Hugo Lisoir SQ42 Playtest Report (French CC)
"- It was very cool. We replayed the game from the beginning, so 1h10 of intro and 3h50 of new content.
- Crashes during my session: 0. Bugs encountered: yes but minor (NPCs in underwear, a glitching weapon, etc.). The game wasn't ready for November for sure, they still need 5-6 months but it's mostly just bug fixing.
- The intro is SO MUCH BETTER NOW. The sound designer is a KILLER, he blew my eardrums out every 5 seconds. Every ship, every shot, insane sounds.
- The menu UIs are much more beautiful than SC.
- The difficulty is fully customizable. You can put the FPS on hard and the ship combat on easy.
- The game was fully subtitled in French (vostfr) there.
- Medium difficulty already brings a hell of a challenge, Camak died 5 times in the intro tutorial and I died 4 times on Medium.
- THE BIGGEST CHANGE is the FPS. DAMN it's SO MUCH BETTER than in SC, it's my biggest surprise. Maelstrom brings a big touch of the unknown (windows break, covers shatter, etc.). The FPS AI enemies aren't smarter but they revive each other ! If one is down he calls his buddies, they surround him and revive him with a med pen, it can be ultra hard.
- The EVA phase of the intro is actually ULTRA HARD. Rich trolled all of us like "you thought it was scripted", the character has no EVA suit, so if you miss your jump you die in space. I died 4 times here and Camak 5 times. You have to catch yourself at the right moment otherwise you take damage.
- Bishop's speech serves as the intro credits, it's almost entirely redone.
- (JDG abandoned mcmaclaren, you can boo him).
- I won't spoil the following cutscenes so let's talk gameplay. The Idris is so cool. You have free time between missions to talk to the 81 members, all fully voiced ! You can lift weights to improve your stamina, or hang out in the mess hall to get dialogues. I think there is a big evolution in crew relationships as you progress. For example, I got told off by the Idris doctor who wanted to eat alone and not be seen with the new kid, whereas Morrow is the super nice guy who will introduce you to everyone.
- CIG INTERRUPTED THE LET'S PLAY. Naturally, Mark Hamill dropped by to say hi (I was stunned).
- The game was ultra smooth BUT we were playing on the best possible rigs: 5090, 64GB of RAM, native 4K.
- The minimap UI is the same as SC, ugly.
- The subtitles are slightly better but same deal, luckily you can adjust subtitle size. But like in GTA, sometimes you're piloting and you don't have time to read, which is a shame.
- Without spoilers: there are PUZZLES. The FPS part is surprising, it's not just shooting, sometimes there's puzzle gaming where you have to investigate, etc.
- The Galactopedia is the Mass Effect codex, every entry is voiced. There is an entry for EVERYTHING, from the mushroom box to the Idris.
- Quantum boost and quantum are smoother, no quantum loading screen. You press shift and it pulses.
- Overall, all the controls SEEM TO ME (not confirmed info) to be possible on console, and you can completely disable auto aim.
- You can take a Vanduul's weapon, and they hurt.
- CIG is a big fan of their dressing animation. It's skippable, but just so you know, the character takes off everything, almost down to the socks.
- Main negatives: the game isn't for everyone, there are 10-15 minute phases where you just follow Old Man, etc., still some bugs, minimap UI, subtitle positioning, and the ship AI is a bit dumb sometimes (asteroid collisions).
- Main positives: ultra-immersive narrative, music, sound design, graphics, challenge, puzzles, and the Idris social life.
- Mixed bag: there's the inner voice, which I actually like in the end, but I know some people didn't.
- The screens in the cutscenes are in French too.
- I'm this close to putting the FPS as a positive point because frankly, we started from so far behind. CIG managed to make a good, classic FPS, not revolutionary, but it works !
- We received a mysterious goodie: 4 tracks from the OST.
- Geoff dropped masterclass after masterclass. The music never disappoints and is always there, but the real killer is still the sound designer who absolutely went crazy."
