When There’s Potential But No Gameplay. C.S.R. Review: Enemy from the Future [Early Access]

In subsequent missions, you need to fight off numerous attacks. The armed aliens are joined by such creatures as giant praying mantises and poisonous flyers. Considering the stupidity of the opponents, the task could have been simple. But the game forces you to take disadvantageous positions. After the placement, satisfied aliens run up to the fighters: “heh-heh, defenseless meat.”

Particularly annoying is the forced deployment in the mission to protect scientists. At the moment when the operatives hold a distant position, a squad of aliens falls upon the scientists without warning. “And we are already here.” Scientists die, the mission fails, start over.

After completing the main task, a new one appears: clear the map of survivors. You need to get to all the marked points where the enemy is hiding in a step-by-step mode. And each alien comes up with one thought: “heh-heh. Now I’ll get ready and fire a burst at the first little man who sticks out. Fortunately, they are all cross-eyed, but it’s still annoying!

Why?

The outcome of the battle depends largely on the weapons used: 

• Standard weapons deal damage and can inflict bleeding;   
• Scoped guns give you a choice of which limb to shoot at. A successful shot can cripple an enemy, significantly reducing their movement points;
• Machine guns are capable of dealing damage to all enemies in a marked cone;
• Grenades deal guaranteed damage, while stun grenades stun accordingly.

Often the damage is lower than stated by the game – even if the enemy is outside the cover. It is possible that three operators successfully discharge at the enemy, but he heals and shoots back. Although if you believe the potential damage scale – this should not happen.

Using items is awkward. Want to throw a grenade? Select a grenade, choose “use grenade”, and left-click the mouse in the right place. Decide not to throw a grenade? Press the right mouse button, and the action is canceled – at the same time, the operative, spending all action points, runs towards the alien. His turn ends opposite the enemy.

To successfully complete a mission, you need to pick up supplies from boxes and defeated enemies. Each item costs an action point, of which each operative has three. Want to pick up a grenade and two clips? Go ahead! Want more? End your turn! That’s without taking into account the points spent on moving to resources… 

But the developers have outdone X-COM in one thing: the possibility of missing with a high chance of hitting. Allies and enemies shoot like blind chickens, which drags out already long battles. 

Diagnosis

You can take into account the efforts of the developers and the potential. You can take into account that this is still a rudimentary version of the game. But why mock people like that? The current mechanics not only do not bring pleasure, but also make you feel a strong burning sensation in your lower back. Because of this, I only got to the fifth mission, and simply did not have enough nerves for more. 

It was clearly not possible to reinvent the wheel. But you can continue to copy the mechanics of XCOM and still get a unique product at the end – the main thing is to try harder.

Editor-in-Chief’s comment:

We always support our developers and try to convey to them the criticism that is needed to improve the product. Especially if the team is a beginner and is just learning its lesson. Everyone reacts differently, but in this case the guys also shared their thoughts on how they plan to develop and improve “S.S.R.: Enemy from the Future”. They understand the project’s weaknesses, but promise to become better:

” We are not trying to compete with XCOM and we don’t see the point in that – our projects are in different weight classes. Yes, the combat mechanics are similar to those from XCOM that have become classics, but that is not the only source of inspiration. In addition, we did not strive to create an exact copy.

As for the missions, yes, looting is an important element, and there are still a couple of surprises in store for players in the second part of the game. Unfortunately, we were unable to implement everything we had planned at once – that’s why we decided to release a small free first part.

We agree with some of the comments and are already working on them, in particular on the hit probability. The new “backpack” interface is already ready and work on the combat interface is ongoing .” 

Whether they will succeed or not, only time will tell. And we will be closely following their progress! 

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All images copyright QuadCom Interactive