Space Hulk Ascension releases on Steam today

[Cyrano]

Do not, I repeat do not, attempt to suss out the military logic of the 40K universe.  It's a series of aesthetic choices made to encourage us to purchase models.  I'm a kid no longer and I still have my Space Marine chapter poster on my wall I do love it so, but there's little logic to the game itself...and don't get me started on AE weapons...

As to the new Hulk, it makes in all its adverts that I've seen the claim most likely to make me not want to purchase a product, viz.: "we are definitely NOT your father's boardgame!"  I loved Space Hulk; all editions. I had all kinds of goofy WD expansion rules and even, if fading memory serves, played this ridiculous Space Wolves meta-campaign that took days to play.  I like -- can't say love -- their first effort, but the notion of so aggressively distancing yourself from the reason anyone cares about your product baffles me.

At least the EA game gave us one of the greatest non sequiturs in the history of the world:  "Brother marines, our scanners have failed us.  One squad will be sufficient."

Best.

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[JasonPratt]

^^ Those lines could be generated in the boardgame PC version, too, though the vocal guy didn't sound nearly as engaged with what he was doing.

Haven't gotten far enough in the new game to know if the narration (including random descriptions of mission details) returns / improves.

[JasonPratt]

Man, what this tutorial needs is a tutorial on how to get the best graphic settings. I spent a good 45 minutes dinking around with various things (what does "vignettes" mean?? -- "how oppressive the shadows are" apparently?), and this is where I'm at now visually.






I know this has to be an improvement in some ways over this, but on the other hand maybe not:

[Toonces]

Man, what this tutorial needs is a tutorial on how to get the best graphic settings. I spent a good 45 minutes dinking around with various things (what does "vignettes" mean?? -- "how oppressive the shadows are" apparently?), and this is where I'm at now visually.

A vignette is a small training scenario.

[Nefaro]

'Vignette' in graphics setting-ese is the darkening of the edges of the screen, as if it's some old reel-to-reel theater movie from the dark ages playing on a big screen.

[PanzersEast]

'Vignette' in graphics setting-ese is the darkening of the edges of the screen, as if it's some old reel-to-reel theater movie from the dark ages playing on a big screen.

What the Brother is saying is, better to focus and kill the Heretics!

PE

[JasonPratt]

Well, in this case it seems to increase a sort of dark oppression when cranked up, like a nightmarish malaise. Light still travels as far as it otherwise does, but it doesn't illuminate as much. If you're close enough to see the dead stealer over there and the hole it came out of, you'll still be able to see it but with more difficulty.

I love the effect in theory, but in practice it makes my eyes squint too much, so I'm keeping it mostly minimized now.

"Noise" is an interesting filter which when increased creates and amplifies a sort of grainy static effect. At lower levels it helps keep the figures from looking like painted miniatures. ;)

The color can be supersaturated, or eliminated entirely leaving black and white. No "contrast" though; but there is a gamma which when minimized or taken above about 25% will create some garish effects.

"Bloom" doesn't seem to be contrast, so much as how strongly light reflects from surfaces. The graphic engine is pretty bloomy already, probably to compensate for the forcible gloom, so I've got it minimized as much or more than the "vignette".

[JasonPratt]

Well, the Sin of Damnation campaign sure doesn't start off like any other SoD campaign I've ever played! It does have some similarity to one of the standard later missions, with (up to) two termi squads sent into the south legs of a symmetrical area to kill 84 stealers.

But still, that's the first mission, out of the gate.



SoDiNO. 

(Admittedly, something different is nice, and being thrown into the grinder utterly out of the gate is nice, but why even call it by the name of a classic original campaign?)

The game uses vocal mission briefing assets from the first game, but only briefly. Not sure what the rationale was supposed to be about that. Not to compete too strongly with the previous game and/or the 90s version??


The update yesterday may have added ap and psi points remaining to the facecards of each SM -- I can't say for sure since I didn't start a campaign before the update, but I sure don't recall seeing them in the tutorial campaign.

[JasonPratt]

So far so good, no SMs lost. I thought Briathos was doomed when the first NINE stealers ganged up on him in a row, but he held the line despite his gun overheating -- PIMPSLAPPING THE LAST THREE WITH RED RAGE!!

Wish I had gotten a screenie of that. This will have to do.



The reason there aren't 9 bodies piled up is because the stealers squished them running down the hall.

Red rage, achieved. 

Everyone else has parked in a good defensive position. The librarian will likely get rushed next.

Note that because this isn't pure-D boardgame rules (unlike the predecessor) a Space Marine can't use any unused action points to unjam a weapon. I don't recall this being a skill to unlock later either, but I don't have a clear recollection of the skillz so I could be wrong: I hope so.

[JasonPratt]

The game doesn't seem to have an option for focusing the map on the current action! I've double checked in every possible menu of the "option" submenu, and it just ain't there.

This was insane to me, until I realized it might be on purpose: it suddenly occurred to me that I was using the shoulder cameras to tell me where to scroll the mouse around for action! Until I got there, all I had was shoulder-cam action to watch; and in the dark, and not knowing my termies well yet, I didn't always know where "Orpheus" was being attacked yet. But I could see him being attacked and fighting back on the shoulder camera, so I'd keyboard around (can't actually mouse around during stealer turns despite what I said) until I found him (anchoring the far right advance: I'd let him get ahead of my librarian so he could get some experience for a while.)

That may be only accidental genius, and I think players ought to have the option of letting the program zip around (maybe that's available on lesser difficulties? I'm playing "hard".) But even if it's accidental genius, I'm impressed. In the 90s game the shoulder cams were utterly vital -- in fact the whole game was played that way (unless you were looking at the map during the action), very much like the lieutenant back in the APC in the Aliens movie (not surprisingly). In the preceding game, the shoulder cams were merely graphical bling, and not great looking bling at that because they had constant interference which made no sense (since in effect they only showed what the Marine was seeing at ground level and during a fight the camera might zoom down for action shots anyway. Something missing in this game, incidentally, which is probably just as well since it tended to show the clipping errors!  ::) )

Now, during the stealer turn, the camera will change to whomever is being attacked, and the player can keyboard around or not as he wants to find the action. That must have been intentional!

(But the mouse should be turned back on for movement purposes during stealer turns.)

[JasonPratt]

By the way, poking around the Steam forums confirmed a suspicion I hadn't mentioned yet: the UNDO command has been eliminated.

This was done to prevent people from using the UNDO for scum-scouting (and possibly because of how the overwatch affects action points now), but considering that the movement protocols still occasionally result in me accidentally ending a termie's move facing somewhere useless or even potentially suicidal, I wish the undo command would be reinstated.

[Nefaro]

I take it you're enjoying this quite a bit, JP?

I'm still fenced.  Do your SMs get to level up enough over the course of a campaign, and with enough different viable skill options, to make their skill sets feel individualized?  Is there enough good skill variety to make two different Librarians with different skills & styles?  Or are there just a few 'Must-have' skills and some filler?

I probably shouldn't be picking up anything new when I'll just be purchasing Elite: Dangerous by next week anyway.  That's probably where I'll have my head stuck.

[JasonPratt]

I haven't got anywhere near enough along to answer the question about skills yet, sorry.

I've really only finished the first tutorial campaign (where skill advancement is pretty meaningless of course), and was working on the first SoD when the game crashed. Apparently there's a Lovecraftian evil behind a particular door, and shooting that door in itself nearly crashed the game but mousing back over that area later to get to might right flank crashed it totally as the mind of my computer became unable to accept what it couldn't see in the darkness there or words to that effect.  ::)

But yes, overall I'm enjoying it. It's definitely Space Hulk, and not at all the same missions (despite the SoD campaign name) as in previous iterations. The mission briefing presentations could be a lot better, but my tentative guess for why they aren't is that eventually the mission types will exceed what the 90s/13 versions could have "talked" about in briefing.

I actually rather like that so far there is no one definitive version that exceeds the others. All three (90s, 2013, and this one) have their merits.

[JasonPratt]

Phew! I thought Nazarreno was screwed for a minute. I had put out a skull sensor and forgot to put him back on overwatch, so a stealer just cold ran up and to the side without any problem.

The Naz could take one aimed shot at 75%, and missed, so I put him back on overwatch and hoped for the best (at close range and with sustained fire now in effect to aid in aiming). Elyon off to his left down a long hall tried a hail Mary aimed volley to bust open a door which would have given him at least some overwatch support, but he failed and had to go back on OW himself.

The AI was smart enough not to do what I was most worried he'd try: a two square advance under overwatch fire, which if the GS had succeeded would have been instadeath for Naz -- though it had positioned itself to try that anyway given an opportunity! With overwatch back on, it took the most probable option and zigged back in front of me one square figuring it only had to dodge me once this way and then it would be in melee where it had the advantage.

That almost worked, but the Nazarene BACKHANDED HIM WITH THE POWER GLOVE!

HE'S FOR EVERY ONE OF US {boom boom} STANDS FOR EVERY ONE OF US {boom boom} HE SAVES WITH A MIGHTY HAND EVERY MAN EVERY WOMAN EVERY CHILD WITH A MIGHTY FLASH!

The Naz had been racking up a good kill count; would have been a shame to lose him to stupidity.

[JasonPratt]

Okay, ended SoD 1 (mission to kill over 80 stealers) -- but a bug or something reports only 58 kills, and that's what my individual marine tally adds up to, too.

That wouldn't be so bad except kills = xp, and I've decided the point of starting the SoD campaign with a meat grinder out of the gate is to rack up kills for everyone to get the xp rolling early.

Next up is a branching (?) mission, one of which seems to be the classic 1st SoD mission "Suicide", and the other the classic 2nd mission "Exterminate". Not sure why there would be a branching mission or an option to do one first.