{"id":11010,"date":"2024-03-14T12:36:56","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T20:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=11010"},"modified":"2024-04-23T05:30:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T13:30:26","slug":"underdog-overdrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=11010","title":{"rendered":"Underdog Overdrive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First, a PSA:<\/strong> \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n In keeping with my apparent ongoing role as The Guy Who Keeps Getting Asked to Talk About Subjects In Which He Has No Expertise (and for those of you who didn\u2019t see the Facebook post), The Atlantic solicited from me a piece on Conscious AI<\/a> a few months back. The field is moving so fast that\u2019s it\u2019s probably completely out of date by now, but a few days ago they put it out anyway. (Apologies for the lack of profanity therein. Apparently they have these things called \u201cjournalistic standards\u201d.)\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Now, Our Feature Presentation:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am dripping with sweat as I type this. The BUG says I am as red as a cooked lobster, which is telling in light of the fact that the game I have been playing is the only VR game in my collection that you play sitting down. It should be a game for couch potatoes, and I\u2019m sweating as hard as if I\u2019d just done 7k on the treadmill. And I still<\/em> haven\u2019t even made it out of the Killbox. I haven\u2019t even got into the city of New Brakka yet, and until I can get into that EM-shielded so-called Last Free City<\/em>, the vengeful-nanny AI known as Big Sys is gonna keep hacking into my brother\u2019s brain until it\u2019s nothing but a protein slushy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The game is Underdogs<\/em>, the new release from One Hamsa<\/a>, and it has surprisingly deep lore for a title that consists mainly of robots punching each other in the face. I know\u2014even though I\u2019ve encountered very little of it in my playthroughs so far\u2014because I wrote a lot of it. After a quarter-century of intermittent gigs in the video game business, on titles ranging from Freemium to Triple-A, this is the first time I\u2019ve had a hand in a game that\u2019s actually made it to market (unless you want to count Crysis 2<\/em>\u2014which, set in 2022, is now a period piece\u2014 and for which I only wrote the novelization based on Richard Morgan\u2019s script.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Underdogs is a weird indie chimera: part graphic novel, part tabletop role-play, part Roguelike mech battle. It\u2019s that last element that\u2019s the throbbing, face-pounding heart of the artifact of course, the reason you play in the first place. You climb into your mech and hurtle into the KillBox and it\u2019s only after an hour of intense metal-smashing physics that you realize you\u2019re completely out of breath and your headset is soaked like a dishrag. The other elements are mere connective tissue. Combat happens at night; during daylight hours you\u2019re hustling for upgrades and add-ons (stealing\u2019s always an option, albeit a risky one), negotiating hacks and sabotage for the coming match, getting into junkyard fights over usable salvage. Sometimes you find something in the rubble that boosts your odds in the ring; sometimes the guy hired to fix your mech fucks up, leaves the machine in worse shape than he found it, and buggers off with your tools. Sometimes you spend the day desperately trying to find parts to fix last night\u2019s damage so you won\u2019t be going into the ring tonight with a cracked cockpit bubble and one arm missing.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n All this interstitial stuff is presented in a kind of interactive 2.5D graphic novel format; the outcomes of street fights or shoplifting gambits are decided via automated dice roll. Dialog unspools via text bubble; economic transactions, via icons and menus. All very stylized, very leisurely. Take your time. Weigh your purchase options carefully. Breathe long, calm, breaths. Gather your strength. You\u2019re gonna need it soon enough.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Because when you enter the arena, it\u2019s bone-crunching 3D all the way.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n