Welcome to the world of Impact Winter from UK Indie Developer Mojo Bones and Published by Bandai Namco. The world we know has ended, after an asteroid hits our planet, on impact the asteroid killed millions, the after effects from Tsunami’s to the fireball killed many, many more, the ones that were left turned against each other, neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend, dark times were ahead from the human race.
Some time has passed from the main impact event, and earth is suffering a nuclear winter, food is hard to come by, resources, in general, are scarce, you play as Jacob Solomon, age 42, a man that likes to walk around with no trousers (Pants for Americans) well that’s what it looks like, may just be a pair long johns, skin colour, ah, who knows. Jacob lost is wife and daughter after the main impact and is now all alone, until he discovers an abandoned church which harbors some survivors. Here he is with skills, the survivors decided he should be the leader, and it’s his duty to bring them out of this situation safely.
The survivors are Blane Bishop, a retired police officer aged 68, and he also lost his family after the impact event. He is a toughened individual due to his upbringing and his time-fighting in Vietnam, one of America’s worse conflicts. He is not what he used to be, but he will help you along the way by crafting items that will defend you while you traverse the open world.
Maggie Booth age 34 a mechanical engineer, will build you anything, a devoted daughter to a dearly departed father who tragically died of cancer, she now carries his tools of the trade to remember him by.
Wendy Dolloway age 59 lost her true love before the impact and is now a widower, Wendy is an ex-veterinary nurse, so will be handy to keep the survivors ticking over, she is also a great cook, and we all need food.
Then we have Christophe St. Pierre, the youngest of the group, adopted at a young age, spent many of his years learning to program, at just 12years of age he had created his own video game, at 18 he moved to the big apple and studied Computer Science.
And finally we have AKO-LIGHT – ever watch ‘batteries not included’ a film made in 1987 think of those flying saucers, just take away intelligence, keep the look, a light and ability to receive signals, basically a dumb downed version if them.
The game starts as you wake up, AKO-LIGHT whizzes past, signal received ‘30 Days we are coming’; 30 days may seem like a short amount of time, however when there is a lack of basic resources from food to drink and having to work with people you do not know that well, it’s going to take a lot of hard work, communication and understanding to succeed.
You find yourself in an abandoned church, the only way in and out of the church is through the bell tower, as months and months of unrelenting snowfall has berried the old church. You must keep yourself and your team alive, by keeping the fire stocked with firewood, rationing out food, keeping each other hydrated, getting sleep and obviously somehow making them happy.
Each character in the game has their back story, which I have already given, and they also have their own unique set of skills, which you will have to nurture and use to the best of your ability and theirs’s to survive. Each of the survivors has their own quests, wants, dislikes and much more, for example, Wendy is a great cook and you will be using her skills to incorporate what you find in the open world, however her skills are limited to what she knows, so her first quest she gives you is, to go to her old house, and reclaim her old cookbook, this, in turn, will open up more recipes. Here’s looking at Steak and Chips with some onion rings to boot, not going to happen but it the thought that counts.
Not only does each character have a backstory they also have their own thoughts, ideas, their own personality and this can clash in an environment like this, so as a leader you need to be on your toes making sure everyone is happy and there are no internal conflicts, so keep their moral high or face the consequences or theirs and your actions.
To help you progress through the 30 days you have AKO-LIGHT, yep the flying saucer thingy nabob, a handy thing, I guess, has a light to light your way through the snow and during the dark times, but also receives signals and is your only way to be tracked, boosting its signal strength will help you and your survivors get found faster. You can do this very easily, by finding vital points of interest, completing quests and keeping up the moral of your fellow survivors, before you ask, how does this help the robot become better by doing this, it’s a game, get over it.
To play on your teams personality you also have Roles, there are around 30 roles to unlock while you level up through the 30 days (or less), each role can be assigned to a survivor and can have a positive and a negative effect on how they perform, so play around with the roles once you have some unlocked and see what suits each survivor best.
The open word environment feels empty, desolate, just as you expect, with buildings peering out of the snow, vehicles tossed and turned, roads demolished, vegetation dead, a world that is not for the feint hearted, a dangerous unpredictable world. This is where you must find all your resources to survive, descend into icy caves, search empty buildings, car, Lorries, ambulances, and well search anything you can, in all honesty. As with the real world, yes the one we live in, everything is a factor, when braving the cold elements, during the day, it’s less dangerous, but heading out a night, when the temperature dips, it’s worth putting on extra clothing, keeping the light on, having survival gear at hand, and be prepared to protect yourself.
The world is big enough and you might even find yourself lost, you might be wishing for a fast travel option, but this is not the point of survival? so keep aware of where you are and where you have been as you will need to find your way back to your hideout at some point. The world is not as empty as you might think, along your travels you might come upon other survivors and merchants, that will offer your side quests and supplies, it is well worth approaching these characters, completing their quests as everything helps.
Carrying items will come with some creative inventory management and choices, what is a priority, what is not, what can I come back for and so on, some choices will be harder than others, but like survival, everything will have an impact at some point.
Visuals in this game, “I hate ‘FILM GRAIN’ where is the option to remove that shit“, rant over, visuals is are cartoony, similar in design to a great game ‘Firewatch’ ‘I highly recommend playing that game’. The thick blankets of snow to the raging storms all crafted with artistic detail. The music is Ambient, soothing, helps melt away the time, ‘see what I did there, good right’ adds a depth and feel to the quality of the game. With such good visuals and sounds, the world above may be a dangerous place, a fight for survival, but the implementation and use of such work make you want to view, explore and be a true leader even more.
If you kick the bucket, don’t think you will have a safe option to try at an earlier stage, you start from the very beginning again, however this is neither and good thing or a bad thing, it depends on your mindset, if you have explored a lot and created a map like I had, you know where to find things faster, if you are dumb and did not and you relying on memory then I hope you have a good one, mine sucks, so creating a map was a good idea.
Impact Winter mixes RPG elements with survival and does a great job, the game developers have managed to counterbalance everything, choices have actions and consequences and to be a true leader, you have to hit them head-on and take whatever is coming. Being a self-centered individual is not going to help you succeed in this game like if might in real life, you will most likely see your group and yourself fail and ultimately die.
A truly enjoyable Survival RPG that I can recommend to any fans of the Survival genre, however, there are a few issues, keyboard and mouse controls are not perfect, the menus can be a nightmare, and there are some random bugs here and there, but nothing game breaking.
Thanks to its great music score created by Mitch Murder and the artistic direction the game developers choose to go down, the game remains engaging throughout, though I would highly recommend using a controller, like the Xbox One Wireless Controler for PC.
CAN YOU SURVIVE THE 30 DAYS?
This game was reviewed on PC, but it is also coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 soon.
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