grounded review
📱
need to know
what is it? A survival game inspired by Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
Expected payment: £25/$30
release date: September 27, 2022
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher Xbox Game Studios
audit date RTX 3080 Ti, Intel i7-8086K, 16GB RAM
multiplayer game? 4 people cooperate
association Official website(opens in a new tab)
I haven’t done my research, but I’m pretty confident that no one in PC Gamer is more afraid of spiders than me. They petrified me – unless they managed to attack me and then I ran around like a fire. I’d rather be on fire than feel spiders crawling through my skin. Given that, it’s absurd for me to put myself in a situation where I have to censor a game full of them. But for a survival game as good as Grounded, I’m willing to go through one of my worst nightmares.
Grounded is a time-traveling contraption that drags me back to the garden, where I used to spend long, sunny afternoons pretending I was in Eternia or Third Earth, collecting grass stains and scrapes. It’s a game fueled by vibrant ’90s cartoons and movies like Honey I Shrunk the Kids, where four kidnapped, shrunken teenagers explore an alien world right under our noses.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
It’s a whimsical survival sandbox that feels more fun and welcoming than most games, which is why its occasional turn to arachnid horror is so effective. When it launched in Early Access, Grounded had very few threats. The huge, scary spiders scattered across the garden never get far and are easily and deftly defeated, sending me into a false sense of security. But with each update, they became more deadly, turning into ruthless hunters looking for prey in areas I once thought were sanctuaries.
So even though I played a lot of Grounded before getting to 1.0, I still had to study my eight-legged enemies to figure out their behaviors and weaknesses – a process that often required sacrificing myself. Creatures can be targeted by putting your hands together to make a fleshy telescope, revealing their resistance and vulnerability, but to get more information you really need to follow them and watch how they interact with their ecosystems.
All inhabitants of the garden have their own patterns and characteristics. For example, red ants are peaceful but curious when first encountered. They will fight other bugs, but if you leave them alone, they won’t get in your way. However, if you invade their nest, the soldier ants will try to drive you out. If you start doing some aggressive garden maintenance by squeezing lots of friendly ants, they might even declare war and try to drive you out of the garden. That’s why my first base had to be abandoned.
ground warfare
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
The world is so enticingly reactive, and it’s a reactivity that you’re encouraged to take advantage of. I killed my first bedbug – a poison-spraying monster – and had three fights between it, a ladybug and a swarm of ants. These bugs have all the physical advantages, but you have a smart human brain.
Sometimes the best path to victory is to cheat a little.
Sometimes the best path to victory is to cheat a little. Maybe you’ll climb where you can’t reach and shoot your enemies with arrows. Or maybe you’ll be more cunning and pull them towards where you know they’ll get stuck. So while critter AI can seem very effective at times, it can also be easily confused or broken. Not a problem to be solved, however, but the ability to win battles through tacky tactics feels like another legitimate survival strategy, and even in a state of confusion, the garden’s biggest predator remains intimidating threaten.
Few sandboxes can feel this dynamism. The garden is never quiet, and every step you take is accompanied by the screeching chirping of insects – seemingly jarring at first, but ultimately reassuring and familiar. Visibility is poor when you’re surrounded by tree-sized grass, but having lived in the garden for so long, I can now paint a picture of it with my ears. I feel like a little wilderness expert, all thanks to the incredible sound design. At least before I get distracted, something nasty creeps up on me.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
This happens more in cooperatives. Just the other night I was chatting with a friend who narrowly escaped a spider. We wandered around our base, next to a building-sized juice box (which I later turned into a watchtower), discussing our sense of safety and how we avoided any spiders that might follow him back. It was too late, and in the middle of the conversation, I heard an alien voice: similar to footsteps, but more implicitly threatening. Then a leg appeared and came to the corner.
My friend was murdered first. He has no chance. I’m about to jump into the water, I know the tarantula won’t catch up, but I want revenge. With my pitiful club and half-hearted battle cry, I charged at the demon. It rose to its feet, its crimson eyes twinkling, its evil fangs ready, and let out an otherworldly shriek. I didn’t even get a chance to hit it once.
Horror is so effective, especially as night falls, I find myself whispering several times, even though these spiders can’t hear the conversation on Discord yet. Whenever I feel safe, the spiders attack. I woke up one morning to find one of them hanging out on my roof – a harrowing encounter, and when one of them smashed through my wall, there was nothing.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
Escape is the premise that propels Grounded forward. You’ll need to unravel the mystery of the kidnapping and find a way to grow bigger again, exploring laboratories built by scientists who have made a huge breakthrough that led to your unfortunate situation. These lab tours can be tricky, and even the simplest tours will get you into spider-infested hedges. Even if you don’t want to escape, labs are a great source of raw science that makes life in the garden easier – if you want to survive, you need to get smarter.
brain power
Raw Science is a valid experience, filling up a meter before you level up and unlock new crafting recipes. It can be found in limited quantities in the wild, but you can earn more by completing simple BURG.L quests, a friendly bumbling bot.You can also unlock related crafting recipes in the Analysis Resources and Errors section of the Field Station and More original science for you. It’s convenient to have multiple ways to unlock these recipes, but the level system can sometimes feel redundant because of this.
There have been a few times I’ve earned nothing while leveling up because I’ve unlocked the recipe using the analyzer, which eliminated my sails a bit. That’s all you get when you get a new level; things like health and stamina upgrades are tied to a completely different system. Traits are also handled individually by the mutation system, giving you a significant advantage in completing challenges. For example, kill a lot of bugs with your spear, and your spear attack will start reducing the enemy’s defense. However, you can only choose two at a time, although that number can eventually increase to five. The pace of progress makes you feel like you’re dealing with this survival problem very quickly, but I prefer fewer systems and less overlap.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
While leveling up may not always make a lot of sense, collecting raw science is still essential, as it can also be used on lab computers for special recipes that can’t be unlocked anywhere else. These range from longer-lasting torches that allow you to delve into anthills and spider dens, to solid fortifications that can turn your base into a fortress, and every time you find one of BURG.L’s missing chips, a recipe list will Expand and hide the entire garden.
Although you often craft familiar items like swords, chests, and walls, each item reinforces the fact that you’re pocket-sized.
Crafting and building greatly benefit from the creative environment. Although you often craft familiar items like swords, chests, and walls, each item reinforces the fact that you’re pocket-sized. So instead of making a sword out of steel, you need to hunt the deadly mosquito and harvest its proboscis. Tango with a flying monster that might stab you with a few punches is more exciting than mining and smelting ore. Since Grounded operates in cartoon logic, that mosquito sword will also heal you by stealing the blood of your enemies. Isn’t nature amazing?
This logic also applies to base building, which is flexible and gravity-defying enough to allow you to build a massive structure with nothing but branches and grass that meanders up the side of an oak tree. Everything is recyclable, refunding part of the cost, while the furniture and crafting table can be easily relocated. It’s simple and forgiving, so you can really start assembling the beautiful build soon after you arrive in the garden. You’ll quickly unlock all the essential parts and find the resources you need for them almost anywhere.
adventure time
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
It may be tempting to focus on perfecting your safe, comfortable base, but there’s always something pushing you out the door, whether it’s a need for food and water, or a new recipe for a rare resource. The thing you need may be in an uncharted area, and Grounded seems happy to provide you with a shopping list full of things you might not be able to find – usually a bug’s limb, which in seconds will You squish. I’ve found it to be a great motivator, though, and there’s usually more than one way to get what you need.
Go explore, and you’ll encounter hidden weapons, spider bags filled with new bug parts and resources (and terrifying spider babies), and a ton of primordial science—all just waiting to be snatched by a daring idiot.
That’s what I hoped to find the first time I wandered through an anthill unprepared. Instead, I just found a lot of eggs. Not wanting to go home empty handed, I started grabbing them, at which point every ant lost their shit. Then my flashlight went out. I scrambled around, hit the wall, and yelled, but I still managed to escape, with a little health and my prize: four eggs. The sun had already set when I had my misfortune, so I took it back to my base for a good rest. Figuring out what to do with the eggs can wait until tomorrow, I guess. However, when tomorrow came, the eggs were gone, replaced by four adult ants. at my house. messed up my shit. That’s why I accidentally became an ant farmer.
The default settings are finely tuned to offer a series of tense but surmountable adventures in which death is the pest rather than the end. You can retrieve your inventory by finding your grave, although your gear will take minor damage. But Grounded is flexible enough to generate a variety of survival experiences. If you’d rather build and explore without any risk, you can turn off all threats and let you wander around without fear of starving or becoming spider food. That, combined with its myriad accessibility options, including an arachnophobia mode that turns spiders into amorphous blobs, makes it a game with few obstacles and a lot of tools.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
I thought I was tired of the survival system and arduous corpse runs, but in Grounded I didn’t even think about turning off any danger. When I hunt for food, I miss dodging bombardier beetle shells, or crouching under tree roots and praying that sneaking spiders won’t notice me. I am very happy…
Find more articles in our categories Gaming & News ou encore Anime.
Thanks for visiting we hope our article grounded review
, think about share the article on Facebook, instagram and e-mail with the hashtag ☑️ #grounded #review ☑️!
