Underworld Ascendant - Review @ PC Gamer

HiddenX

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PC Gamer picks Underworld Ascendant to pieces:

Underworld Ascendant review

Underworld Ascendant is the first game from OtherSide Entertainment. Established by the original founder of Looking Glass Studios, OtherSide is essentially Looking Glass 2.0, employing some of the same designers and seemingly sharing the same ideals about game design. Its legacy includes the likes of Thief, System Shock and of course, Ultima Underworld—three mighty pillars of PC gaming. Just take a moment and think about those games, how massively influential and ahead of their time they were. Imagine what those designers could do with today’s technology and tools.

Now imagine the complete opposite. You’ve just imagined Underworld Ascendant.

There’s no way to sugarcoat this. Underworld Ascendant is phenomenally bad, a catastrophic mess of poor design ideas, woeful execution, and bugs the size of buildings.

[...]

Score: 25/100
More information.
 
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There’s no way to sugarcoat this. Fallout 76 is phenomenally bad, a catastrophic mess of poor design ideas, woeful execution, and bugs the size of buildings.

Seems to apply to Underworld Ascendant as well, mores the pity ;)
 
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That bad? Can you pick up a barrel then put it on another barrel that's already on another barrel, then jump from one barrel to the next, to reach the top?
This one was spearheaded by Spector, no? Seems like with former pro athletes, jumping in after years, usually turns out ugly.
 
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Shroud of the Avatar, Fallout seventy-six, and Underworld Ascendant, we have our three wieners of the year. Unfortunately, we still have over a full month to go, the horror!!!
 
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Ok, good call to not play it at release then.

Probably bad call to have it backed at release though.

Anyways, will wait a few months before I'll check it out. It's sad that so many recent RPGs releases are in so crappy conditions at release.
 
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I can't I believe I backed this; it just looked so promising. It seems like half the projects I back turn out terrible. I can only think of Divinity 1 & 2 and NeoScavenger that I've ever actually ever played to any degree and enjoyed.

I'm certainly glad I'm not a gambler. On the up side, I'm also glad I'm not a shambler, that would be much worse.
 
Ok, good call to not play it at release then.

Or likely ever when you read this:

From RPS:

I really could go on. I’ve no idea what happened here, but to me it looks like Otherside just released an alpha build of a long-from-finished game, and called it done. Which you just can’t do. Especially not at £25. If that’s because they ran out of money or time, then there’s maybe hope they can use money from sales to return to fix it. There’s a much worse theory, too, of course. That they bit off waaaay more than they could chew, made ludicrous promises about ecologies and actions impacting upon the universe, and then just lacked the skills to deliver it. So made this instead. And released it anyway.

We’ll keep an eye on it, see if there’s some colossal update, perhaps to add in some sort of narrative, maybe to pop in a point to the whole clumsy affair. Perhaps it will one day reach version 1.0! In the meantime, steer so clear of this. Do not be lulled in by your nostalgia for Looking Glass’s wonderful RPGs. Like I was. Bah.


https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/11/21/underworld-ascendant-is-unfinished/
 
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That bad? Can you pick up a barrel then put it on another barrel that's already on another barrel, then jump from one barrel to the next, to reach the top?
This one was spearheaded by Spector, no? Seems like with former pro athletes, jumping in after years, usually turns out ugly.

Also from the RPS not-a-review:

Despite objects madly stating their mass on screen when you pick them up, they all behave as if they’re made of balsa wood. So a “44 lb” crate rolls away at the wind of your leg passing by, making a mockery of all attempts to use the system to stack paths to reach higher places.

LOL
 
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I can't I believe I backed this; it just looked so promising. It seems like half the projects I back turn out terrible.

I feel the same way. Shroud of the Avatar, Underworld Ascendant, and Bard's Tale IV all delivered in poor condition with gameplay barely resembling modern versions of the games they're based on. At least the D:OS games turned out well.
 
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Yikes! Still haven’t touched it - and agree with the ‘can’t believe I backed this’. I have recently NOT backed a couple of things because of the crappy signal-to-noise on stuff I have backed overall.

Also, TIL Fallout 76 is crap. Not surprised, didn’t look otherwise ... glad I have no time :)
 
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I loved the UW series.

I didn't back this game as I seen Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriot endorsing it. They all used to work together and I'm sure the scam runs deep. They all jumped on the nostalgia train. Now they released this half baked mess, it doesn't surprise me. It's what Richard and his Merry Morons released, not sure I really expected different from Paul.

Would have been nice to be pleasantly surprised.... Ah well.
 
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Shame that they released the game in such poor condition and basicly pooped all over Underworld's great legacy. On paper these guys shouldn't lack talent… It makes one ask, what the heck happened to this project. Definitely a post mortem I'd like to hear.
 
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Shame that they released the game in such poor condition and basicly pooped all over Underworld's great legacy. On paper these guys shouldn't lack talent… It makes one ask, what the heck happened to this project. Definitely a post mortem I'd like to hear.
My best guess funds ran out and they had to release it. It's a classic industry mistake.
 
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I increasingly get the impression that many of these legends of the gaming world are just doing deals allowing inexperienced studios to trade off their names.
 
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Why is it so broken?

Honestly, crowdfunding was supposed to supply gamers with the means to support developers without the funding and headaches of a publisher. It's sad to see that so obviously corrupted with a larger scale game, and then shipping a buggy mess. :(
 
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I think this is the case; but they would have been much better with EA over releasing it in this state. It might not have sold enough in EA to help them fix it but at least it would set the correct expectations.

My best guess funds ran out and they had to release it. It's a classic industry mistake.
 
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Perhaps we're seeing another effect of getting rid of the traditional publishing filter. Sometimes publishers refused to support genuinely good games, but sometimes they were right to refuse to fund things. Perhaps we should have asked harder questions about why Looking Glass went under in the first place, and what it said about the ability of those running it to budget, plan and schedule?

To me this looks like a team with poor skills in those areas bit off way more than they could chew, managed to get it funded, and then discovered they couldn't deliver on their promises with the resources available to them. Immersive simulation games are notorious for only coming together and 'clicking' late in their development cycles, and this one just didn't get enough of that. But it's a train wreck, not a scam.

What a shame. I backed this project out of hope, and I'm not sorry I did, but I am sorry that it didn't pan out. I've said repeatedly that crowdfunding should be viewed as an investment, and sometimes investments go bad. This one did.
 
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