Cargo: The Quest for Gravity

[miffy495]

So... What the fuck? That has to be some of the most surreal 45 minutes I've ever spent on the internet. Has anyone picked this up? I'm having a hard time resisting the urge. Looking for Thumb input here. Recommendations?

[Gwardinen]

I watched some of that but I honestly couldn't bring myself to actually try the game. It is oddly tempting though, I agree.

[Sno]

It actually looks a lot like Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.

Except... Fucking insane.

I want to play this.

[CaptainFish]

I bought it right after seeing that QL. It's really fun just building craft and tooling around in the world. The ancillary stuff is less good, but it breaks up your tasks fairly well.

It's worth it to give it a try.

[miffy495]

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

This was $10 during the Steam sale, so I bought it. I just put a little over two hours into this game (got through the first Winter) and am completely in love with it. It's janky as hell, yes, but also amazingly fun. I have no idea what I can say about this game. Really, no fucking clue. It's good though. I suggest that everyone in the world plays it. It's mechanically similar to Nuts and Bolts, which was already my favourite game of 2008, but the atmosphere sells it so much more. The buddies are amazing, the robot gods are incredible, everything is oddly sinister, but you can't put your finger on it. Then a guy dressed as a pirate captain flies in leading a flock of robotic birds to an igloo that you just smashed with an ice floe full of dancing naked dwarfs and you can't stop smiling no matter how hard you try. I haven't had this kind of feeling from a game since Katamari Damacy. Play the damn thing. Please.

[ThunderPeel2001]

The trailer looks awful... I'd be prepared to give it a try, though.

[miffy495]

Don't expect it to make any sense. There are two mechanics to the game: Creating vehicles, and abusing tiny naked masochist dwarfs. Abuse these dwarfs enough and they will explode into bursts of flowers and rainbows, increasing your FUN income. Occasionally, giant cranky penguins will try to kill off your dwarfs in ways that mean they CAN'T be respawned from the central volcano on the island (which your dwarf-popping methods allow for) and you must run into these penguins with a spiked car until they fall into the sky. There's a free demo. Try the demo. I just watched the trailer and it's awful. The game is way better than that, but I think it's something you have to try, not see. Again, DEMO.

[Murdoc]

I'm starting to think the new thing is just make your game crazy and people will forgive that it's a shitty game.

I love crazy as much as the next guy, and if miffy says its cool, I guess, but immediately the fundamental things I look for in a game I can see are just plain shit (jankiness, art direction)

For some reason I want to compare it to Xenoclash(even though the game play is completely different) it's an example of something that was crazy, but had good gameplay and great art direction.

[miffy495]

That's not entirely fair. The art direction is a personal thing, so if you think it's shit I can't really contradict you, but I like it just fine. The vehicles look really good, the penguins are surprisingly expressive, and the robot gods I think look fantastic. The least appealing part of the art is the buddies themselves, but their oddness is a big part of what gives the game those sinister undertones I was talking about and I think is necessary. Again, if you don't like it I can't say much about that, but also don't sell it too short. That trailer really is godawful and nothing like the game, and I think it does have a cohesive style that evokes certain feelings.

As for the jankiness, that's again a matter of taste. It's weird and a bit clumsy at times, sure, same way that Nuts and Bolts could be. The first vehicle that you get is a little raft with a single sail that you can barely control and you begin to think that everything will control like shit. After a while though, it becomes apparent that it was just the raft that controls like shit and any vehicle will be exactly as driveable as you design it to be. Keep them balanced and fairly streamlined and you will never have too many problems. It also hasn't crashed on me or anything, so stability is good. My only real complaint about any interface stuff is that it's way too easy to click on "quit" by accident and there's no "are you sure?" prompt, so I've lost some progress to quitting the game accidentally when I just wanted to exit the pause menu. Otherwise, it's far less janky than a lot of games I've played. If you've been through Earth Defense Force 2017, you've seen WAY worse than anything this game has to offer, and EDF was still rad.

Again, there's a demo. Basing anything on the trailer is an incredibly bad decision. This game demands to be tried at least once before making any judgements.

[Murdoc]

Yeah I agree I can't speak to it for certain without trying it, but I really have to disagree about art direction and jankiness being personal taste; not to say someone cant have an opinion about it either way, but theres just some poor art in there and decisions that were made with the way it handles that just looks shit.

Maybe you like shit, that's fine(not being insulting, some people are just more accepting towards crappy gameplay) but I don't think jankiness was a particular choice the developers did, it screams inexperience and/or time, so while I may like it as much as you do, I still think a consensus would be its sloppy and not good.

EDIT: I watched all of the quick look and take back a few of my statements. I still dont think it looks good or plays well, but it appears to be more of an execution problem then a design/concept goals.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Murdoc

[Erkki]

I just finished it. It's certainly a game! And not a bad one. I probably missed some stuff so I might replay, or try the Sandbox mode.

Anyway, it is a little bit crap. Worse helicopter controls than GTA IV! It might be possible that there's a way to build better machines that I didn't learn, but generally the machines control like shit (includin the non-custom versions that you get blueprints for).

Then there's the aspect that you are not given much direction and many times I was quite clueless about what to do next or what is cause and what is effect until I realized that pretty much all the time you should follow the current mission that is displayed in the bottom of the screen (but you don't need to). On one hand, it seems like poor design, but on the other hand, I love to occasionally play a game that doesn't hold your hand every step.