I enjoy most of Below Zero, but I gotta say I absolutely hate the surface section and am just powering through until I finish it. It’s not fun, it’s dreary, and the lack of a map really really shows up here. Maybe if I had a better sense of direction I’d enjoy it–but I don’t, and gah.
Do you mean lack of a live map that shows your location? Or lack of any map? Because I’ve found 2 static maps that now reside on my PDA, one of which gives a reasonably detailed layout of the land area south of Outpost Phi.
I played through about 80% of the game several months ago, and a little while ago I got all the way to the end in another playthrough. Effectively, I’m now on my third playthrough at this point… and this is the first time I’ve found the frozen leviathan, which is part of the “sister” storyline. I mean, the entire premise of the game is that you’re going down to the planet to find out what happened to your sister, and this is the first time I’ve seen a major plot element necessary to finish that storyline. Why? Because it’s in the interminable maze that is the glacial basin.
I hate that part of the game. I’m reminded of the old Colossal Cave game- “You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.” And, like others, I’ve found that there’s no reason to build the snowfox- the prawn suit works better in just about every way.
I find that the land-based parts of the game have really just sucked the fun out of the rest of the game.
I just got back to the part of Subnautica when you have to toodle around the ship and I hate it.
Yeah, the aboveground portions really aren’t the best.
I’m still in the land section of the game, partly because I just can’t find my way around and partly because I’m playing it a lot less. I kinda want to get all the land stuff done before I leave (I’ve stumbled into one of the key areas, but don’t remember how I got there or how to get back): once I leave, I wanna be gone forever. It may be a place I cheat in order to figure out the next step.
The cold mechanic makes sense, but it’s not at all fun.
There’s a suit that protects against cold - not entirely, but mostly - that makes cold no more worrisome than oxygen with the best air tank. I don’t find the land section any worse than any other bit of either game where you have to use the Prawn Suit. The suit is similarly clunky everywhere, the only real functional difference is that you can’t jump jet as high on land. I’d use the Snow Fox which I like as a concept but which actually triggers motion sickness nausea with the way it turns and rolls in confined spaces, so that’s pretty much a hard nope. Might build one on the biggest ice floe just so I can speed around on one in peace as a novelty.
I just finished building the snow suit and snow fox, which should hopefully make it better–but by the time I found the materials and plans for these, I was like 75% through the land section. IIRC from early access, I have one major additional thing to do on land, but I don’t know exactly where to do it, and that’s not fun.
I just finished the deep-sea portion, with a seatruck complete with storage, fabricator, and prawn holder. My biggest gripe about the mobile base is the lack of a simple way to charge it up. That said, I wandered for a couple hours and never made concerning inroads in the ion cells. Even with that, the thermal charger on the prawn meant I could just sit by a heat vent for a few minutes and switch the cells between truck and robocop.
I’ll be heading back to see what can be seen from this storyline, then going back up to land to figure out what happened to my sister.
I finished Below Zero a week or so ago. I agree with most of the criticisms here; in particular that the maze-like Glacial Basin was not that fun. I spent a lot of time there and still didn’t really grok the layout, despite having pretty decent spatial awareness (didn’t have any problem with underwater sections). The lack of good landmarks was a problem, I think.
Overall I still enjoyed it, and thought the Sea Truck was a good addition. There is something odd about the ending, though.
At one point, AL-AN asks something like “Are you sure you want to come through the portal with me?”, to which Robin replies “Yes. It’s not like I have any other way off this planet anyway.”
That seemed to come out of the blue. Not that I couldn’t have guessed it, but I don’t recall any previous conversation when they talked about this. Did I just miss something? I wonder if I somehow skipped some significant dialogue. It’s either that or the devs forgot to put it in.
You mean, like Robin’s shuttle crash-landing and bursting into flame in the opening cutscene?
Two things that haven’t come up here:
- How the hell did Maida survive Karaa?
- I was a bit sad that there wasn’t a final bit of dialogue with Maida if you cure the frozen leviathan with the andidote.
- No seriously, Maida should’ve died of Karaa loooooong before Riley cured it in the first game.
Losing her ride isn’t the point I was concerned about. It’s that the tone of the conversation indicated that they had talked about it previously, even if just in passing, and as best I could tell they hadn’t. It was not even clear at that point that Robin could come along–AL-AN’s body was far more robust and maybe there was some step that would destroy a meatbag. Or maybe AL-AN just needed a body for some setup work, and was going back to incorporeal for the final long-range transport.
And in any case, completely abandoning humanity forever is a huge step and again, never discussed (unless I somehow missed something). Robin had other possible options, such as friends at Alterra, or building a rocket like Ryley did. Maybe AL-AN could build her a ship. Sure, maybe Robin considered those things and still decided against them. It just wasn’t mentioned.
Probably, but Karaa is known to have very different effects depending on the person. One of the Aurora survivors died of Karaa seemingly within hours, even though Ryley survived days. Maybe Maida was naturally resistant, and/or encountered a dose of enzyme 42 via the Peepers.
I finished Below Zero a few days back.
It was deeply unsatisfying.
In terms of tracking down my dead sister, there was no real sense of grief or closure I found her necklace, turned it over a couple of times in my hands, and then put it in my backpack with my copper wires and water bottles.
The storyline with Maida just kind of petered out. She’s there, she’s happy, you shut down the satellites–and so what? I thought there was going to be an arc, but nope. She gives you space lettuce.
Al-an leaked the virus, and you have a good ninety seconds of conversation about the moral implications of his failure. Okay? Then you’re traveling across spacetime with him, because humans suck or something?
Whoever wrote this storyline came up with a lot of great pieces, but didn’t know how to include any emotional impact or how to finish it satisfyingly. Compare to the first game, with one of the most satisfying endings I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, this was a real letdown.
And curing the Karaa blisters was such an insignificant side-quest that I didn’t bother to complete it. This should have been central to the game and been much easier to figure out how to complete: otherwise, it looks like Alterra is about to get its hands on an apocalyptic bioweapon. But by that point I was like, “nah, don’t really feel like spending another hour dodging iceworms while I look for exactly the right pengling cave to find the cure, let’s just wrap this up already.” A simple map marker would have done it.
All that said, I mostly loved the gameplay. The sea truck wasn’t as cool as the vehicles in the first game, and the land sequence almost made me ragequit. But the other environments were gorgeous, and the leviathans managed their jump-scares just as well as in the first game, and the pure joy of the game’s explore/gather/build rhythm was a delight.
The first game is an A+. This was a solid B.
Hardly an insult to say Below Zero isn’t quite as good as the original when the original is one of the greatest PC games of all time.
There is one. On the Glacial Basin map in your databank (which you get from the habitat ruins in the starting area), there’s a pengling with a red circle. Unfortunately the map sucks but you should be able to find it.
Overall I agree with your critique. The various threads just kinda petered out. It feels like they just ran out of time, or maybe money.
I guess it hits a kind of awkward middle between an open-world game vs. a purely story-driven one. The first was had less plot, and yet the story was more satisfying. They could have gone further on the story spectrum, but they needed to fill out a lot more of the plot elements. And maybe paid for a lot more voice acting.
Oh, I didn’t notice that. Honestly, after trying to use the maps in early access, I gave up on them for the full game. They’re among the most useless maps I’ve ever seen in a game. If there were more landmarks, it would be different–but navigating tundra and caves with a wordless, keyless map is damned near impossible. For me, anyway.
I found the maps quite useable. The purple tree things in the glacial basin provided enough reference to locate the items of import on that map, and the Alterra outpost map was quite useable just triangulating off of the location of Delta Station. My only issue was finding Omega - I looked and looked, and finally gave up and checked online only to discover I’d been looking at very much the wrong depth. But the map was fine. The reference beacon I’d placed near the surface right where I thought Omega should be based on the map was less than 100m from the actual base, horizontally speaking.
My Cyclops is stuck in a cave. It absolutely will not move in any direction, though it looks like it SHOULD be able to descend. I don’t have the heart to make another or move all my shit off it. I don’t know what to do.
Long shot, but you might be able to move it with the upgraded propulsion cannon.
Maneuvering the Cyclops sometimes felt like
I’d probably just build another if you really can’t free it. The upgrades were the really expensive parts.
Purely going off the original game here, but I had a vehicle get stuck and was able to use the console to generate another one.