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Author Topic: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.  (Read 3327 times)

Girlinhat

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The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« on: July 11, 2014, 02:57:02 pm »

So here's the game in a nutshell.  You're a space marine (get your spes mreen gear ready folks!) who is sent into a city on Mars, overrun by super zombies (think Dead Space) with a few objectives to accomplish.  You control one unit, the multiplayer cap is 8 players, a few NPC marines may follow you (but it's unlikely you'll find any), and the swarms are relentless.

If you've played old school Warcraft 3 custom maps from back in the day, you know this type of game.  You control one unit as if it were an RTS, but it handles more like RPG in practice.  The game generates objectives for you, either single things to accomplish like "find out what the hell happened here with these zombies" or secondary objectives like "the power grid is about to overload, go activate this terminal to stop it or else the lights will go off".  As time goes on, the swarms of enemies get worse and worse, and you'll die.  A lot.  The game claims to have a victory, but I've not seen any party get close.  You gain experience and ranks as you play, though, and each consecutive play gets easier, either because you learn new tactics or because leveling up gives you a numerical advantage.

PROS:
*Decent multiplayer.  Group up fairly simply, and generally don't deal with guys who are useless - it's actually pretty difficult to hurt your team by being inexperienced.
*Auto-aim works very decently.  You can move while shooting, so you mostly just point where to go and you'll strafe around and walk backwards while mopping up.  Miniguns and sniper rifles work well for this, as you can easily clear large hordes without manually clicking, and you can peg enemies that are beyond the edge of the screen.
*Information is clearly displayed.  Stats like speed, damage, rate of fire, armor value, etc. are all clearly visible.  In the match, the map is one button away (escape) and shows where everyone is, where known enemies are, and where the objective is.
*Leaders (the first two people to join the game) can draw routes on the map.
*Several distinct classes.  Assaults are standard versatile rifle grunts, medics have healing abilities, heavy support get miniguns and group buffs, marksmen get snipers with single point of damage abilities...

CONS:
*Alpha development.  You know what that means.
*Auto-aim isn't super smart.  Darkness is extremely prevalent, and firing into darkness is almost an assured miss, but auto-aim will take every shot it can, wasting tons of ammo.
*Not nearly enough ammo.  It's becoming more and more apparent that proper survival is about how you can conserve ammo and choose your fights.  While walking down the street casually, you might only have the Assaults firing rifles while the medic and minigun-with-legs doesn't fire.  When you get in trouble, actually turn on the heavy weapons.
*Limited play options.  Right now it's one map, albeit a very large one, with a few random objectives.  You get used to the gameplay mode.  This will almost certainly change further in development.
*New players are hobbled.  You have to rank up to unlock... anything really.  Starter skills are like "you deal more damage" while end-game skills are more like "you can teleport" or "you generate ammo at a rate of 1/sec passively".  ~6 matches will unlock a lot of content, but if you want the 'good' stuff, stay with your class and learn it.

Advice?
Stay with the group if you're a light weapon, or wander wide if you're a heavy weapon.  Turn on as many turrets and lights as you can.  Loot everything.  Cooperate - ammo should be a shared resource!

Screenshots:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Early Access Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/265590

Website:
http://www.theredsolstice.com/

Mephansteras

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2014, 03:06:54 pm »

Huh. Kinda reminds me of Alien Swarm.
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Girlinhat

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2014, 03:08:41 pm »

Huh. Kinda reminds me of Alien Swarm.
It reminded me greatly of that too.  Except better class variety and expanded gameplay.

Darkmere

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2014, 03:11:10 pm »

Huh. Kinda reminds me of Alien Swarm.

You beat me to it. Thinking back on how irritating that was cools my enthusiasm for this one a great deal.
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Girlinhat

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2014, 03:29:57 pm »

Huh. Kinda reminds me of Alien Swarm.

You beat me to it. Thinking back on how irritating that was cools my enthusiasm for this one a great deal.
Well, it's not Alien Swarm...  same genre, but not the same game.

Radio Controlled

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2014, 03:41:24 pm »

Huh. Kinda reminds me of Alien Swarm.

You beat me to it. Thinking back on how irritating that was cools my enthusiasm for this one a great deal.

Wait, how so? I liked that game.
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Darkmere

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2014, 03:58:39 pm »

Huh. Kinda reminds me of Alien Swarm.
You beat me to it. Thinking back on how irritating that was cools my enthusiasm for this one a great deal.
Wait, how so? I liked that game.
I liked it too, the one game I randomly got competent people to actually do stuff.


In short, the game was great and this one sounds fun, but no way in hell do I want to deal with people are are either trolls, idiots, or idiot trolls. Maybe if B12 starts up a semi-regular group and the game is reasonably-priced.
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And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2014, 04:07:41 pm »

Ah. I played with people I know and whom I coordinated with through steam voice chat. So I didn't get a lot of these problems basically.
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Frumple

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2014, 04:12:52 pm »

If you've played old school Warcraft 3 custom maps from back in the day, you know this type of game.
I suddenly realized I have forgotten the name of every single one of those. I think there were, what, three, maybe four prevalent ones?

All I remember is I was pretty much never able to actually play them. Noobs got kicked. Always. And most of them you couldn't really play singleplayer, even on a solo lan map or whathaveyou, which meant getting cross-game XP or whatever was pretty much impossible. Bleh.

Still. Nice to see another WC3 custom map in wilds.
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Ozyton

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2014, 06:02:52 pm »

I suddenly realized I have forgotten the name of every single one of those. I think there were, what, three, maybe four prevalent ones?
DOTA is probably the most 'famous' WC3 gamemode, it essentially spawned the 'MOBA' genre. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 use-map-settings also essentially made Tower Defense games. The UMS that this game is based off was called NOLD or Night of the Living Dead.

Anyways, I saw all of my friends playing this just before I went to bed yesterday, too bad I was busy with other things 'cause it certainly looks interesting, and I quite enjoyed NOLD.

On a side note, people who kickstarted the game are getting an extra copy for free, as Steam screwed up and marked the price down to cheaper than it's supposed to be. Kickstarter guys payed for a single key at the same price people are paying for two keys right now. On top of that, for whatever reason Steam doesn't even have the single-key version listed, which would have normally been the same price as the current price for the 2-key version. Just something to keep in mind if you want to pick it up before the sales end.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2014, 06:04:31 pm by OzyTheSage »
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Girlinhat

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2014, 06:29:26 pm »

Yeah, the current marketing is strange, there's a 2- and 4-pack available only.  My friend picked it up and sent me a copy.  If she hadn't, I'd have picked it up and sent her a copy :P

Bottom line of all this, is that it reflects on old themes (debatable classic themes) and there are similar games or game-modes, but that this is still its own product, and I for one am finding it quite enjoyable.  8/10 would enjoy with a group of people on voice chat.

Frumple

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Re: The Red Solstice - Squad-based multiplayer survival.
« Reply #11 on: July 11, 2014, 06:48:26 pm »

The UMS that this game is based off was called NOLD or Night of the Living Dead.
Yeah, I was specifically talking about NoLD custom map -- like I said, there were another two or three like it that were also fairly notable at the time, I've just forgotten what they were called. Always wanted to play one, but they were quite possibly even more toxic to newcomers than the more competitive AoS maps were, iirc. Definitely familiar with the SC and WC3 custom maps in general, heh -- I was there when Dynasty Warriors/Aeon of Strife first hit SC, nevermind its varying later knockoffs.
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