Underworld Ascendant - Immersive Sin
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- (TIMESTAMPS BELOW!) Welcome to an extensive review / analysis of Underworld Ascendant, primarily focusing on the gameplay and generally avoiding comparisons to other games. Underworld Ascendant is far from the worst game ever made, but it is often called the worst immersive sim ever made. Why is this the case? Are the Metacritic scores justified? Well, I played through it twice (and made this video) to find that out.
My Email: mailedtomychair@gmail.com
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Timestamps:
00:00 Start
02:45 Feats
05:12 Combat
10:32 Magic
13:43 Stealth/Rogue
18:00 Misc Core Gameplay
23:34 Visuals
25:24 Sounds
26:48 Levels, Factions, and Quests
31:26 Loot and the Power Curve
35:32 Feats 2
38:36 Positives
41:47 Tell Me Sweet Little Lies
44:09 Development
46:13 Concluding Thoughts + Ending
The primary way to get this game is through Steam. As far as I am aware, it is not sold on any other platform.
Also please pretend Shadowplay didn't decide to ruin some of these clips. I have no idea what caused the UI to show up. - Hry
It never ceases to be funny; having some absolutely gut-wrenching, physics-defying death - and before you even die, as the worlds starts to fade...
"You Feel Hungry".
I can relate.
its ridiculous how good your content is with so few views. Hopefully the algorithm blows you up, easily on the same level as the big name video essayists
A lot of genuine effort & talent went into this, maybe 20,000 manhours wasted. I always wonder what would happen if one of these flops was given new life either open source or to a small team. Remove 25% & add a different 25% & I bet you could have something.
This is one of those games where I really wonder what could've been. There's a lot of good ideas, but most of them are lacking polish or built on top of a crumbling foundation. I'd love to see the alternative reality where this game was well-received... or the alternative reality where someone made an overhaul to iron out the issues.
I've seen worse, but I don't think I've ever seen more floaty.. this could literally be the floatiest game of all time, and honestly usually it's just the the melee that feels floaty in a game, they managed to make everything floaty this whole game floats, if you put it in water this thing would be fine... like, it it would be fucking fine. We just we just float away.. it's almost like if this thing were in space, it would be fucked it would be it would be at Saturn at this point if like this yeah there's there's no tether here. I really can't stand floaty melee at this point.. I feel like we have to have figured out a way, all right we did all right I forgot there's chivalry, and mordhau, and chivalry 2,.. speaking of immersive Sims, kingdom come Deliverance would have been a really good example if it didn't have stupid lock on combat which kind of counteracts it's physics-based origins and is the reason that the big fights are not great like they could be if it were just a straight chivalry let the weapon hit where it hits and you control the targeting! it's a novel concept I know but I don't think we're going to get console gamers on board with it.. I think we tried with gyro aiming, they were not fans, although myself personally while I have trouble getting it to work on my computer very well, I could actually see it being a thing.. like it does function like a mouse, it's just it's it's a little tough to get used to but honestly anything new is tough to get used to.. which is why I don't think we're ever going to see any evolution in peripherals cuz they'd have to get used to something new and better.
Wow great video! Defiantly needs more views, keep it up!
Also, I don't know why I feel the need to mention this but in the original Ultima (along with the Akalabeth) all the major quests are go kill this monster in a dungeon quest. In Ultima when you complete all the quests you get gems to activate a time machine (yes a time machine) that allows you to go back into the past and defeat the evil wizard Mondain and kill them before he has a chance to spread his evil. So in a way it's kind of like the video game designed this game didn't progress beyond 1981. Or December 31st 1979 which was the date Akalabeth was released. Talk about being stuck in the past. Also maybe you can review shroud of the avatar just to round out the bad ultima spiritual successor lineup.
Fantasy games about slaying monsters in dungeons are gonna be fantasy games about slaying monsters in dungeons. Some things just never change. I actually didn't realize that Akalabeth was that old.
Never heard of Shroud of the Avatar before, but I'm not one for MMORPGs at all. I really wouldn't know how to talk about one. Recommendation noted, but it's unlikely to happen.
@@marriedtomychair, I know that about fantasy games. My point was that there's just isn't enough to it. What I meant to say was that as far as I can tell in underworld ascendant there's just no specialness to the monsters you kill. It would make sense and would be better if you would fight like a boss or something. But just having it be like five skeletons or something like that is just boring. Also, shroud of the avatar is an MMO, but it is also a single player game. I've seen reviews of shroud of the avatar but nothing like the reviews you do and don't break it down into as nearly as much detail. Look forward to the next video you make. Good luck! 👍
Great vid I respect the grindset
Sigh... After the above comment or the below comment however CZcams stacks it.. can we just can we just fucking have another dark Messiah! Can we just it's too much I think it's it's too much we're not going to get it.. I think that was one of the best realized gameplay loops in a melee game, even if it wasn't all the way there with the sword play of chivalry, likeI will take the compromise and just just do exactly that again... like you mentioned the arrow poke and that's what inspired this little comment, that arrow poke in dark Messiah was one of my favorite fucking things... Sure maybe since it's 2022..maybe hire a writer whatever would be nice, like we've made advancements and at least the presentation of video games to retelling even if only a handful of devs have managed to nail the whole character development and dialogue thing, like three or four maybe, and two of them I think just exclusively do crpgs and one of them just stopped doing that all together, ( looking at you obsidian... fuck you, outer world sucked..do better, love you, but do better*... )
*Also I don't consider fallout New Vegas good dialogue, it was a better structure though and did seem like a fallout game at the very least, and and honestly it's the lowest bar with Bethesda as your analog, a company that has consistently made dialogue so bad that Patrick Stewart, and Max Von sydo couldn't pull it off.
I still can't understand why this game feels so bad, when each thing independently seems like seemingly nice features
It's a really anti-gestalt experience. There's a lot of things here that seem cool in concept (especially the magic system, I adore that idea). But in execution, almost every mechanic in this game is rough. Mixing all these rough and awkward mechanics together into an extremely mediocre and buggy hack-and-slash ultimately makes the game feel like it's less than the sum of its parts.
@@marriedtomychair The magic system and the fire system were the most complete but also suffered from great flaws. There is a great game hiding underneath. I wonder if the devs lost faith in it since it couldn't become a full "Ultima" universe game.
@@wacky.racoon Yeah, Ascendant is one of the very few games I've ever played where I've fantasized about an alternative reality where it's a far better, more refined game. I think it could've easily kicked off a surge in indie immersive sims, a la the recent indie boomer shooter craze. Oh well.
For an immersive sim, Ascendant feels as unimmersive as possible. It somehow feels like an asset flip.
Um... "Immersive Sim" is a bogus term made up by JActivist nutters.
Call these games what they are: "First-Person Action Adventure" games.
I like the term because I'm fond of having a convenient way to distinguish the likes of Deus Ex and System Shock from their contemporaries. It's a way of describing a fairly specific design philosophy. "First-Person Action Adventure" is a bit too broad for me, because you could theoretically describe just about any linear FPS that way.
If anything, the problem with the term is that people apply it overly broadly. It's why Bioshock and Crysis commonly show up on lists of immersive sims. If I'm remembering correctly, I tried to be fairly specific about my definition of "immersive sim" in this video. I wanted to eliminate confusion and introduce the concept in layman's terms. It also helps make it clear what Underworld Ascendant set out to do.
@@marriedtomychair Oh okay.
UPDATE: I HAVE AN EVEN BETTER NAME! "Glass-Likes", named in honour of Looking Glass Productions who gave birth to this design philosophy.
@@NebLleb "Glass-Like" sound extremely stupid. There is nothing wrong with "immersive sim".
If you want a janky but enjoyable Deus Ex/System Shock-like Immersive Sim you should check out Neuro Hunter (the 2005 game not the FPS called Neuro from 2006 which should also be considered for a review😉)
Cool. Too bad, only a few "First-Person Action Adventure" games are actual immersive sim games.