woven into the story through narrative, since everyone else on the planet either speaks not-english, or wants to rip your face off. Instead, you use a Universal Translator, a futuristic, PDA-looking device that will translate some text from the world at certain particular places. Makes it useful to tell what the actual hell you’re doing. Plus, you may start to get some actual ideas as to what’s going on. Also ,there is a small armory’s worth of extra tools you’ll be needing with your adventure. Several different types of armor, a shield, flashlights, flares, seeds, even a power amplifier.

The Universal Translator will quickly become your best and only friend.



Speaking of which, the weapons. The weapons are all colorful and creative. If you want to see all the weapons, go to a frigging walkthrough, but there are a few worth glossing over, but especially one worth talking about. You got pistols, you got electro-shock rifles, you have a six-barelled rocket launcher, even. But what’s really worth mentioning is the first weapon you get. The Dispersion Pistol. It’s a basic energy pistol that fires off a energy blast on primary that can’t be charged, but does no damage to you, or a chargeable blast that can damage you. The ammo pack recharges, so this is a good utility weapon for curb-stomping weak, pitiful foes underfoot, or breaking open the many breakable props that might have goodies inside. But, there’s more to this gun than meets the eye.

Hidden throughout Na Pali, you will find these things that look like a giant metal pill with lightning around it. This is an upgrade for the dispersion pistol. Turns out it’s modular. With each upgrade, the damage of the primary increases, the ammo usage and max ammo increases, and the pistol begins to unfold towards looking like a total badass. Towards the end of the game, you’ll even be able to take on ordinary foes with the dispersion pistol and still win. Definitely a nice idea at the time. Though, i’m sure this helped lead to the upgrade mechanic that is in way too many games for it’s own good.

           These powerups are always a rare, lucky find, when you can find them.

Now, earlier in the review, I said that the gameplay was flawed, but functionally sound. I mean that in the way that the enemy A.I. isn’t just smart, it’s intent on trolling you all the freaking way to hell and back. After seeing lots of games where the enemy A.I is a handicapped retard being asked to say the alphabet backwards, you’d think that would be nice for immersion. But after the Skaarj Berserker that killed me five times previously dodges my rapid-fire bullets for the thousandth time and stomps my face, a certain level of irritation sets in. You see ,the A.I for all the nimble enemies (Codeword is NIMBLE), makes them try to dodge fire very, very often. I never thought i’d say this, but I wish the enemies would stay the FUCK still. Not to mention, all of the enemies have their own special quirky way to be annoying, hard to hit, and good at making you do the spinning death animation fifty times. The Skaarj pupae? Jump right out of your ar mview within a certain distance, so you backpedal into a wall, trying to get a bead on them. Serpents? Land a crap load of hits on you before you can deliver anything close to a serious blow. Skaarj Berserkers? Bum-rush you while launching energy bolts, then melee, making it so that your good, explosive weapons are damn near useless. And.....oh my sweet fucking god. The mercs. The mercenaries are all total fucking douchebags. Because they can put on a temporary shield that makes them immune to literally everything, plasma, bullets, explosions, fire, lava, everything. Granted, it only lasts a few seconds, but that’s ten seconds that they can blow your ass up, and you can’t do SHIT about it.

       Every enemy has his or her own way of making you want to off yourself.

Oh, first time you play this game, play a mini-game. Every time you charge up a powerful blow on a merc and he nullifies it with his shield, take a shot. You’ll be extremely drunk by the time you see the conclusion of this game. But, you know what?

I can’t hate this game for that. I can’t.

Maybe it’s because the artistical vision is so undeniably sound. Perhaps it’s the fact that the concept of trying to survive on a hostile planet appeals to me. If you want to not get trolled to death all the time, you have to develop a method of taking on your enemies while managing ammo count, and be ready to switch up the method on the fly because there is always a good chance for an unscripted surprise moment. Like when I blasted a Skaarj warrior off a ledge, peered over it to finish the job, and he lept straight up at me, knocked me away, and landed back up on the ledge.

One thing I will definitely say is that this game is plenty long enough to entertain, if you’ll put up with it. It’s definitely a marathon, not a sprint. I would easily say that your first playthrough could clock 10+ hours, depending on your skill level and patience.

But, just when you think you’re done, and floating in space again forever, there’s still the expansion, Return to Na Pali. This expansion adds minor and major new foes, along with the return of all the same irritation-enducing creatures. And, of course, three new weapons to balance the odds out. But I am happy to say that the new enemies provided via expansion are at least somewhat better designed. In the expansion pack, you end up being sent back to the planet’s surface by a bunch of armored space marines to get back some computer logs from a crashed vessel. Of course, they betray you once you get on the ship, and you have to find your own way off the planet. AGAIN.

If you include the expansion pack, it definitely adds a considerable few more hours to the campaign. Even if you tried to power through it all, it could take a couple of days. But, hell, I don’t think I could do anything like that without going clinically mad.

The planet of Na Pali is an interesting and nearly fruitful adventure, if you can bear all of it.


And then comes the last feature of Unreal Gold. Multiplayer. And I would say it is decently fleshed out. Plenty of maps to choose from, whether you want KotH, CTF, or straight up frag-a-licious deathmatch. And they all look just as pretty as the main campaign maps, too. Except Darkmatch. But what do you expect? It’s s’posed to be dark. Feeling too shit? Getting face-stomped by friends for the 5,000th time? Then a Botmatch is in order. That’s right, full bot support. So now, you can gauge yourself against the A.I that Epic (Huge) Games provides. Good training, really. Because multiplayer is certainly different from SP. It’s not as overly extended and flourished as Unreal Tournament, but I still like Unreal’s multiplayer modes. Maybe just as much as UT-ter domination. Partially because I like the look and feel the original weapons had.

So, to summarize. Unreal is a classic FPS with weapons a plenty and A.I that is super-tricky to the extreme. It makes up for this though, with superb atmosphere, damn sexy mapping talent, and a soundtrack that does more than enough to ramp up the action to an enjoyable level. I would definitely recommend getting Unreal: Gold Edition wherever you can find it, whether it be Ebay, Amazon, GoG, however you get your games. And when you get to the Demonlord, tell that Cyberdemon rip-off I said Hi, and also, put rockets between his eyes. So long, and have a quiet time in the darkness.

-Silentdark12