Precursors - Review @ RPS

[Dhruin]

Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Jim Rossignol has reviewed Precursors, the Deep Shadows scifi-shooter-RPG recently released by GamersGate - long after the original Russian release. For those that recall, Jim is similarly enthused to Kieren Gillen with Boiling Point several years ago but you'll need to be prepared for a bumpy ride:

Look, we’ve been talking about games for a while now, so you probably know what to expect from me: I’ll put up with a lot of nonsense if there’s something interesting to be gleaned from a game’s fundamentals. I just want an interesting experience. I don’t mind it being messy or peculiar, so long as there’s something chewy in the centre. That’s pretty much what’s going on here: Precursors is an absurdly ambitious project undertaken by a team that didn’t really have a hope of pulling it off. Except they kind of did. It’s clunky and quirky and unpolished, and that doesn’t really matter. Precursors actually does work, despite having being impossibly amateurish in places, and having a constant, base-level wonkiness to it that makes you expect it to grind to halt at any moment. As I write this I’ve not yet finished the game off, so a broken quest could stop me – and it already almost did, but I bodged my way through – and that is the philosophy here: bodge onwards and sample the unlikely variety of experiences that Precursors contains, including a number of serious problems.

Wesp (of Vampire: Bloodlines Unofficial Patch fame) recently said on our forums he'll continue to work on Precursors, so I'm going to wait to see where that goes after a while before taking the plunge.
More information.

 

[Dajjer]

The more I read the more I like.

Are the bugs reportedly in this game, game stopping - computer crashing bugs? Because if they are not, and the game is playable, albeit with poor translation/localization, incomplete landscapes, non functioning weapons, or partially compete side quests that is not a problem for me.

 

[Majnun]

If you can get the russian patch to work with the gamersgate version...and then apply Wesp's patch...it's worth it.

I'm nowhere near finished but I think I've already got my $30 worth. It ain't perfect though.

 

[redman5427]

It's completely playable. Read that article, he hit the nail on the head. The game is wacky, lot's of exploration and neat things to do and find. There is more to do in space than he said, you can board ships also. You have a lab on board to grow organic things that you use to replenish some of the alien weapons you find. You can mine in space and recover minerals. The strength of the game is in its outdoor environments although.

There are bugs but I feel the game is brilliant in some respects

 

[rich ruffo]

I think im going to install this tonight ,its a shame that the developers of this game dont the credit where it is due for a project of this size and quality .

 

[zadokAllen]

you can board ships also

I`M IN!
(Well, soon as I find some funds, that is

But seriously…it`s just so refreshing and generally sanity restoring. Also another proof that you don`t need mountains of cash to write good games, which is what our greedy overlords would like us to believe.

 

[Wesp5]

There is more to do in space than he said, you can board ships also.

I haven't yet done this. Can you point me to a location where this is possible? Also I don't know where there is supposed to be a lab in the ship. Can you specify please?

 

[redman5427]

SZ: Yes, itÂ’s true. In Precursors, boarding is a kind of combination between space simulator and FPS. For example, as you see the enemy ship, you engage in a space combat where you can choose weapons to fire at the target. You can destroy it or choose to board it by firing e.g. neutron torpedoes killing all the living beings inside the ship, or use some other attack, inflicting some amount of damage on the ship. As soon as you destroy her shield generator and engines, you put her to a halt, and through a teleport device travel to the enemy ship. This is where the action starts! And there you will need to pull the trigger fast.

I may have jumped the gun on this and the lab- I read this in an article without checking the date-I haven't actually done this yet my self although I have also read that it is a menu that comes up off of the f key after certain conditions are met
Since you have spent a lot of time with your patching process you would probably know if they dropped this feature and the lab growing feature I mentioned

I found mention of both features in about 6 articles about the game but they all have old dates
The blasting of asteroids for minerals I can confirm

 

[Wesp5]

Since you have spent a lot of time with your patching process you would probably know if they dropped this feature and the lab growing feature I mentioned

I think they dropped the lab in the ship for sure and it isn't needed, but the option to board ships may still be out there somewhere. The mining is true indeed.