"Dust of Distant Planets". Game Review

If a theater begins with a coat rack, then a game begins with an icon on the desktop. There are stylish icons, like for Borderlands or Bionic Commando. There are purely ugly and incomprehensible ones, like those for Disciples III and Hearts of Iron III. There are even completely ordinary ones that don't stand out at all. But there is also a special category. These are icons... from other games. So, "Precursor" on the desktop is represented by Myers' face from the first Xenus. I look at it and memories flood back.

Do you remember, we're running through the jungle, our car is wrecked, we've gone off-road somewhere, and before that, we’ve caused so much trouble for the authorities that even Che Guevara would take off his beret and give it to us. And while we're looking for where to head next, a military helicopter flies overhead. We quickly swap our AK-47 for a 'fly', aim, wait a second, shoot... First, we see fire in the sky, and then a “–” icon next to the word "officials".


It seems that Deep Shadows hasn't invented anything completely new. They created a huge open world, populated it with people, planted some palm trees, and wrote quests — explore, player, live here! How is this different from the TES series? There, too, we wander and explore, completing tasks. And in many other RPGs as well — where are the differences?

The difference is in the color.

And here come "Precursor". Yes, they were created long ago, and they've been talked about for several years, but still, after tropical jungles, that blue ocean, cries for independence, and firing into the air (or more often, into people) with an AK-47 — we find ourselves in space. Some will feel melancholy, others will feel uplifted. But today we'll find out one simple thing — has the climate change been for the better? And what makes the dust of distant planets more attractive than the blue, blue ocean?

In a galaxy far, far away...

Well, the story is as old as the hell itself, as old as space. We (and who are we? 5’nizza! Sorry, it slipped out from the speakers onto the paper; I couldn’t hold back — I was powerless) — are the son of our hero father and a graduate of the pilot school. And we didn’t just graduate with a red diploma in hand and a gold medal around our necks, oh no — that would be too simple. We managed to break the training program from the inside when we got tired of going through it. This has happened for the first time, and all the commanders immediately calculated that the young _Skywalker pilot has a bright future ahead of him. The first thing they did was send him to his home planet, Goldin.

We land, look around, pause the game, turn on Star Wars Episode I, look at Tatooine, switch back to the game. We think a lot. In front of us is a spaceport square, where flying robot guards photograph all newcomers, while hopeless beggars and homeless people just out of boredom or to beg for some extra credits tell each other that soon a beautiful liner will arrive, and they will leave this godforsaken little planet.

But at first, we have no time to look around. We need to go, as usual, to the most-important-on-the-planet-who-gives-all-newbies-tasks. Hello, allow me to introduce myself. Oh, you already know me? And you knew my dad? Was he a hero? Well, I’m glad. And did he leave an inheritance? Incredible! But it’s spent? Oh, that’s sad. And even the old ship broke down? Well, okay, we’ll wait for it to be fixed. And for now, yes, I’ll work — I’m a soldier! What to do — cross the street and talk to the merchant? Well, that’s just not serious. Yes, sir, I’m already moving my ass, executing, sir!

The beginning follows the best traditions of a good dozen RPGs. A standard introduction to the world and its laws. We go out to the marketplace, interact with local traders, check out goods. The protagonist asks stupid questions to aliens: “Can you not lisp, huh?”. And he says this to an old, twisted flying gopher... The goods here are quite ordinary — weapons, ammo, pineapples, apricots (hello, Xenus?), armor, and a thousand little things like blanks, first aid kits, training programs, and repair kits.

If you go around the market to the right, you will bump into another classic inhabitant of a fantastical world — a crazy preacher. He stands by the fountain and proclaims about the coming Apocalypse, saying, repent sinners — there's still time. And in another part of the settlement, you can find a temple where real priests talk about the gods' love for humans their creations.

But sightseeing can be combined with the main thing in "Precursors" — completing quests. As before, the main storyline is just a crutch that helps keep balance for those who are lazy to explore. Everyone else will slowly rock the main story, giving preference to local events.

So, at the very beginning, literally within 30 minutes after the first game launch, we are sent to a settlement of desert dwellers. Their water cleaner is broken. We bring it back, talk to the shaman and the locals. Many want us to help. A mother can’t leave her child to go to the market — can we help? Bandits are demanding tribute again — should we deal with it? Why not? We go out to the street where a trio of thugs is standing, we ask what’s going on, what kind of pressure this is. In three minutes, we’re at a crossroads — we can get into a fight; become accomplices of the bandits; or simply meekly follow the instructions — deliver the tribute and bail out. And if we agree to the last option, then we can either help the desert dwellers and pay the money ourselves, or conversely, take 3,000 from the shaman and tell the bandits that those greedy bastards refuse to pay.

And a simple event — delivering the filter — became key. But what's even more interesting is that when we first talked to the merchant on the commander's orders, he told us that an important part of our ship is with the bandits. So if we become one of them, maybe we can get that thing back? This tempts us, bringing us closer to flying away from Goldin (where we are forced to deliver packages for the boss and run to the shop for him) to more pleasant places, but taking money from peaceful desert dwellers is not easy...

In general, no matter how much criticism "Precursors" receives, the quests here are worthy of almost any game. Yes, there are many clichés like “go kill, deliver, bow”, but there are also plenty of cool tasks that are built interestingly, where you don’t have to only think about how to shoot more accurately and get there faster.

We are tasked with investigating the arrival of “dust” — local “dope”. We start talking to drug addicts, buying doses from them, finding out who sells it to them. Then we find the distributor, “sniff” together, and ask to visit his home, where we find interesting information on the computer. Moreover, at the end of the investigation, we can choose not to turn in the main drug dealer to the authorities but explain the entire deal to him and ask for money for silence. Basically, you’re a good guy, and your “dust” is wonderful; with such talent, you shouldn’t be in prison — keep working hard!

Or another story. The bandits order us to kill their accomplice who fell into the hands of the police. We arrive in town, walk into a bar. There sits a thug who spits in the middle of the conversation, curses, and presses us. He tells us how to take down the bandit, pointing to the map where the roof staircase is. We climb up, hide, and then with one shot, we take out the target.

Or a simple, yet really funny mission. We are ordered to meet a patrol and take a chest from them. Just as we approach the bridge, enemies blow it up. All allies die and fall into the water. We must, shooting at foes, jump into the river, find the cargo at the bottom, and quickly head back to base.

And even the descriptions of quests are good. It’s evident that the game designers know how to create interesting texts, and their sense of humor is in good shape. The commander’s speech after I heroically saved a dozen people all alone: “You’re a real son of your father. I remember once we captured a warehouse of canned food, which had already expired twenty years ago. The regiment’s medic just said: ‘Eating it is dangerous for life.’ And then your father thumped his fist on the table and shouted: ‘You won’t scare me that easily!’. We lived in the latrine for two days, yeah..."

Moreover, I remind you, we always have a choice about where to go, who to work for, what to do. I don’t think this will strongly motivate anyone for a replay, but it creates a sense that the world is alive, that we are not a statistic-superhero who thinks no more than an NPC.

How the cards fall...

Just like in life, sometimes chance determines what we will be doing next. So we set off for another planet. Before landing, we are asked — where do you want to land, at the democratic alliance’s base or at the upper spaceport? The first option sounds more reasonable, we land, and just ten minutes later we’re completing our first tasks. We help scientists, fight with indigenous people — nest birds — shoot down pirates in orbit. Everything is quite ordinary, work, battles, quests. But somehow we decide to find out what awaits us at the upper spaceport — isn’t it really worth it? We fly there, and we are met by those very nest birds — only now they’re armed with guns and grenades. They don’t like us here, they don’t want to see us.

Had we landed at the upper spaceport earlier, everything would have gone differently. We would fight against the revolution birds, hinder the democratic alliance from exterminating wild nature, and the main quest would have been assisted by the feathered.

Experience in Blood

However, any task implies a reward. And we won’t work for just anyone for free. Sometimes we have to complete assignments so that they can help us complete the storyline task, more often — simply for money. But we always also wait for experience from the quest, indeed "Precursor" is also a role-playing game, so there’s something like a skill tree here.

Unfortunately, the technical-role-playing system (I use this term specifically because the "role-playing" component implies role-play, and we’re now discussing the technical side of the issue) is not the strongest side of the project. The abilities and skills are amusing but are practically uninformed and can be absurdly placed next to the most important skills.

It creates some kind of chaos in leveling up the hero, and this is distracting. Especially since you can’t specialize narrowly in something here. Take any other game. Even in Gothic, you had to gradually develop either a fighter with two-handed weapons, a mage, an archer, or a fencer. In "Precursor" we random pick something useful. And so until the end of the game.

Roll me, buddy

The genre of epic games is known for allowing us to dabble with everything. Remember, in "Xenus" we rode on boats, drove those comical rusty screeching cars, and even flew on planes at times. In "Precursor", means of transportation are still here. And they couldn’t not be — the world has only grown larger.

Only, unfortunately, the really cool vehicles from the tropical islands here look like the most ordinary jeeps. A bit futuristic ordinary jeeps. And you can’t drive around every planet with great pleasure. Developers clearly saved on the environment's details, and I don’t think it’s because they’re stingy. There’s just no money. Hence the completely identical stations (all stations), the same character models (a particular highlight is that many storyline characters have the same face but with different hairstyles — a kind of cloned top of the government apparatus) and the uniformity of the planets.

And to speak of space is even less desirable. It looks more or less okay, but the battles there are sheer universal hell. The ship is controlled simply. All you need to do to shoot is to point the mouse at the target and hold one button. You can even manage without rockets—one machine-gun will destroy everyone. And, most sadly, you can’t skip these battles, wherever we fly, pirates will always stick on our tail.

The developers, of course, tried to somehow diversify the process. They even sent us racing once, but that still doesn’t save it. You have to fly a lot (at a certain stage of the game, all quests are in space), fight even more, and both are not a morsel of fun. Although I’ve certainly encountered feedback suggesting that if such flights were added to Mass Effect, the project from BioWare would become a thousand million times better, but... I have my doubts.

Combat Hamster

Now someone may panic and start banging their fists, saying, what the hell the author doesn’t talk about shootouts, why doesn’t he write about how you can shoot from snakes, crabs, and octopuses?! Well, the author obeys the will of the thunderous reader and mentions that in the game, in addition to conventional weapons, there are also exotic ones. You've already seen them in the pictures.

But I don’t raise the topic of combat since it is quite standard here and nothing special stands out. That I can roast a paratrooper with an octopus is certainly great, but what’s the essential difference between a farting acid-spitting oyster and a regular laser? None, just a different gun texture and a funny animation.

And the battles themselves, they’re... simple. Not fun, not dynamic, not special in any way, but they don’t anger you either, they don’t make you hate any quest where shooting might occur. Sometimes, especially at later stages of the game, you want to engage in a fight; other times, your soul craves for tranquility — a long buggy ride, a walk in the woods, or a stealth operation.

But the most important reason I don’t dwell on battles and other matters is that "Precursor" is somewhat about something else. Yes, we have to fight constantly, fly in space often, and the vehicle is our best friend and a faithful companion. But "Precursor" is about life in another world. In a world unlike our own, in different, in unusual. Once, such experiences were evoked by Xenus and, unfortunately, it evoked them stronger. But the new game from Deep Shadows is no miss. I’m sure it won’t appeal to everyone. Some might turn up their noses at the graphics; others might not like the abundance of dialogues, the certain static environment, and bugs may indeed be irritating. And the low budget greets us with every cloned station and every twin-statitstic brother. But if you want to enjoy the game, you will definitely succeed. [b] “Precursors” can give a lot, you just have to adeptly close your eyes to the flaws.