If you like fighting for survival in a hostile wasteland full of psychopaths, you might want to direct yourself in the direction of the game NEO Scavenger. Now, it doesn’t look like much at a glance, but the graphics aren’t the real draw here. What’s interesting is the sheer scope of items and tools you can find, and also the various ways your life can quickly end. Life is hard in the world of NEO Scavenger, but you can always turn to cannibalism if things go South. Or if you’re hungry. Or because it’s funny. You know, whatever you feel like doing.
The game works on a grid-based system, letting players explore individual hexes filled with items, encounters, and buildings. You can look at the limited graphics of the environment and plan your movements accordingly, so if you see a place worth searching in the distance, you can work your way on over. There are lots of other NPCs moving along the map, though – all of whom want to survive as badly as your character. So, once your turn’s over they’ll start making intelligent moves of their own. Should you race for a good place or just try to catch another survivor unawares and take his stuff? I think we both know the answer to that. Then again, the same could happen to you when night falls and darkness reduces your visibility to the hex you’re standing in. Hopefully there won’t be any wolves about.
The graphics are limited, but that didn’t bug me in the slightest since there was just so much to think about and plan for while playing the game. You have so many different aspects of your character to take care of while fighting off all of the other creatures in the world that the graphics didn’t matter to me. The text more than carries the game through, and with some of the gruesome ways to die in this game, I was kind of glad I didn’t have to see them portrayed in high-def.
It’s pretty sweet for a game that’s only in early access, and well worth the ten bucks it costs. How many text based adventures are letting you dual wield assault rifles and cut human bodies into portable meals these days, anyway?
