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Shoot your way out of this alien planet | First Impressions - Scars Above

4K View2023-03-02

Stranded on a hostile alien planet, crew is missing, you need to survive in this third person sci-fi shooter game - Scars Above.

The entire gameplay premise of Scars Above reminds me of Returnal: alone, stranded on a strange alien world, and you have to survive amongst hostile alien creatures while uncovering the mystery behind it all. The comparisons end there, as the gameplay and story is vastly different.

The gameplay is a grounded third person sci-fi shooter and overall feels like a great shooter from the PS3/X360 era. The gunplay is solid, the hits are weighty and the enemies are varied enough to be a formidable challenge that’s going to make you work. Even the boss fights are creatively well-made and never felt like a chore to beat despite being more difficult than other shooters. There are light RPG elements with include leveling up and unlocking new perks, weapon upgrades that slowly improves your gear, but nothing really groundbreaking.

Melee combat on the other hand is more annoying than useful, with its stiff animation and janky collision system, constantly getting in your way, hitting you or blocking your way even if you aren’t really touching against each other. You can just forget it exists.

The world is alien and natural looking at the same time, rocky regions with lush flora that looks otherworldly infested with alien biomaterial, filled with both harmless and dangerous faunas alike that you need to survive in using your trusty tools and equipment. It is a semi-open world, with different mini open world zones divided into an overall linear progression.

The game is rich in lore and storytelling, immediately evident with the introduction sequence, interactive objects, and background news reports full of natural plot exposition. The mystery is nicely balanced with the exposition, giving you enough info to make sense of the on-going story but at the same time more questions are coming into the equation. The cinematic presentation felt a bit janky, especially with the funny facial expressions.

Saving and dying is basically the same thing, it places you at that last save point and refreshes all enemies in the area, as well as your health and ammos. Basically what the game tells you is that don’t spam saves or you’ll constantly respawn all enemies. Only save when entering new areas. This is a novel mechanic that is neither rogue-lite, save-based, nor checkpoint based.

Other than the janky cutscene movements, the voice acting, presentation, and graphics is actually of good quality and can pass as an AAA game. Even the in-game animations aren’t really that bad. With its mid-tier price of $40, this actually looks like a solid game to try if you like single-player third-person shooters.

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