Rogue Hippo’s Review Score: 8
It’s time to enjoy the simple things in life with NEO Scavenger.
The Game: In NEO Scavenger, you awake in a strange medical facility wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and no memory of how you got there. As you stumble outside, you find that the world is in ruins. Cities are crumbling, other survivors are scarce (and untrustworthy), and sinister creatures prowl the night. How long can you survive?
NEO Scavenger is a turn-based, survival game with a classic-PC feel. You’ll quickly find yourself in a vast wasteland, unsure of which direction to take. There’s no right answer. You can scavenge for supplies in any space with a magnifying glass (see image below). Forests will often have berries to eat, and wood for crafting. Cities have a chance at useful items from the pre-apocalypse days, but you’re also more likely to encounter other survivors. Meanwhile the clock is ticking; scavenging takes time, traveling takes time, crafting takes time, you’re tired, you’re hungry, and you need to find a safe, warm shelter before nightfall.
In addition to the overland map, you’ll spend a lot of time in the character inventory screen. The attention to detail here is incredible. In the image below, my ill-equipped survivor has stumbled upon some sweet loot: an empty water bottle, tin foil, a sharp rock, twigs, 2 plastic bags, an empty potato chip bag, and a tarp. It sounds like a pile of garbage, but these are precious tools for survival. With this cornucopia of riches, I can shelter from the rain, store water, craft a shiv, create fire, and increase my carrying capacity.
Speaking of carrying capacity, you will soon find that it is the most valuable resource in the game. A plastic bag can only carry so much and you’ll have to make tough decisions about what to keep and what to leave behind. In the next screenshot, I’m near my maximum carrying capacity. My hands are full (meat cleaver & sleeping bag) and my plastic bag is nearly full; and just look at all that sweet loot on the ground that I’ll be forced to abandon.
The elation you feel when you discover a backpack or a duffle bag is indescribable, and I’ll never forget the day I found a shopping cart…
In addition to scavenging, crafting is a great way to improve your survival inventory. The options seem so immense that I suspect that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. Here’s a look at the crafting screen:
The box on the left includes all of your skills and gear. You can move specific items to the box on the upper-right, and if you find an acceptable combination, the result will appear in the box on the bottom-right. So far, I’ve only managed to craft fire, a sling, a shiv, and a spear; so I’m a pretty poor craftsman. Your skills (grey boxes) also open new crafting options. There are 16 skills to choose from when you create your character but, due to skill costs, you can only choose 5-6 at a time so your possible combinations will be different each game.
The Apocalypse Isn’t All Whiskey and Shopping Carts
While I’ve been really enjoying my time with NEO Scavenger, I do have a few criticisms.
First, the interface can be confusing at times. Camping, for example, is a mildly tedious process that requires you to choose a campsite at your location, place your sleeping bag/fire on the ground, then go to sleep. It sounds simple enough, but if you do something stupid like place your sleeping bag on the ground before choosing a campsite, you’ll quickly find yourself freezing to death in your sleep.
Second, you’ll die… a lot. Now, I don’t expect an apocalyptic survival game to be a pleasant stroll through the wilderness, and I certainly appreciate the stakes of a game where perma-death is real threat. I guess it’s not so much the dying that bothers me as the banality of starting over. Having to scavenge for shoes and plastic bags as you make the initial cryo-lab-to-Detroit trip, for the seventeenth time, just becomes tedious; especially when you can die again at any moment from starvation, exposure, infection, or combat.
This leads me to my biggest critique of the game: combat. It’s boring, random, and I just can’t find much strategy to it. Here’s a look at the combat screen:
Your character is in the upper-left, your opponent(s) are in the upper-right, and your combat options are listed just below your character. Your options are many but your information is scarce… and that’s the problem. You don’t know the stats of your enemies, you don’t know the success chance of your actions, you don’t even know the damage of your own weapon. Is [Dodge] a better option than [Attack] or [Tackle] or [Take Cover]? Who knows? Does a broken bottle do more damage than a sharp stick or a shiv? Who knows? Oddly, this is a more realistic way to deal with combat (irl, you would never know your opponent’s HP or % chance to hit with an attack), but the end result seems to turn combat from something exciting into simple guesswork. (NOTE: you can find all of this information on the internet but I’m not sure if it would improve my experience or make me feel like I cheated.)
One of the last things I want to mention is the story. There is a story… I just don’t want to give away any spoilers because it revolves around your character waking up in the cryo-lab, with amnesia, and trying to survive the apocalypse while slowly piecing together what happened to yourself, and the world. The hunt for information has been fun and rewarding, so far, but I don’t want to give anything away so I won’t say more than that.
The Good
- It’s the best apocalypse simulator I’ve ever played
- The risk/reward of scavenging is a constant thrill
- The attention to detail is amazing
- Intriguing story
The Bad
- You’re going to die a lot and it can be frustrating
- The interface can be finnicky at times
- Combat leaves something to be desired
The Verdict
NEO Scavenger is a harsh, survival-strategy game that strives for realism and nails it. It’s basically the video game version of The Road. You’ll experience the joys of feasting on ketchup packets and the frustration of finding only left shoes. You’ll be forced to choose between the carrying capacity of an empty bag of potato chips or the combat power of a sharp stick. You’ll wonder if the warmth of a fire is worth the risk attracting enemies. You’ll die. But each time you die, you will have gained a little knowledge that will help you live a little longer next time.
I’ll leave you with this…
My favorite way to die thus far: After multiple playthroughs, I had learned a thing or two about scavenging and had reached Detroit with some surplus gear, which I sold for about $350 (a fortune in the apocalypse). I was all ready to head back into the wasteland, but first I decided to treat myself to some chunks of cooked meat at the Detroit Junk Market. After I enjoyed my victory dinner, I was instantly stricken with severe diarrhea and abdominal cramps. I tried to sleep it off in the warm glow of a back-ally burn barrel but my symptoms only got worse. I started to panic. I hadn’t encountered food poisoning yet so I wasn’t sure how to treat it. In desperation, I downed a bottle of mystery pharmaceuticals that I had found in an abandoned apartment complex but they turned out to be sedatives which didn’t help the situation. I went back to sleep, with all my hopes riding on my immune system, and never woke up. RIP
Until Next Time,
Rogue Hippo