Underrail

Tzeentchean Perspective

Well-known member
Imagine if Interplay continued to develop games for the Fallout Series instead of selling the rights to Bethesda. Their version of Fallout 3 ("Van Buren") is fully developed and released to widespread praise. Following this success, they keep making games in the classic Fallout turn-based format and, a few years later, release a fourth Fallout game.
That, after some consideration, is how I would describe Underrail. It's the best old-school Fallout game I never played. It has unparalleled immersion, a myriad of engaging quests, a rich story, and satisfying combat that's never too difficult if you know what you're doing. The gameplay is amazingly addictive, and I've been rooted to the chair blasting my way through the campaign for almost a week now.
Main website.
The Review that made me aware of it:


Thoughts?
 

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Imagine if Interplay continued to develop games for the Fallout Series instead of selling the rights to Bethesda. Their version of Fallout 3 ("Van Buren") is fully developed and released to widespread praise. Following this success, they keep making games in the classic Fallout turn-based format and, a few years later, release a fourth Fallout game.
That, after some consideration, is how I would describe Underrail. It's the best old-school Fallout game I never played. It has unparalleled immersion, a myriad of engaging quests, a rich story, and satisfying combat that's never too difficult if you know what you're doing. The gameplay is amazingly addictive, and I've been rooted to the chair blasting my way through the campaign for almost a week now.
Main website.
The Review that made me aware of it:


Thoughts?

So, it's a classic-ish RPG without all the bullshit that mashing it together with an FPS inevitably brings about? I'm sold. Downloaded it, going to try it out tomorrow.
 

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Well, so far I've put about three hours into the game, and I'm already planning to restart. I made some big mistakes during character generation.

There I was, going to try and avoid melee combat and specialize in pistols and crossbows. Only to realize too late that the crossbow is a specialist weapon with very expensive ammunition. Not really suited to low-level scrubs.

I'm liking the game so far.
 

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Day three of playing Underrail.

Once upon a time, I feared the roving rathound packs. Now, I take the rathounds one at a time just so they don't shave off too much of my healthbar. Pour enough points into melee and find a good knife, and the rathounds will learn to fear you.

The raiders stalking through the tunnels are a greater threat, but I'm learning from them. Specifically, I'm learning to never fight fair. Cheaters always prosper, so I always open the combat with a surprise. Usually molotov cocktails, but I've also had success with caltrops and serrated bolts. And next time I play, I'm going to try out the aimed shot mechanic.

So the stalkers aren't so tough after all. They're still a threat, particularly in large groups, but fighting one is no longer a matter of life and death. But there's tougher things lurking the Underrail. I caught a glimpse of an arsonist wearing a firefighting suit, with his pockets bulging with molotov cocktails. What was up with that?

Hrm, is there a plotline, or does the game have only isolated quests? I'm not sure I understood Ssetz correctly.
Isolated quests so far, but there seems to be a story behind some of them. Now that I'm tough enough to take on stalkers, I'm going to go back to that cave of psi-beetles and see what was up with that dead explorer.
 

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Ho Ho Ho. Now I have a machine gun.

Rather, I have a Marauder assault rifle chambered in 8.6mm, and I've got a submachine gun in that weird seven millimeter caliber. But it wouldn't be a proper Die Hard reference without a budding hostage situation, which this game was kind enough to provide.

The folks at South Gate Station asked me to clear out an old station, and since the guy telling me to do it was the same guy who laid me out with a single punch when I got too mouthy at the shooting range, I found it hard to refuse. The station in question was an abandoned office building/laboratory, prowled by feral rathounds and security bots, and in true John McClane fashion, I was forced to crawl through the ventilation ducts until I could get the drop on the hostage takers. And the dumbasses left an automatic turret lying around, so that wasn't too hard. It only took me about fifteen deaths to clear the whole building.

I rescued the hostages, cleared out the security bots, and returned to the SGS expedition with the passcard they needed to open a blast door on the first level. That blast door was then closed and locked tight the moment we saw Creeper eggs on the far side. Apparently those things are bad news.

Anyhow, better guns and better armor keep falling into my hands. Which is a good thing, because I'm no longer a poor scavenger counting my every bullet, and also because there's some tough sons of bitches out there. I thought I had a handle on the stalkers, but as it turns out, there's gangs of tough bandits with dogs and sledgehammers just lying off the beaten path. And it gets worse the closer you get to Junkyard.

What's that? Junkyard? Oh, it's just the shithole downriver from South Gate Station. It's fortunate, because Junkyard is a shithole of a shantytown, and if it was upstream from SGS we'd have a major health crisis on our hands. The whole of Junkyard is a maze of rusty metal and burning barrels. There's two factions of gangsters in a tense standoff against not only each other, but an underclass of scavenger hobos. Oh, and there's also competition fishermen. You'd think that the runoff from all this waste would have poisoned the waters for miles around, but these guys are hungry enough to eat anything.

In other news, there was some kind of station that the people at SGS asked me to clear out. It's a maze of office rooms, prowled by feral rathounds and security bots, and there's a hostage situation on the
 

Tzeentchean Perspective

Well-known member
Update from the Forums: there's a standalone campaign under development with an updated version of the old engine.
Why did I only just come here to report this? Because I finally decided to revisit the game after a break that turned into near-complete forgetfulness that the game existed apart from the utter psychological abuse that was my most recent game play experience. Combine traveling on a shoddy jetski that causes an aiming penalty with two separate quest locations that are both populated by either tough aquatic enemies that spit poison or nest structures that spawn an endless number of weak enemies that have unbelievable accuracy for their ranged attack, not to mention the crabs at one location that are impossible to kill quickly without rare Armor piercing bullets, and you have an unforgivable experience. I decided to cut and run back to the regular part of the map and level up more before all my seemingly-sufficient stock of ammo was swallowed up by the material sinkhole that it the Black Sea...then my character received a radio transmission telling me that the base was under attack again. So much for a swift escape. There goes all my ammo.
 

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