By Josh Crooks
After being riddled with bullets outside of an irradiated town in a near empty server my nerves were shot. I'd managed a good six hours of scavenging for food, resources and ultimately better weapons to defend myself in the near-baron wasteland; even building myself quite the wooden plaza in the shade of a nearby mountain. Suffice to say, the death cut deep. Whilst this entire diary could be dedicated to the game's mechanics, it basically takes the survival aspects of Minecraft (whilst whittling down the amount of resources) and Dayz's PVP style multi-player (whilst increasing the player count) which leads to every single death counting. This isn't your little brother's Call of Duty, where you get back up within the next five seconds without a care in the world. A death in Rust is dark. So much so that recuperating your losses and starting again can be a bigger hurdle than starting up in the first place.
After being riddled with bullets outside of an irradiated town in a near empty server my nerves were shot. I'd managed a good six hours of scavenging for food, resources and ultimately better weapons to defend myself in the near-baron wasteland; even building myself quite the wooden plaza in the shade of a nearby mountain. Suffice to say, the death cut deep. Whilst this entire diary could be dedicated to the game's mechanics, it basically takes the survival aspects of Minecraft (whilst whittling down the amount of resources) and Dayz's PVP style multi-player (whilst increasing the player count) which leads to every single death counting. This isn't your little brother's Call of Duty, where you get back up within the next five seconds without a care in the world. A death in Rust is dark. So much so that recuperating your losses and starting again can be a bigger hurdle than starting up in the first place.
Writing a full review on what is a “pre-alpha” release (the game is part of Steam's “early access program”) would be disingenuous since it's constantly evolving as new updates are implemented and the game reaches a full release. Instead the idea here is to chart it's trials and tribulations from from here on out as a “review in progress” style piece. My initial response? Whilst the game can be: cruel, at times unfair and rocking a punishing difficultly, it's been the first game of 2014 to truly catch my attention. Working geeks' can attest to the fact that it can be hard to find the time to delve into a great game, so the selection process is relatively strict. Example: a quick blast of The Darkness II this morning proved to me that there are better uses of my relatively short “me” time. Within five days of purchasing Rust I've so far logged in over fourteen hours. Having been a big supporter of Minecraft, I have been left with a longing for someone to push its mechanics further than Mojang have managed thus far. So it figures that it would take the creators of indie hit “Garry's Mod” (Facepunch studios) to conquer such a feat, creating a non-linear/narrative adventure that stars yours truly.
Much like the notorious block based venture, you wake up in a world and are tasked with survival. Sounds simple enough, but in an effort of realism the world is alive with people and creatures that make that task difficult. Gathering resources and making shelter is labored in a realistic fashion and the chance of surviving your first playthrough is slim. During my first time I was held up for items by a pair of bandits as well being chased by a plethora of creatures that thought I was on their menu. Ironically what killed me was starvation; real circle of life shit. This leads into my main criticism so far: the game is an all an out assault on the senses, throwing everything it has at the player at any one time. Even now the smaller things can trip you up; taking a break between finishing this piece led to a fully tooled up me being killed by a pack of wolves as opposed to similarly tooled up players. Facepunch can't control the way people will play their game but they can control the rate of which you progress and I think this could be tweaked to help out new starters. In its current state the game will only continue to attract the hardcore “Dayz” type players who are used to a punishing difficultly.
Perhaps its the influence of the massively successful Zombie Survival game that has lead to such “bandit” like behaviour amongst the servers. Groups of players band together in an effort to raid others for resources and items as its easier to kill another player than grind for an extra piece of wood. So far I've had players try to break down my front door WHILST being at home, as well as being chased by a number of players who happened to spawn a few feet from me; thinking that they could steal my loot armed with their bare fists. I resented this at first, being virtually mugged once or twice will do that to you, but now I think it actually highlights what is so RIGHT about this game. The atmosphere is palpable because you play within a dangerous world. Much like the comic series “The Walking Dead”, whilst there are plenty of real world fears surrounding you; other humans create the most problems. Shooting on site is a must when playing without a microphone as you can't rationalise with a potential captor/victim, but even if you were, is it worth taking any risks? Getting the drop on someone creates a real moral dilemma in the sense that you KNOW just how hard people have to work to get decent kit, which gives you cause to think about what you've stolen upon finding the higher grade loot.
Perhaps its the influence of the massively successful Zombie Survival game that has lead to such “bandit” like behaviour amongst the servers. Groups of players band together in an effort to raid others for resources and items as its easier to kill another player than grind for an extra piece of wood. So far I've had players try to break down my front door WHILST being at home, as well as being chased by a number of players who happened to spawn a few feet from me; thinking that they could steal my loot armed with their bare fists. I resented this at first, being virtually mugged once or twice will do that to you, but now I think it actually highlights what is so RIGHT about this game. The atmosphere is palpable because you play within a dangerous world. Much like the comic series “The Walking Dead”, whilst there are plenty of real world fears surrounding you; other humans create the most problems. Shooting on site is a must when playing without a microphone as you can't rationalise with a potential captor/victim, but even if you were, is it worth taking any risks? Getting the drop on someone creates a real moral dilemma in the sense that you KNOW just how hard people have to work to get decent kit, which gives you cause to think about what you've stolen upon finding the higher grade loot.
You can die being a good guy or live long enough to see yourself become a bandit. Copyright issues aside this would make an adequate tag-line for a punishing but rewarding game. Whilst its in a playable state as of now its hard to recommend it fully knowing that as further updates are released the game will get even better; as of right now the occasional glitch and janky server issues can mar a good experience. But for those brave enough to enter this world and take on its challenges, you will be rewarded, just don't come knocking on my front door.
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