Scars Above

I am surprised that there is not more fanfare for Scars Above. This is a sci-fi 3rd person action game that is coming out at a budget price, but it certainly does not look like a budget game. I am very excited about this game and wanted to talk a little bit about it today. It is a game that is wearing its difficulty on its sleeve and I guess that is probably going to be a tough thing for some people to get over.

The Metahedron!

This is sci-fi at its very best. The story of Scars Above starts with a large alien structure appearing above Earth. A special team of scientists and researchers are sent to investigate this structure, but then a tragedy strikes. The entire team has been transported to a strange alien world and now it is a fight to find out what has happened and why they are here. I love a good sci-fi story and this is certainly a good sci-fi story.

Enter Kate!

Part of the research team is a scientist called Kate and she is the main character and the person that we play as in Scars Above. Kate is a scientist and she is a quick thinker and she soon realizes that something messed up is going on. Kate is not only fighting to survive, but also to find the rest of the team, find out what this place is, and also get home. She is a great character as she is not a soldier. This means she has to learn as she goes, fight to survive, and use her scientific background to research the alien objects and lifeforms that she is coming across. She truly is a fantastic protagonist and a badass, but in a different way.

Becoming A Survivor

As I said, Kate is not a soldier, but she is a survivor, and she kind of takes on a Lara Craft type role as Scars Above progresses. You will get your hands on many different weapons, but as she is a scientist, she can use her skills to “craft” different things to help her with her fighting and surviving. It is a clever way to do things and I think that it adds a great deal of depth to the gameplay. You also have elemental attacks that come into play as well, I was pretty shocked at how deep this game actually was! Now, they have flat out stated that this game is very challenging and that is something that I feel will make or break the game. If it is challenging, but fair, I am ok with it, but if it is “cheap” in its difficulty that is not something I am down with.

An Alien Planet

I did mention early in this preview that Scars Above is a rather modestly priced budget game considering what games are going for these days. However, you would not know this to look at it as it seems like the game has high production values. The alien world is very varied, ranging from creepy underground areas, to alien forests and even alien technologically advanced places too. The game looks and sounds great and I think that it is very comparable to other sci-fi games that have a much higher budget than this does.

Pros:

• I think that Kate is a fantastic and interesting protagonist
• The game is very challenging
• The alien world they have created here is like something from a movie
• I like the way Kate has to craft things to survive

Cons:

• I do worry that the game may be difficult just for the sake of being so
• Will the high difficulty put off some people