Noct, whether by design or just due to lack of development time or funding at this point, has very little to say at the outset. From the main menu, you can check display and sound options and look over the controls (FYI, 21:9 and gamepad support included). Then, you can either start a multiplayer server, try to locate one, or jump into the game. In the time spent thus far, I have yet to try multiplayer, or well, the few times I tried to start or join a game I didn’t have any luck, but that’s sure to change as more people pick the game up. I realize that’s a key part of the experience, but like any multiplayer game or component of a game, there’s a considerable amount of ‘your mileage may vary’ in as far as the quality of your personal experience with it.
Before talking about my single player experiences so far with Noct, I will say that the multiplayer design is pretty compelling. I think it supports up to four players who can either work together or turn on one another. The idea of being able to work with someone and then suddenly turn on them, or have them turn on you adds a very potent layer of anxiety and excitement to the game. Betrayal is a helluva thing and those who have played Day-Z or scores of other multiplayer games know the feeling of being on both sides of that equation.
Working together is bound to make Noct a far easier and more enjoyable game. I played single player and the game doesn’t mind reminding you that it’s no walk in the park. There is no story, no character customization, none of that to start. Text appears on your screen as though someone is typing and it’s some person or machine, some omniscient being that needs your help running quests (particularly of the fetch variety). To what end is unclear, but, what choice do you have? Your character — nameless, faceless, voiceless, you’re literally just a blip on the screen in a monochrome world — appears randomly on the map and you need to follow these instructions to advance the game.
Noct plays kind of like a twin stick shooter in that you walk (and can briefly sprint, but you have to manage food and water, too) and shoot simultaneously. You’ll be shooting large creatures that look like different types of insects — spiders, worms, and other creepy crawly things. Some of these move quickly, others are slow and quick to retreat when you spend your precious bullets on them. But no matter the type, one touch and you’re dead. This makes the game tough and frustratingly so at times, especially when you’re trying to leave a building and the only way out is via door that has a creature on the other side of it that you cannot see.
Dying is a very regular and expected thing in Noct. When you die, you can spawn in another ‘survivor’ immediately and the omniscient character updates your map with your previous corpse so that you can loot it. Objectives are marked on the map too, so getting lost is not a problem in Noct, just surviving long enough to get to where you’re going is. Various machine guns and other goodies like grenades offer a lot of help, but this is survival horror afterall so ammo is tight and death is but a touch away.
Noct has a lot going for it overall. I think the monochrome look actually works to the game’s advantage given its low-by-design graphics quality and the atmosphere the Noct world is wanting to establish. Robin Finck of NIN is doing a fantastic job with the soundtrack, too. The soundtrack, or at least what I have heard of it so far, is a big reason I play this game, actually. The music not only adds a lot to the atmosphere, it does so in a way that is not too specific to the game, this would be good music outside of Noct as well. The music is neither too slow and quiet nor too obtrusive, so bravo Mr. Finck.
Presentation aside, the “bluntness” of Noct is good, as far as you don’t really know what the heck is going on except that things are really bad and you’re fighting to survive. Hopefully this pans out to something meaningful, but at this stage of development and for what I have played, keeping the player in the dark to this level works for Noct. Hopefully the story can foster this foundation and reveal a really intriguing plot.
On the negative side, I’m having some trouble getting hooked or invested in the solo experience because my character (almost hard to call it that) is so expendable and detached from me. By that I mean the complete lack of identity and the fragility of the “character,” and the fact that you can just spawn in another one makes caring about your dude pretty tough. As my deaths racked up it was easy to get sloppy and frustrated because it sort of ‘removed the curtain’ on the game’s underlying design and took away the investment needed to power through some of the tougher and more frustrating moments. Whatsmore is that most of the quests or objectives have you going from A to B to fetch something, with little to do in between A and B except to enjoy the music and avoid death. I can see that getting repetitive going forward, at least in solo play, but this game is still a way’s out from v1.0 so we’ll see what develops.
Overall, Noct is shaping up well and it will be interesting to see how it develops going forward.
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