Topic: Sublevel Zero Thoughts/Impressions/Review

[D2Disciple]

So the new highly (slightly?) anticipated 6DOF indie title just dropped today... And you guys know I'm pretty stoked about anything 6DOF that actually lands, so color me surprised that this title landed so soon, even with so little fanfare (though pre-release journalists had been raving months ago). So here's what I think about the new Sublevel Zero.

First off, some explanations:

What is Sublevel Zero?

Sublevel Zero is a 6DOF first-person shooter-RPG made by Sigtrap Games, released today on October 8, 2015. As of this writing, the cost is $12.50 USD on Steam, although the price will presumably rise to $15.00 USD soon, due to the current purchase price being an early bird sale.

Wait... A 6DOF First person shooter... RPG?

Correct. Sublevel Zero introduces RPG-like elements into the 6DOF genre. Of note are the procedurally-generated maps (i.e. you won't be seeing the same exact level twice, even if you see familiar geometry in various rooms and tunnels), and the crafting of weapons (i.e. using "nanites" and various weapon pickups to build more accurate, more powerful, or less ammo-hungry weapons).

Is Sublevel Zero anything like Descent?

You better believe it is. There's no question Descent was the source of inspiration: not Forsaken, not Aqua-Nox, not Miner Wars, not Retrovirus. It even has an unlockable craft called the "Pyro," in case the aesthetic, the claustrophobic passageways, the constant shortage of ammo and shields, and the robotic enemies didn't already bludgeon your senses with nostalgia from 1995.

Is Sublevel Zero any good?

Well, I only put an hour into it so far, but that gives me a surprisingly good idea of what the game is like.

I'll start with the controls, since every 6DOF lives and dies by them. After all, freedom of movement is only enjoyable if the movement is intuitive. I usually play Descent with a joystick, but Retrovirus with a mouse and keyboard. Frankly, I think Retrovirus gets my vote as best/most accessible 6DOF controls ever. Sublevel Zero falls somewhere in between - movement feels a bit weightier and a tad bit more sluggish than the decidedly FPS-like Retrovirus, but more suited to mouse-and-keyboard flight than Descent. I'll try it out with a joystick tomorrow to see how that performs, but if you don't have one, Sublevel Zero is a smooth handling and relatively intuitive game. Basically, the controls won't ever get in the way of the gameplay.

Ah, the gameplay. If you've played Descent, you know what you're getting into here - almost to the point where it feels like redundant. Not that it's a bad thing - if you're going to ape something, ape the best - but I almost feel like there was an opportunity to do just a little bit more with the concept than merely throwing in thin RPG elements. The concept is hardly foreign - navigate the labyrinthine maps, collect weapons and loot and such, find keys, and blow up the reactor. With the exception of finding an escape hatch (something blessedly omitted in a game with randomly-generated levels), Sublevel Zero operates on the same fundamental game elements as Descent, with very few alterations.

However, it still works as well as it always has - it's freakin' Descent, people. and the RPG elements do add a few twists of their own. Instead of merely feeding you one randomly generated level at a time endlessly, the game puts you through a gauntlet of six levels - Sublevels zero through five. Each level gets longer and tougher, with scarcer ammo, cooler weapon crafting potentials, stronger and faster enemies, and more labyrinthine designs. The catch? Permadeath. You get to survive these six levels with a single life, with no ammo or health refills between missions. Want more ammo? Better find some by using a weaker weapon that draws from a different ammo source. Want health? Better stock up on more health canisters, at the expense of dropping valuable weapons upgrades. There are also no saves, except opportunities to save your current state and quit between each sublevel. Also, each sublevel utilizes different geometry and assets, so you won't be seeing the same environments over and over again.

It's fortunate, too, that Sublevel Zero looks and sounds good. Colors and lights pop and sparkle, and the neon, industrial neo-retro pixelated look is one of the better implementations of the aesthetic that I've seen. Explosions and gunfire have satisfyingly chunky sounds, all to a gloriously retro chiptune soundtrack that sounds like it was inspired by the music from the NES classic Metal Gear: Snake's Revenge (high praise - it's the very best example of what's possible with 8-bit synths). It might be easy for Sublevel Zero to get lost amid all the "retro-style" indie releases out there, but it really does look pretty sharp.

Watching stuff blow up will be the source of most of the fun Sublevel Zero has to offer. While there are only a few different types of ammo to draw from, the possibilities for crafting weapons so far seems to be quite nearly endless. High-rate hit-scan weapons with poor accuracy? Slow, powerful shotgun-like blasts? Super-accurate but ammo-hungry miniguns? Swarms of lightning-fast but weak dumbfire rockets? Huge rockets with large blast radii? If you can think it, you can craft it - but be careful, not every craft is an upgrade: you can potentially hose yourself by crafting a weapon that negatively skews one of its characteristics so badly it becomes virtually useless.

Shooting at things is pretty fun, but not anything special; enemies move around with fairly predictable pre-determined AI characteristics. With that said, the variety seems to be pretty wide, with turrets, traps, long-range 'bots, melee 'bots, and a variety of 'bots that move quickly in evasive patterns. They're all pretty tough, firing fairly highly-damaging rounds in cramped quarters. Death will almost certainly come from either judging situations wrongly or just getting greedy - 'bots drop loot when destroyed, but the stuff disappears pretty quickly if you don't grab it.

Difficulty level is hard to judge at this moment - I've only made it to Sublevel 1 so far, but died due to the fact that I wasn't aware the reactor orb could fight back (rookie mistake). It doesn't seem too hard for someone like me, experienced but not exactly a master. I could imagine this might have a somewhat steep learning curve for a beginner, but I'm not sure beginners are who this game is being marketed towards. If you just want good old fashioned 6DOF fun with a few modern indie-era tweaks, Sublevel Zero seems to be a great little indie title that could prove to be a massively enjoyable time sink for very little dough. It looks good, sounds good, and plays good. It's fun. What more do you need?

EDIT: And a gameplay / impressions video for your edification... Sorry, poor quality. My screen capture utility decided to stop working today so I had to improvise with a free one, which caused some graphical glitches. Moreover, my microphone would only record in the left channel, so... yeah, you're only going to get audio on one side. Sorry.

https://youtu.be/e32puxEZu1E

[Ionized]

They've also got it on GOG.com now: http://www.gog.com/game/sublevel_zero.

I really need to fix the slop that my Sidewinder joystick has developed, trying to play any game with it at the moment is abit irritating.

[Kaiaatzl]

I've found the first two levels are pretty easy but after that it tends to start getting a lot harder.  It took me a while to get past the fourth map (still haven't started on the fifth yet).
But so far I'm having a lot of fun and the only thing bugging me is how I tend to find the keys long before I find the doors they open.

[D2Disciple]

Added a gameplay / impressions to my post above if anyone is interested in watching it. 

[Scyphi]

Hmm, the only thing that's really keeping me from picking up this game IS the fact it's part RPG. Namely the crafting...I just know I'd go to play that and just can't ever be bothered to do anything with the crafting, because I'm just that sort of player.

Other than that, though, it really is a beautiful game. You're right D2Disciple, it applies that retro-pixelated look well. And the Descent feel truly is immediate. Heck, it feels from just that video alone like a neon-lit D1...which is absolutely perfect.

[D2Disciple]

Hmm, the only thing that's really keeping me from picking up this game IS the fact it's part RPG. Namely the crafting...I just know I'd go to play that and just can't ever be bothered to do anything with the crafting, because I'm just that sort of player.

Don't let that turn you away too much, Scyphi. I got to Sublevel 3 tonight (and died in the reactor room, go figure), and really only ended up crafting primary weapons about 4 or 5 times over the course of an hour or so. It's not very intrusive, and truth be told, it's fun to see what can be made when you take two weapons and put them together. If you can do that twice, sometimes you can craft a level 3 weapon... I did, and I ended up with a glorious Ion Cannon, which poured forth two massive, continuous, Freespace 2-like beams of death with great accuracy. Totally worth it.

The one thing I think this game needs is Multiplayer. I feel like making 4-6 levels based on the different environments and simple deathmatch/team deathmatch modes would have gone a long way towards increasing replay value. All they'd have to do is toss in some standardized weapons that balance out neatly (like a laser, a minigun, a flamethrower, a pulsar, a plasma launcher, and a handful of different types of missiles), and they'd have had it. I did hear from an interview that they're considering adding a multiplayer component to it, so I hope it happens. 

[Kaiaatzl]

On my first or... second attempt at going through I got to craft the Gauss cannon before Sublevel 3.
It worked basically like you'd expect.

[Scyphi]

Don't let that turn you away too much, Scyphi.

I'm trying not to, but I confess, every time I think about that crafting element, it's an immediate turn-off. And I'm worried I'll spring and buy the game only to find out I'll hardly play it because I just don't want to deal with that. *sigh* It's a dilemma to be sure. 

[D2Disciple]

... The only thing bugging me is how I tend to find the keys long before I find the doors they open.

Like this?



That made me laugh. So far I'm at Sublevel 4, with a Gauss cannon, and yep, it's virtually identical to the D2 weapon, except you get two of them instead of one. Haha.

Some of the weapons are great. I really like the Spreadpulse for tunnel ratting and the Railgun for sniping. I also really like the homing cluster for clearing out large rooms. I really didn't think I'd like the crafting mechanic, but I really am liking it so far. I also was surprised at the ability to craft hulls and thrusters... I now have a faster, stronger thruster with increased tri-chording speed, and a hull that has 15 slots (instead of 12) and 121 hit-points (instead of 100).

I'm trying not to, but I confess, every time I think about that crafting element, it's an immediate turn-off. And I'm worried I'll spring and buy the game only to find out I'll hardly play it because I just don't want to deal with that. *sigh* It's a dilemma to be sure. 

Honestly, it's probably not as obtrusive as you think it is. Once you get the hang of it and die a few times early on in the game, you'll start learning what crafts with what, and start crafting based on tactical decisions rather than out of a sense of obligation. You could always just play until you get powerful versions of starter weapons and use those, but once you whip out a railgun or plasmacaster or especially a third-tier superweapon, you'll be getting deeper and deeper into the game much more easily. Besides, you always have two primary and two secondary slots; I'm finding it useful to keep a third-tier superweapon in one and a powerful version of a starter weapon on standby because the starter uses less ammunition.

[D2Disciple]

Alright guys: I beat it. Final thoughts:

Firstly, this game is pretty tough, but not overwhelmingly difficult if you make good decisions with crafting and take your time to explore. When I got the "Brutal Spreadpulse" and the "Razor Gauss" weapons later on in the game, they pretty much carried me to the end, so I just used most of my inventory slots to equip a truckload of health packs. By the time I arrived at the final boss, I had 12 healthpacks, 104/106 HP, a full load of ~1800 bullets and ~140 energy. I knew all I had to do was not die. It's certainly not as hard or as cheap as Ace or Insane difficulties on Descent.

By the way, the final boss is a proper final boss... much better than anything Descent or Retrovirus has ever done. I had to take my time, figure out what to do to weaken it, then lay into it while still keeping track of my surroundings.

Secondly, this game is short. I mean, I could have used another 2 levels or so to lengthen it out a bit. I've read reviewers claiming that you could spend "about an hour" on each sublevel. I took my time exploring, and between the two stints I took this adventure in, it took me just two hours and change. That said, it's one of those games that feels longer... especially at the end, every minute felt like an hour, and I enjoyed every last second of it. I haven't gotten that nervous going into a boss fight in a long time. When you go through the last door with your heart pounding out of your chest and your breathing fast and shallow, the game is doing something really really right. I imagine the lack of longevity here stems from prior experience with Descent, and while publications are describing this game's difficulty with the most extreme of superlatives, it's really not that hard. It just feels harder because you're nervous, sweaty, and the permadeath feature is constantly on your mind, driving you mad with it's preposterously effective buildup of tension.

Perhaps inexperienced gamers will get about 10-15 hours out of this one (maybe even more) if they're learning the ropes. But a veteran material defender? You could probably nail this one down in 5 hours (maybe even less).

Thirdly, the enemy variety later on in the game gets really, really good. It seems as though Descent 2 and Forsaken were the blueprints for enemy design. Some bot's spin around while moving forward, spraying bullets all over the place. Others back up and fire impact rifle bolts at you. Still others rush straight ahead with massive drills at incredible speeds. There are shield bots that provide impenetrable protection for other bots, there are bots that shine bright pink lights at you that obscure your vision almost completely, and there are a handful of turrets, tanks, bombs, mines, and traps to take out. Then there are the missile boats that fire volleys of missiles at you, take quite a beating, and move very slowly. Really, every kind of attack pattern and strategy is covered here, so you really have to assess situations quickly to determine what needs to be eliminated first and what can wait a few seconds. The only problem comes near the end, where there were a couple of large rooms so full of enemies (over twenty!) I was forced to just open door, spam the spreadpulse and missiles, then back up and duck around the corner. A little uncivilized.

Still, I highly recommend it. It's a great game for 15 bucks. I've beaten it once, and I'm eager to jump right back into it again to get some of the achievements, like beating the game without crafting a single weapon, or beating levels without taking damage, or beating levels using only one type of ammo. There are also a bunch of unlockables too, with new weapons that can be crafted, new ships that can be unlocked, etc. If you like completing a checklist of objectives, you could definitely spend an extra 10-20 hours on this game easily and not get bored. This indie team should be nothing but proud of Sublevel Zero... It's an awesome game with great controls, great visuals, great sound, and great music. It's paced well and provides more of an adrenaline rush in a couple of hours than most games manage in twenty.   

Enough of my glowing review. If anyone else has it, I'd like to hear what they've got to say about it.