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Deep Rock Galactic


Sly Reflex
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Deep Rock Galactic is a co-op game with classes in it. Nobody had all the tools to do everything, so being spread out over classes is preferable. There's a single player mode where you have a bot, but if you're buying this game to play solo, then you're not really getting the best out of it. I'd go as far as saying don't bother in that case, since you're getting a skimmed experience.

 

What is the aim of the game? You play a space dwarf in a team of 4 that is tasked with dropping into procedurally generated levels armed with a shopping list of things to do, a primary objective and secondary objectives which result in a stacked payout. This is an over simplification, but it's as brief as I can keep it before it gets more complicated.

 

Each class has its strengths ands weaknesses.

 

I have been playing as the Gunner. The gunner has a minigun, a revolver, a gun for shooting ziplines, a shield generator and a sticky grenade. Really his job is to protect the other 3 with heavy firepower, not that the others can't defend themselves, it's that they have mining to do.

 

The two people I have been playing with have been playing the Engineer and the Scout.

 

The Engineer has a shotgun and a grenade launcher, as well as a turret that can be built for some automated defence. He also has a hologram which can be tossed to get the attention of enemies. The star of his arsenal is the platform gun, which shoots out a big looking pancake you can stand out. Think of Prey's gluegun and you're more or less  right on with what this cane do.

 

The Scout has an assault rifle, a shotty, a grappling hook, a powerful flare and a grenade that disrupts enemies. There's a nice synergy between the Engineer and Scout, since the Engineer can put a platform near ore that's out of reach, the Scout can then grapple up to this and then mine from the platform. There's a lot of stuff like this, any inadequacy one class has, and others can pick up the slack, but the symbiotic relationship has to have some balance to it.

 

Finally we have the Driller. None of us have played this, but we have a 4th inbound that will end up filling this spot. I would like to give it a try as well, but it should be noticed that you can have more than 1 class of each if you want. You're not forced into playing anything you don't want, but having those nice synergies with the people classes in the lobby will make things go a bit smoother. This guy is equipped with a flamethrower, a pistol and throwing axes in place of grenades. He is also equipped with drills. Why drills? This is why.

 

Everything in the game can be dug up. When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. We're talking levels built out of what the first Red Faction game was built on. Each player is equipped with regenerating flares (you are underground after all) and a pickaxe that you can use to terraform the maps and dig your way to victory, but pretty much everything in the game can cause the map to be blown up and pockmarked.

 

Why would the maps be getting blown up and generally messed up? You think that it'd be as easy as going down there and taking what you want without any challenge? Nope, there are enemies that you must fend off, puzzles that you must work out to get the hard to reach ores and caverns that must be dug through to if you want to uncover all the spoils. While all this seems simple in practice, it can get rough. Sure the Scout might be able to get up the ledge, but the rest of the crew have to carve their way up, stalling progression. Digging through the dirt into the cavern you know is near you can be done by everyone, but it'd be much easier if the Driller just plows through it. Incoming enemies? Set up a defence and try not to get in the way of the Gunner as he cuts through enemies. It's one of those games where no matter what class you chose to pick, you feel needed, and you're always grateful for the classes there that can do the things you cannot.

 

It also gets to a point where after a bit of playing you know what everyone is doing, even though all the levels are procedurally generated there's that groove of people just knowing how to react at specific times, grouping up in big fights and helping out with general mission stuff off those more pressing times.

 

Speaking of missions, there's a lot of variation here. I mentioned elsewhere in the forum about Vermintide's puzzles where they are the same solution each time you play through them, which means repeated play through just force you through the same old motions. Not so here. There's one mission where you're tasked with going and retrieving a failed missions stuff. This means you go down and find the drop pod the previous mining expedition used, but you have to find their hopper, which is sort of a spider bucket that follows you around and is called a "M.U.L.E". We had to find them, sometimes they were buried, sometimes they were broken and needed repairing. We had to sort all that stuff out, then refuel their drop pod and defend it before escaping. Each refuel is different. It feels like a more refined attempted at the gauntlet stuff from Left 4 Dead or the puzzles from Vermintide, the next step in the evolution from those mechanics. It's dynamic and exciting, especially when the help they send down ends up in a place you were not expecting and you have to reshuffle to take advantage of it.

 

Talking about the M.U.L.E.. You only get one per game, the idea being you mine or harvest the stuff you need, and when you get a spare moment or are full and cannot carry anymore, you call the M.U.L.E. (they call it all sorts of stuff in game, like pet nicknames for it), dump your load and carry on mining. Once the primary goal has been achieved, a button on the M.U.L.E. becomes operational and you can hammer it and make an escape. The bucket walks back to extraction leaving arrows on the ground for you to follow. You have 5 minutes to get back to the escape, at which point if you do not make it, you fail the mission. If someone makes it back, but some people don't, the people that failed to return get deducted rewards. It's kind of mad, because this escape can go so fucking wrong if you're not prepared for it. It's so easy to drop down a ledge that's impossible to get up quickly on the return leg, so having a quick plan in place for these situations is needed. The worst thing is getting to a room with a hole in the roof and the M.U.L.E. fucking off up the chimney and leaving you to quickly work out a plan before you're overwhelmed by enemies, or miss the countdown and get abandoned. It's exhilarating stuff as you rig together a stupid plan to get around it and come out smelling of roses.

 

So what do you do with all the stuff you mine? You use it to level up your gear. There's a lot going on here, but you have an overall level, a class level for the four classes and the perks points for doing assignments. I'm not really understanding how half of these work since it's not really explained that well. There's different builds and stuff, for example would you rather have a minigun that spins up faster, or one that gets more accurate the faster it gets? There's also currency for a load of cosmetic stuff, so you can make your guy look just how you'd like if you're into that.

 

There is one ore in game that acts as a currency out in the field. When you hit a certain amount you can call in a resupply, which is needed since you don't really get that much ammo. It's really easy to run dry if you're careless. Aside from that, all the other ores go to either making you money or upgrading your stuff.

 

Overall it's really impressed me as a package. I don't think I've played a game that's quite like it 1:1, it seems to have borrowed from a load of places, but it still feels like a cohesive experience and I've jonesing to get back at it when my co-op buddies get back online. Also looking forwards to playing the other classes and seeing how they work from my own perspective. I am sure I've missed a load of stuff out while writing this up and I'll probably come back and top off in those areas. As it stands, I couldn't really recommend it enough as long as you have people to play with. From the handful of hours I've played I've enjoyed every minute of it, I think it's been ace. I hope it ends up coming out on consoles so it can grab a bit more recognition from the wider gaming community. It's a game that deserves it.

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the enemies are bugs yeah but a lot do look a bit like spiders imo.

 

a friend bought me this on xbox which was a nice surprise, i'm not super into it but have a few games every week or so and enjoy it, it's like a cross between left 4 dead and space mining. it's pretty fun. i like the art style too.

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Most of the enemies reminds me of Borderlands' Spider-Ants, which look like neither spiders, nor ants.

 

There's one enemy that spits acid and it sort of does the rear up spider thing where it puts the front legs up. I don't think it'd bother arachnophobia sufferers that much though. They're so stylised they don't really register as spiders, they're just generic bug monsters that have multiple legs and can climb walls.

 

I spent pretty much all day playing this. It has more of a focus than you would think from these types of games. It has assignments that allow you to progress through certain things, the first one takes you through various biomes and across all mission types. Once you finish this it sort of jumbles, we've been doing random missions and then a boss has shown up and caused all sorts of chaos.

 

In a surprise turn of events, it looks like each class has more weapons to unlock via these assignments, they dub the weapons licenses or some other fanciful thing. It's just a way of making you juggle up what you're playing so you're not spamming the same type of mission over and over. There's a fair bit to unlock by the looks of things, so you'll be at it a while if you got into the game.

 

There's also something called Deep Dives, which sort of remind me of the Underground missions from The Division. I've not unlocked these yet, I'm not entirely sure when they do unlock. I think you need to hit the level cap, but I have no idea where this is.

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Played a bit of Scout today, I don't think it's the class for me. I am used to destroying the shit out of stuff, but with Scout the weapons just don't allow for this at all. Maybe once it's levelled up and I have some upgrades in place it'll feel better, but for now it just feels a bit wack. I'd rather be hosing the level down in hot lead than pissing about on a rope.

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Hit the level cap with my main class today and got a promotion. Basically this allows you to continually level up like the prestige system, except now I can do something called a Deep Dive, which I believe is several levels stitched together with random assignments. I cannot do it yet since the rest of my party still needs to get promoted, but it's a tantalising prospect. I can also do some event that turns up randomly in the levels by using a key they give you. There's some other end game thing where you can tune you're weapons as well, but I don't really understand what this is.

 

On the opposite side of playing with my normal crew, I've been playing with 1/4th of it late at night since he finds it hard to play because time zone differences, so I've been carrying on with the Scout and actually like it quite a bit now. Which makes me wonder, am I going to hate each class initially, then get to like them once I'm a bit into levelling them up and upgrading them?

 

There's an update on the 8th that adds two more events. One of them is a drill you have to ride down, sort of reminds me of the Gunstar Heroes level where you go down the chasm, but in 3D. The other you have to fix a oil pipeline that you can grind on Jet Set Radio style. I fucking love this game, it's ticking all the boxes.

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Another person in the group got the game so we've all had a bit of a jumble to accommodate him playing the Engineer. This has forced me into the Driller role, and it clicked instantly, it makes so much more sense than the Scout did.

 

Basically he's a demo guy with a bit of TF2's and Killing Floor 2's Pyro mixed in. Plays like the Gunner, but more DoT'sy and with less range, but you can sculpt the map and have a load of nice time saving things like using the drills to find buried gems, or even use the satchel charges to just blow them buried fucks right out the walls.

 

Also when the escape comes you can just drill right to the exit if you have enough fuel and the terrain allows you. I find this super nice.

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Spent a bit of time with all the classes now, the last one being the Engineer.

 

Yeah, I like playing the Engineer, but it's one of those classes I could only really see myself playing if it was needed. He's semi capable of defending himself, but nowhere near what the Gunner and Driller are able to do. Better than the Scout, but then again the Scout and fly about on the grapple, it's weak as fuck, but it rarely needs to stand and fight its corner. Obviously the Engineers turret is very nice and doubles up the amount of guns shooting at any one time, but surprisingly my favourite bit of his kit is the platform gun.

 

Basically wherever you shoot it puts a big pancake like platform out that can be used to climb to areas out of reach, you get quite a lot of them as well which means you can throw them up and about on a whim and not be too bothered that you're going to need them later. My favourite part about them is that when you level them up, there's a perk that allows you to mitigate falling damage if you land on one, so any slips of fatal falls can be avoided as long as you're quick enough on the trigger. You can drop really far as well, I never knew this while playing with my group, but from now on on maps where it's required you're up and down a specific cliff face, just throwing those on the ground will allow faster mobility when gravity is in your favour.

 

Overall I think Driller is my favourite class to play. It's not immediately apparent when you start playing, but the drill fists are just too good, once you have an understanding how the game works they're godly once they've been upgraded a bit.Stuff like being able to break line of sight, or open lines of sight are handy, but there's more to it than this. For instance, if you tunnel right into the wall when a boss appears and it follows you, it is making itself such an easy target for you to C4 it to fuck and back. Plus if you have others in the game with you, it's presenting its weak abdomen to hot lead abuse. On escapes where the MULE just decides to fuck off up an area you'd find hard to get to without more careful planning under pressure, you don't get this at all with the Driller. It's a case of having a quick look at the map, seeing how far away the escape pod is and making sure there's no huge drop between you and it and then drilling a straight line to it. There's less "I need to work out where I can use my mobility skill stuff" and more "Ha ha, the exit is there brrrrrrrrt"

 

I like playing the Gunner as well, but the Driller, man, it might be my favourite class I've seen in games for a long time. It's so much fun.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The jump in difficulty from level 3 to level 4 is really noticeable. On 3 we can go the whole level without too much issue, but everything is so more frequent and of a higher volatility that it's a constant knife edge ride. A bad room can really mess you up, we had a big drop opening into a room with a spitter and a breeder right in the entrance and then on top of this we got a swarm, which ended our run.

 

Then we got another run ended by an elite swarm while in a tunnel, just not enough space to move around in to take them out without causing ourselves damage.

 

Then we got the same again mixed in with a normal swarm and a detonator showed up. I'd hate to see what the highest level of difficulty is going to be like if this is the one below, because it's kind of insane as it is now.

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