I’ll be honest, Below Zero was… mighty fine?
It was super disappointing in many regards, sure. But only compared to the extremely lofty heights of Subnautica. Years later, Below Zero is still easily the second-most-atmospheric survival game I’ve played. It’s huge problem - that the on-land sections don’t work in how they were shown before release and were clearly intended because access to heat is way too readily available and easy to trivialize - cuts deep into it since it takes a huge chunk of atmosphere out (and the on-land part looks pretty bad, it was clearly relying on the terror of having to warm up again quickly). But, even with that, the water parts close the wound up. Deep Arctic is even worse thalassophobia than the crater edge in the first game!
Sure, it’s disappointing and meh compared to the first game, but that’s just a too high bar to clear. I’d advise to not expect this game to clear it, either. Like you said, Subnautica 1 was kinda lightning-in-a-bottle. Compared to a 100/100, even a 98/100 would feel disappointing. 💡
Fecundpossum@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I dunno, there are plenty of valid criticisms of both games, but they were both great games. I played through both of them more than once and loved them. They were janky, glitchy, and the second game added a lot of new ideas, seemly at the cost of map size and polish.
I’m buying the day it’s available, I know it’ll have an issue or two but I’ll still love it.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think the reason why the first one was such a great experience for me is that I got it much later after a lot of the issues with the game and gameplay were fixed and the story line was completed. I’m glad I did so. I might do the same with that one and wait a year before getting it, if reviews are decent.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Some configuration file tweaks and an m.2 drive had the first one run great for me. Just had a few areas with clipping issues but no real problems. Some QOL mods definitely made it an awesome game, so yeah; it definitely took some work to polish up, but the mystery and story and exploration is something that I think they could pull off again, and the technical side of things…well, they’ll surely have a bit bigger employee count and can hire some talent.
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I just started a playthrough, which mods would you recommend ?
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I get lost in my own city, so I got a mod that leaves a map stay revealed anywhere you’ve swam to.
Then just a mod that allowed you to build an automatic organizer for all the stuff you mine and gather so I don’t have copper or something stored in like 3 different lockers.
Then lastly, a mod that let’s you build something advanced so long as you have enough base materials in your lockers to make it. This is the best one because it really gets rid of a pointless time waster. I don’t have to spend 10 minutes creating all the different parts, so I can make the different parts, so I can combine the different parts, so I can eventually build my super cool thing or whatever. If I have everything that would allow me to eventually put together the super cool thing, I can skip doing all the pointless parts and just create it straight away.
That’s all I used if I recall. The map one can effect gameplay and some mystery, but im directionally challenged. The others are just QOL and just do what the game should have already been doing.