Okay, we’ll see how this does. I’ve set up a “page” which is dedicated to reviews of books, movies, videogames and anything else that might strike my fancy. If you don’t want to receive these posts—and they won’t be very frequent—I think you can unsubscribe from them. If not, let me know and I’ll see if I can’t take you off the list from my end. (Sorry, I’m still learning the ins and outs of Substack.) To start this off, I thought I’d talk about the new free-to-play videogame “Once Human”.
I’ll admit, I’m not a big survival game fan. Especially ones where I might be away from the game for a day or week only to come back to find my base raided by other players, etc. That’s not fun for me. So I went into Once Human with little expectation that I’d enjoy it.
I have been surprised, sometimes pleasantly other times not so much, by my experience with the game. It isn’t your typical zombie apocalypse game. Instead, you’ve got zombie-like NPCs, others that have been mutated to have lights instead of heads—or even briefcases that can be used as weapons. There are chests that morph into monsters you have to kill (refrigerators too). So far, after about 15 hours playtime, it has been different enough from my expectations to keep me engaged.
Of courses, I’ve kind of been sidetracked much of the time. Like many survival games, you have to look for resources: food, water, minerals, among others. You also have to build a base. It can be as stark or as fancy as you want—as long as you have the necessary resources and have opened the necessary talents to do so. And, yes, I’ve spent a some several hours hunting for the needed resources to let me build more than the basic basecamp. (Admission time, this was also my problem with Fallout 4. I got into the building aspect after the first playthrough more than I did anything ese.)
As for the missions in the game, they are fairly straightforward. Like Fallout 4, there are a lot of side quests you can choose to do or not. You can play solo or with a group. That’s not a bad thing, especially since I prefer playing solo for the most part.
So what about the downside to the game? Because it is a free-to-play and hasn’t been out for long, there are a lot of folks trying it out and that means the occasional stuttering and dragging. I will give it to the devs. They are adding new servers which does help.
I’ve also had to fiddle a lot with the sound levels. Even using a headset, the dialog is often lost behind music or sound effects or NPC chatter. Because of that, you sometime miss instructions or hints about what you need to do.
One concern I have right now is the game is supposed to reset ever so often. There have been questions—and possible answers that I haven’t seen from the Devs—about what that means for your established character and everything you’ve gathered, crafted, etc., leading up to that point. If it is a complete wipe, I am not going to be happy.
All in all, I’ve had some fun with the game. Is it my favorite game of the last couple of years? No. But it is something I can go in and spend an hour or so playing and then log out until the next day or the day after. It lets me unwind in a different way from Destiny 2 or The Division 2 or even any of the Mass Effect games. Each of those appeals on different levels.
Will I still be playing it a month from now? How about six months or a year from now? I don’t know. A lot of that depends on how the devs handle the resets and if they keep adding new content.
This all boils down to giving Once Human a “soft” recommendation, as my son would say. You can get it through the Windows store, Steam, or Epic. It is also supposed to be on mobile platforms in the future.
Check it out and let me know what you think.