Managing this stamina, not sprinting into fights so you can fight back, can mean the difference between life and respawning at your last save. Dodge rolling, swinging the sword and sprinting are all tied to a stamina bar which decreases with each action and slowly refills when not in use. When enemies invariably get up close and personal with Kate (and they’ll do this often), she has a laser cutting sword to slice them down. These are controlled by a battery which limits use, but can be refilled with pick-ups. These do everything from giving you a shield of temporary invulnerability, to creating a gravity field which slows down anything that passes through it. There’s a plethora of hazards you can trigger to damage nearby enemies when they pass.Īs you progress through the game, you’ll also collect a variety of gadgets. Later in the game, you can use the fire module to break the ice beneath your enemy’s feet, plunging them into the water below. When it’s raining, the hostiles will take bonus damage when shot with electricity, or will freeze quicker when hit with an ice projectile. For example, if one of the aliens is standing in water, a bolt of electricity will spread out across the surface like an area of effect attack, damaging any nearby foes. What makes Scars Above stand out from the pack however is the way these weapons interact with the environment. It’s a given that these weapons effect enemies (more on those in a second) in different ways, dealing damage but also adding a shocking, freezing or burn effect. This enables new projectile types like fire and ice. As Kate explores more of the world, making discoveries and recovering equipment, she can craft new modules for the weapon. At the start of the game, it shoots bolts of electricity. Kate’s primary means of offense is the VERA, an engineering tool that she has rigged into a weapon a la Isaac Clarke. She’s a scientist, so the combat is a little more cerebral than your typical soulslike. Kate’s not a trained fighter or a hardened bad ass. Combat in this game is tough, but not insurmountably so. Kate Ward – PHD In Kicking AssĬontinuing the trend of putting the protagonist at the centre of the Scars Above experience, the combat in this game reflects the characteristics of who Kate Ward is. Occasionally though, it feels absurd to have her talking to herself when she’s struggling for survival, surrounded by things that may want to kill her. The game goes out of its way to explain this at times, like Kate is making a log of her journey. The only other note here is that Dr Ward can suffer from a severe case of Lara-Croft-Itis, where she talks to herself a little too often. If you’re paying attention, you’ll have worked out where the story is headed long before you actually reach the reveal. What I will say is that the narrative is mostly well paced, if a little predictable. I won’t go into the actual story any more deeply so as not to spoil it. These sections move you into a first person view so that you can closely examine objects and even scan them to see their inner workings. In between these cutscenes, Kate will often talk to herself to give context to the objective, and additional details are given via notes/narrative pick ups and during investigation sections. The story of Scars Above is primarily delivered through cut scenes, book ending chapters of the game. It doesn’t take long to find out that almost everything on the planet is hostile and there’s something very peculiar going on. When Kate regains consciousness, she finds herself alone on an unfamiliar alien world. As they approach and start to scan from their space craft, the structure suddenly activates, emitting a blinding light. She’s part of a small team called S.C.A.R.s that has been sent to investigate a giant structure that has entered into orbit above Earth. In the game you play as Dr Kate Ward, an inquisitive and capable scientist. This is achieved by placing the protagonist at the centre of the experience.
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