Some time ago a preview was published on our website Skyshine’s BEDLAM — a post-apocalyptic “bagel” with tactical battles. We spoke positively about the game and, together with Western journalists, have already prepared signs with the highest ratings. Several weeks passed, the game appeared on virtual shelves, and we, having once again traveled across the wasteland, were surprised to discover that there was no reason for joy here.
Bagel without filling
It’s not that the developers suddenly went crazy and destroyed everything beautiful in their brainchild. In the final version BEDLAM almost nothing has changed – but it was precisely this circumstance that played against her.
How can you not fall in love with a post-apocalyptic story with engine battles? The Banner Saga? The game setting, interface, and voice acting are designed in a single mesmerizing style, every now and then reminiscent of adventures in Fallout or Borderlands. Four colorful factions populating vast lands BEDLAM, the search for an island of a happy life in the spirit of the recent “Mad Max”, accidents falling on one’s head – all this looked too charming to allow pessimistic thoughts.
For the roguelike genre, it is extremely important to “hook” the player with an abundance of random encounters, unexpected turns and surprising combinations of such unforeseen events throughout the game. In the preview, we expressed the hope that the quantitative increase BEDLAM will help her become one of the seasonal hits. Well, there is more content – but not by much. At least not to the extent that I would take on my fifteenth playthrough of the game with much enthusiasm.
But the problem here is not even the volume of the game’s content or its quality. For example, let’s take The Binding of Isaac — an exemplary “roguelike”, easily achieving almost endless replayability. He succeeds in this not so much due to randomly generated levels and monsters, but due to the many unique items and the possibilities of combining them. Each time, along with a set of artifacts, the style of the game and its holistic perception changed. “Randomly” generated levels and an endless “achievement” list with gifts in the form of new endings are a pleasant addition to the gameplay, which forced the user to open, explore, play the game again and again.
So, this secret ingredient, which turns https://bahisocasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ each new passage into a surprise, into BEDLAM No. You perform the same actions, and random events only slightly adjust their sequence. Achieving the main goal – to overcome the wasteland and get to the legendary city of Aztec City – after a dozen playthroughs turns into a routine operation with repeated battles and events.
Unwelcoming "random"
Every step along the territory of Bedlam turns into a random incident for us, presented in the form of a text quest. After a couple of dozen of these mini-adventures, you understand that they are all different in the form of the events described in them, but approximately the same in essence and can be divided into several categories: in some we are attacked, in others we exchange some resources for others, in others we come across a very powerful inhabitant of the wasteland and get the opportunity to take him on the team. If you’re lucky, you might find some mysterious object. If we are very lucky, we will subsequently stumble upon a corresponding random event in which this item can be used, and we will open a new type of bulldozer.
Text part BEDLAM is not bad at all, there are often very interesting situations accompanied by bright animations, but throughout the game you can’t leave the feeling that everything could be much better. The stories lack humor and dynamics, most of them are rather monotonous. Remember "Space Rangers", where after carefully written text quests you literally didn’t want to return to the main game!
BEDLAM forces you to monitor the numerical indicators of fuel, food and passengers. Something is always missing here, and zeroing one of the resources is fraught with defeat. After a while, you begin to look at random events pragmatically and skip the descriptive parts of the text.
Upgrading your laboratory will help you save resources. This mechanic also turned out to be quite ordinary: by upgrading one of the four rooms, we will reduce resource consumption throughout the game. And such primitiveness of the “base-building” part is also offensive, since the role of the bulldozer, almost the central figure in the story, could be significantly expanded.
Reaching Aztec City does not end our adventures at all. Having reached the expected finale, we unload the passengers, and we are sent for a new batch of “live cargo”. Now we need to travel around Bedlam again – but in the opposite direction. Here the king of the wastelands, Viscera, comes on stage, representing the main game “challenge”. He declares high alert and goes in search of the careless Mechanic. Battles with him are extremely difficult and will force you to reconsider your attitude towards resource management in the game. Getting to the southern border of Bedlam is not enough – you need to do it with minimal cost. In the next playthrough, you try to stock up on resources, get powerful bulldozer tools, and assemble a “pumped up” team. But because of the great influence of “random” on the outcome of battles, the last point turns out to be almost impossible to implement.
Bulldozer Saga
In general, the combat system is a tracing paper with The Banner Saga. This is both a plus and a minus BEDLAM: no matter how fun the creation mechanics are Stoic, its tactical potential is far from the best representatives of the genre. Warriors are given two points per turn, which they can spend on attacking or moving. And this greatly limits tactical possibilities: it is often simply impossible to inflict damage on the enemy and at the same time protect your fighter – you constantly have to sacrifice someone.
It’s easy to imagine what would be worth improving: giving each of the fighters their own abilities (“leveling up” here is linear and is reflected solely in the numerical parameters of health and damage), filling locations with interactive objects, adding various factors that influence the course of the battle, such as radioactive dust… All this is not here. The lack of any “chips” is slightly compensated by the presence of various bulldozer super attacks: out of turn, you can either drop a bomb on the battlefield, or teleport your charge to any point on the map.
The Blitzometer system looks completely far-fetched – the “highlight” BEDLAM: When the special gauge is full, enemies will get an extra turn. This kind of irregular play makes it impossible or extremely difficult to create a high-level team. Whether your best fighter will remain alive at the end of the fight or not is largely determined by chance.
Yes, randomness also reigns supreme in battles, although this is where it is not needed. Not being able to position team members at the start of a fight often results in frustrating situations. Imagine the picture: you have been caring for your sniper for ten battles, turning him into a professional shooter. However, in the next fight he finds himself surrounded by four opponents, each of whom can destroy the fighter with one blow. In many cases, the enemy will do this, but not always – so you have to rely not on your tactical genius, but on the randomness and stupidity of artificial intelligence. Chess Skyshine, no matter how the developers claimed the opposite, it didn’t work out – well, a knight cannot “eat” a queen on the very first move of the game.
BEDLAM there are not enough surprises and surprises, its combat mechanics are simple, and there is no original idea to be found here. Creation Skyshine Games can be called differently: “post-apocalyptic Faster Than Light", "The Banner Saga with shotguns", "Fallout on wheels". If you like at least one of the games listed, the first ten playthroughs will probably be received with a bang. But for a high-quality and original “bagel” this is not enough.
Pros: good visual style; many different random events and a high level of difficulty motivate you to play through the game several times.
Cons: despite the abundance of random events, different passages still look monotonous; the great influence of “random” on the outcome of battles; simple combat mechanics.
