BONEWORKS | A Great Tech Demo | 2020 Review

like this [Music] congratulations boneworks you're now the most modern game i've played for this channel and yes i do consider you a game i had lesser opinions on boneworks i saw that it wasn't reaching its full potential and i was disappointed until half-life alex came out and i realized just how precious something like boneworks really is did i beat it in under 4 hours yeah i also played it 10 times and can tell you that my run through was fairly economical the first time i played this game i had a blast fully exploring levels and clocked a run through it around 8 hours at launch the no mid-level saving and not recording any of the objects i collected my first playthrough because i didn't get the hidden sandbox module was annoying and there were a fair few puzzles that relied a bit too much on the physics the game's also on the easy side at least from my perspective i'm in the minority of people who can handle running at high speeds in vr with smooth turning giving me a distinct advantage over people who need to take the headset off every 15 minutes to recover i'm also a gameplay-oriented person which is fortunate because boneworks story is anemic okay so a little update uh we can see what's going on and something is definitely controlling the nomen we're not going to talk about the story got it i don't have high expectations for vr games to fully utilize interactive storytelling considering it's still in the experimental phase in terms of control systems and gameplay mechanics which is where boneworks really shines to start i'm playing on the valve index a headset i bought specifically for boneworks although far more people bought the headset for half-life alex i like a lot of other people saw the node video on this up-and-coming game and was impressed i had a slight interest in virtual reality but here's the thing certain people like to treat vr like it's going to replace conventional gaming entirely and i don't think this is the case i don't even think in an era of holodecks people will put down conventional screen gaming and the reason is that certain styles of games and mechanics will not translate is chess really improved by a life-size arena where you shout out commands no chess players want a small board where they can make moves really fast my interest in vr came down to being more interested in a new way to play video games was it expensive yeah most hobbies are the best way i can explain vr is that it feels like you're really there no that's actually the worst and most condescending way to explain it the best way to explain it is that in a flat game you move the mouse towards you to look up at least if you invert your y-axis in vr you actually look up because what you're looking at is above you enemies in a flag game look small in vr those same enemies are the same scale as you what you're seeing isn't exactly what i was seeing as this is a more narrow field of view mechanically boneworks is great which is interesting because if you took these same mechanical concepts and put them into normal fps it would be considered rather simple even bare bones each level you reset in terms of your items what you have access to is controlled on a per level basis with you exploring environments to find various items this is a mixture of classic melee weapons and firearms you have five physical inventory slots one for each shoulder one under each arm and one on your back this means partway through the level you will have to make a choice about what weapons you carry ammo can be found through levels hidden in lockers and desks or in crates that need to be broken open that are hidden everywhere this ammo comes in two universal types light and heavy corresponding to which weapon you're using part of the lack of difficulty comes down to a lack of proper resource management weapons may not carry over through level transitions but ammo will if you do something as basic as just pick up every ammo drop you see you will quickly come into a nexus that i don't think is possible to actually fully utilize in combat given what stress level zero said about mid-level saving and how they were surprised that people were spending two hours on the streets level i suspect the level designers didn't realize just how much of an impact a lack of restraint in terms of ammunition had on this game in terms of weapons we'll start with the melee weapons melee and vr is always going to be awkward boneworks tries to counteract this by simulating the player's virtual body this solution worked pretty well but melee combat was just well i didn't do much of it for the recording beyond what i had to this is partially an ai problem you'll mostly fight zombies physically because the zombie ai is simple and just translates its position towards the player it will close the gap you need to properly swing a weapon turning the fight into a confusing wrestling match so for most enemies it's better to use firearms there are two pistols well they technically added a third but it's not in the campaign so there's the license free glock 22 that decided to make a nine millimeter for some reason and there's a 1911. glock does less damage but has more ammo 1911 does more damage but has less it's 15 plus one versus seven plus one it's a simple balance that means i always chose the glock because in a battle between capacity and power capacity will always win at least when weight isn't in the picture handguns are great for a lot of reasons they can be fired easily with one hand for starters so while climbing or in an emergency you always have that option they're even more stable should you add a second hand to the grip i can then use my real thumb across each controller to reduce sway even if that probably confuses the index controller as to how many fingers i have i mean valve were surprised at how fast people were playing beat saber i have no doubt they're using telemetry to count how many fingers the average person has there are then smgs these are trash and should be avoided there's a micro uzi a few variants of mp5k and the mp5 proper their only benefit is that they take from the light ammo pool but considering what i said about the game's inflated ammo economy i would not worry about it they get massively overshadowed by the heavy weapons in terms of power and lack the benefit of one-handed use like the handguns this leads us into the heavy weapons which is a misnomer because 556 is not a heavy round and a few assault rifles aren't heavy weapons a rocket launcher is a heavy weapon and ar is mid-tier these guns are divided into m16s and mark 18s they are all fairly identical in function but with some added attachments vary in usefulness in order of most to least useful laser sight m16 holographic mark 18s acog m16 everything else the laser sight reigns supreme because of its high visibility 80 my already natural ability to line up shots the holographics are also easy to use the acog was fun for the few minutes it was available and everything else would just sit on my shoulder unless i encountered more than three enemies at once one problem is that you can't slap the bolt release on the ar platform guns okay hold on you see this paddle thing here when the bolt's back which happens after you empty a magazine this paddle's positioned so that you can press it with your thumb to release the bolt which cycles the next round the game instead expects you to either pull the trigger which wouldn't do anything or pull the charging handle which also wouldn't do anything okay gripe over there are no shotguns no sniper rifles no actual heavy weapons and only a few types of what is there in terms of weapons it's almost a demonstration of the technical variety this leads into the enemies divided into three categories head crabs headcrab zombies and heck you marines wait sorry it's headcrabs zombies and drones with guns and the occasional sentry turret these three types informs the basics of most first-person shooters the first you encounter zombies are pretty basic enemies what makes them interesting is the fact that their animations are done with inverse kinematics so zombies who have been wounded in various places will start moving differently but this also means that zombies have difficulty with stairs [Music] the problem is that zombies simply are not challenging even in numbers i never felt like i was in danger and i believe this to be in part a level design issue the level in the sewers was one of the more interesting levels because you had to go through a couple zombies before you found a gun including a rare type which shoots some kind of ranged digital attack that does a ton of damage while these guys present more risks their powers being visually displayed undercuts their threat level because it means they can be easily identified and shot first guns have always invalidated the threat of zombies and the ammo over saturation and boneworks means they never stood a chance the same is technically true of the headcrabs but they're much more fun to fight they're also animated with ik but their unusual shape and methods of attack make this more interesting [Music] the crablets will attempt to latch onto the player's head and drag them further into vr while slashing you up it is a lot of fun dodging them or timing swings to hit the mid-jump which makes it a shame that they are not a threat their more erratic behavior makes them harder to shoot but it's not impossible and they don't do enough damage even in packs to kill you this leads into the third enemy type that does actually pose a threat but by far the least interesting of the three the drones these are robots that project an outer holographic body attached to a rolling ball they have firearms and will engage all targets in a level because their weapons are raycasted and they have the least robust movement of the three types they're just sort of things you have to shoot my only death in the recording is owed to them because there were a large number of them in an area effectively operating as turrets in large part boneworks is a game of levels more so than ever before the first two levels are a tutorial which runs rather long but is effectively a comprehensive introduction to virtual reality including optional lessons in the history of the technology and opportunities to interact with the mechanics the problem is the game has difficulty deciding whether it wants to cover the story or the mechanics first it felt like two different people created tutorials at stress level 0 and they couldn't decide which was better so they included both meaning that the early part of the museum includes redundant movement tutorials it's also called the museum of technical demonstration a fitting name from the development team of self-consciousness it's very clear that stress level zero is pretending to not be booty bothered by people calling their games tech demos which i would agree is an unfair assessment there are plenty of vr games that are tech demos while slz at least seems interested in making actual games but this won't be the last time that they try to pretend their game they made for the express purpose of demonstrating technical advancements in virtual reality is not a tech demo so let's get into the basics of movement i wouldn't ordinarily cover this but seeing as this may be some of my viewers first experience with vr i'll talk about it generally it's possible for me to walk around my physical environment to navigate in vr but the virtual space is much bigger than the physical space so you can use the left joystick to move around this makes it possible to play the game both standing and even sitting although if you choose the latter i recommend a drum throne looking around is similar i could look around to the environment but certain directions tend to desync the headset more due to losing sight with the bass station so instead you can use the right joystick to look around most people will use snap turning which increments the camera a certain amount of degrees at a time but this looks much worse for the camera so i used smooth turning which operates more like a traditional joystick and often sends players to the vomitorium they just need to get good jumping is done with the right a button and can be charged by crouching crouching can be done physically or virtually with the right controller crouching is essential for climbing as it allows you to hoist your legs up onto the surface you're climbing to without the need for additional trackers on your feet and also a physical wall for you to climb you can then pick up objects which have realistic weights requiring two hands if they're heavy enough to move many interactable objects can also be force grabbed flying the objects directly to the player so with our bases covered we can get into the levels proper cutscene and tutorial at the end of the museum we get dumped into the first real level the streets i don't really consider the first level in the museum of tech demo to be real levels they are instead a 15 minute tutorial well 15 minutes if you just walk through and don't do anything the streets level starts outside the museum you go through an abandoned playground and eventually into a hallway where you'll encounter the first null man currently deactivated after using a hammer the wrong way to break some boards we get outside into an employee area the way i would describe the visual design of the game is like intentional programmer graphics the game looks like a polished prototype pack you download for unity which makes sense given the world is actually a work in progress virtual reality space it bears mentioning here because of the obvious grid structure of the ground and bare bones object placement it works because the game would obviously strain over realistic environmental needs for physics objects especially in virtual reality but they can get away with the style because it is a simulation this courtyard here was host to a raffle which rewards a key card in the 8th box you break what's nice here is the game doesn't waypoint that you need to get the keycard here you could absolutely get to the point where you need the key card and be confused had you ignored and walked past this area but the area is designed well enough that the eye is immediately drawn to the raffle and human curiosity should inspire people to want to open the raffle boxes should that fail there's a null man that the player might attack that will invariably break open a raffle box or two themselves and the sentry turret in the next area provides a decent chance the player may die and respawn having to walk by the raffle again this is relevant because if boneworks was an easily accessible flat game then some games journalists reviewing it would invariably complain about getting stuck here for 30 minutes because they didn't understand the intuitive level design that went into this area boneworks is able to respect the intelligence of the player in its design because of its limited access and this isn't the last time the game will commit what are often called faux pas by plebs heading on this century turret poses an obvious threat to the player with multiple paths around it players can use trash can lids as shields to break line of sight or climb a wall to get past the turret this leads into their recess where the player will encounter their first crablet should they attempt to get the ammo next to it leading to an inevitable struggle and a closed space as a solid first encounter for this enemy type this was where i encountered a door that opened straight into a wall this adds to the visual aesthetic of the game showing the in-universe designers as spacing out the future work areas the same way this would be done by a real designer of a virtual space now that might seem like masturbatory praise so let's go to a criticism this work area we unlock here has a wheel that's tied to a crane that is dangling giant containers that we use to knock over a wall this serves no actual purpose and wouldn't exist in real life and it shouldn't exist in a digital world either it's even a prize from winning the raffle to gain access to this room it undercuts the theme of tech corporations being ruthless to characterize said corporation as allowing and rewarding employees with physics puzzles unless it's commentary on valve further on after the blue key card we encountered the first of many vending machines these machines take ammo as payment and allow early access or sometimes just normal access to weapon types you can get your first gun here which is a trap because you'll find a gun not long after in the environment that itself is often a problem because the level designers while demonstrating competence in areas of intuition didn't seem keen on the idea of controlling the flow of weapons through levels and it can really undermine the thrill of finding a secret only for it to be outclassed by something that was more obviously placed in a level overall i completely ignored the vending machines during my recorded playthrough except on the final level where it was the only access to a weapon the vending machines provide a fantastic opportunity to control the excess of ammo that players are carrying which can create some much needed tension but they may have shied away from that idea due to a final vending machine near the end of the game that is used to unlock various gadgets for the sandbox mode if players are running out of ammo that means they definitely won't have enough to buy anything at this vending machine something that was all but confirmed by the fact that when i reached this machine i had a total of 20 000 rounds despite liberal usage of firearms being more than enough to buy something from it while this means that the levels are overall well designed to ensure players will have enough to engage with this final machine i will again stress that it undercuts any tension the game can have and all this for gadgets that honestly should have just been hidden around levels in boneworks crates like the balloon gun is these boneworks crates are sometimes good rewards for exploration and sometimes they provide a cheap sandbox unlock disproportionate to the amount of effort the puzzle requires which was just salt in the wound for the game considering it didn't even register any of my unlocks from my first playthrough as i hadn't gathered the sandbox module which at the time was hidden in the museum behind a locked wall that i couldn't unlock without restarting the game and arbitrarily deciding to archive all the objects despite instructions otherwise yes i am salty even after they fixed it i guess on the topic sandbox modes are to me often the least interesting aspect of a game they certainly provide an excellent opportunity to quickly demonstrate some ideas for a video but by themselves when i'm not recording aren't really a draw i definitely know for a fact that i'm not as creative as i used to be but really what does that say it says that i'm not as easily impressed by literally everything anymore i can still find creative solutions to problems and i often more so enjoy games to present problems for me to solve creatively in terms of creatively solving problems however this next area has a gate which opens to the previous area however astute players who've mastered the mechanics of climbing can actually reach this area first as i did my first time playing the game the bonework staffs have not dictated a certain way their levels need to be completed and there is going to be many a time that climbing will allow you to sequence brake levels the next area has a ladder that when you climb it pulls a platform down it's a neat trick exclusive to vr because it's dependent on the player physically attempting to climb without having the feedback necessary to realize that they haven't left the ground the next area is a prime example of a puzzle that can be bypassed with some clever climbing on the other side of the room is a grate that opens when a button is held down on our side there's a weighted object that can hold it down but attempting to cross now will just drop the way across it's a fine puzzle except you can solve it by placing another object on the button then climbing atop the moving platform and pulling it down from the top until you can climb inside this drops down into the first of several story monitors where a real world character relays information to the player as well as a gun i didn't shoot this one because i had just gotten my gun and was reloading it this leads into a weird section where a giant cube will suck up anybody walking on the street and dump them back into the trash compacting room what's weird about it is that the actual street it patrols that the player can access is limited and it never comes up again i guess somebody was just proud of the script they made in this little sequence as a demonstration of the technology we passed by a section where this quarantine wall had popped up in the first level effectively completing a large loop around the museum while that's neat it makes me wonder why subsequent playthroughs weren't offered the ability to skip the tutorial that would land the players here instead of the museum the game unfortunately quickly runs into the new valve problem of putting the puzzle before the logic like why there's an area with ramps to push down is a mystery especially considering the amount of effort it would take to get them back up again or how about the giant catapult that launches you across the street i don't exactly get what everyone's problem with this tech corporation is considering all people seem to do here is build physics contraptions does that mean that the sandbox mode being boring is diegetic storytelling this brings us into the next level runoff there's a confusing section where another person closes a door and passes as a rifle before it fully closes okay so if they wanted to help us they could just open the door again that's what the button does i know because we get there later and press it this person doesn't come up again we don't know who this person is and for all three people who care about the story it's not an alternate reality version of us my best guess is other people were supposed to be in the game and the idea got dropped but not before appearing in one of the trailers this section is interesting because again there are many ways of completing it maybe i've played a few too many linear games so any interactivity impresses me at this point but there was nothing quite like realizing i could hop this railing and climb a pipe to bypass an entire puzzle opening the door reveals the drone enemies and this should probably have been the first introduction to them in the game the streets should have only had zombies first level being zombie exclusive is code in the shooter handbook this leads into a long shooting section with the drones which best utilizes their design as enemies for longer range engagements but this is definitely an area that stress level 0 needs to see improvement in going forward as their ai is rather simple not utilizing cover or attempting flanks and here's a door that has the balls to tell you it's going to lock if you let it close and it will actually do it the madman one of the problems with the game is demonstrated here and that's the reloading while crouched the ammo supply is tied to your character's waist which is almost impossible to reach if you're crouched down so you can't effectively reload while in cover but even the basic act of using cover can render the challenge the drone enemies effectively moot since they won't make effective attempts at flanking maneuvers this one appears to make an attempt at a flank but actually it's just attempting to gain a line of sight again as it doesn't seek cover once it does find me for a short section i use the acog m16 which does not properly appear on the spectator camera as it did in game it does use actual magnification which can be hit or miss in vr for me it works here and it's interesting that aiming in vr can be somewhat contingent on your ability to aim in real life which can be aided if you have the ability to aim while keeping both eyes open another physics puzzle this time unskipable which is unfortunate because it's my least favorite variety the floating barrel kind but after one more long-range combat sequence we drop down into a grimy trash collection area which effectively starts the strongest part of the game where it really opens up before it was strong sections punctuated with weak physics puzzles and while those never really go away they do take a back seat to the mechanical core of boneworks as a first person shooter this starts with the first level sewers yeah yeah i get it sewers and first person shooters i spent time complaining about how bad the sewers and mournhold were so let's contrast that with a sewer level that i like the area is dark and moody its cramped interiors means the game is forced to focus on its mechanical strengths rather than its physics simulations it doesn't use the virgin ray cast drones but the chad projectile zombies there is also a strong weapon flow unlike the previous level where you find two glocks after you find several m16s this is my favorite trap in the game the area is also constantly changing there isn't the boring repetition of most sewer levels and most importantly the sewers don't overstay their welcome this leads into another great level warehouse a more open level the first half revolves around crossing a wall into the second it's a beautifully short level displaying a level of creative competence regarding the mechanics and abilities of the player you could go the obvious way around the building clockwise but with a little climbing the other way works as well a little more climbing and you can get in through the roof bypassing the battery section entirely once you're past the wall you're presented with another obstacle it can be beaten with further climbing by landing a jump from the first wall or by fighting through this building to the roof this enters the final section a train stump rife with drones it's easier to criticize than it is to pray so consider my short commentary a testament to the quality of the levels arriving at central station the player is greeted by an amazingly atmospheric rainy train station which is a great place to talk about the music since it's the cover of the ost this is the work of michael wikhoff who did a fantastic job it seems that working on stress level zero's other two games his talents as a game composer have only grown the way i would best describe the soundtrack is that it makes the world feel hollow which sounds like an insult but that's what the game is going for the world is a literal simulation built on shady practices the cheery tunes sound produced the same way corporate music is produced while the melancholic tracks nail the atmosphere of the game [Music] [Applause] [Music] i am [Music] [Music] so [Music] central station is another great level as it loops around on itself but still provides a straightforward progression you're never presented a choice in directions which risks getting stuck in one so you can't explore the other route the weapon flow of central station is a little weak but i would say that's because the level runs long once you get to the trolley section this leads into the tower proper which is where the game starts to crack but is still holding strong there are some performance issues on this level even after i neutered the game in order to stabilize the frame rate while i record i don't play older games because i have a fairly weak computer the problem is that the tower is a fairly complex level that should have been cut in half hell considering the matter reclamation been at the literal halfway point it may have been two levels at one point the base courtyard is a constant battle between zombies and drones which at best is a loose metaphor for the system combating internal corruption but it should have been done in a more performant level there's a bit of an annoying key card game where you get one key to unlock a door to get another key to unlock a door to get a final key you need all of which happens within 20 meters of each other things stabilize once again once you start climbing the tower until you reach the upper ring where you're presented with a choice between left and right each path is a different combat segment which is a fine idea by itself but it's again packed into an unstable level but it also means that anyone who is fully exploring levels is going to do one of these sections backwards and then we'll have to run the whole length of it again to collect everything and god bless anyone who got the boneworks crate in the center especially if you fell at least once doing it because that entails climbing the now empty tower again but hey we're finally at the time tower this is basically the final boss of the game it's a combat segment where you have to use these pneumatic cannons to reconnect some balls to the main ball i'm pretty good at it now but trust me trying to figure out how to aim these things while fighting off enemies is a really fun challenge but it's not a fitting final boss considering the experience up to this point well at least it was fun after fixing the time tower we get transported to some kind of reference and step off into the void starting the credits sequence and the game definitely doesn't end with a 20 minute you to the player and everything the game had been mechanically designed around i mean this game that strengths are maneuvering in vr while using physically rendered weapons and well-balanced firearms to fight in a dystopic abandoned simulation that nailed five levels of atmospheric first-person shooting is definitely suited to throw the player in a fantasy prison cell with another bad physics puzzle that i just straight up ignore into a forced arena section that you can't bypass or climb out of a short climbing section that ends in a fist fight with a guy that has too much health and far too much self-conflict symbolism before having the player walk across the massive empty space and actually physically climb a sneak eater to your ladder so they could watch gutsy a cut scene that amounts to the confusing message of how virtual reality and big tech corporations are a bad thing i said i wouldn't talk about the story and this is why bonework sends the time tower what story it has is inferred from the environment smash the monitors when you see them skip the cutscenes when they play don't bother with the final three levels there's a half-life zen joke in here somewhere and i don't have the spirit to make it with time stress level 0 have made some solid improvements to the game at some point i'll have to cover the topic of post launch updates one of the main reasons i generally don't analyze new games mid-level saving was a nice addition in making the sandbox module more prominent and available to all players was a good change but overall the campaign was otherwise untouched with slz instead focusing efforts on more ancillary content to start there's the shooting range level which is actually a genuine bonus level with areas to explore and enemies to fight and a new handgun to use i think they did a good job with this level as it plays to the game's strength mechanically at least until they got nervous the player may have run out of ammo and give the player 4 000 rounds to complete a puzzle that's kind of embarrassing this level is complete with a time trial course for handguns that's kind of confusing and easy to miss targets and also doesn't have any kind of quick restart button so i didn't bother trying to get any kind of impressive time they also released one of the levels from the promo videos the redacted chamber which is fine i guess it's a boring level but it changes slightly every time you loop through it which is neat there's also two separate horde modes one's a variant of the fantasyland arena from the base game and it is as boring here as it was there the other is black ops zombies which was released recently it's a big thing is that the zombies can climb now but only in this mode arenas is short challenged based survival while zombie warehouse is longer term survival horde mode isn't to the strengths of the game there simply isn't enough of an enemy variety to make the idea interesting the game's mechanics are better suited when the player is on the offensive and that's the core of boneworks really boneworks may be rusty in areas that i would viciously tear down in a traditional game but it makes such a solid attempt at translating the basics of good first person shooter mechanics in virtual reality in a way that's fun and engaging i look forward to seeing what stress level zero goes on to make using the knowledge they gained from working on boneworks because of their current trajectory they're going to make valve regret half-life alex in a few years

Channel: PatricianTV

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Keywords: Patrician, BONEWORKS review, BONEWORKS review 2020, BONEWORKS trailer, BONEWORKS sandbox, BONEWORKS ost, BONEWORKS zombie warehouse, BONEWORKS zombie mode, BONEWORKS analysis, BONEWORKS index review, BONEWORKS valve index, BONEWORKS VR Review, BONEWORKS VR, BONEWORKS VR trailer, BONEWORKS tech demo, BONEWORKS gameplay, BONEWORKS soundtrack, BONEWORKS game review, BONEWORKS pc review, BONEWORKS pc gameplay, BONEWORKS zombie warehouse review, BONEWORKS 1.5 review, BONEWORKS

Id: sjl16GEY-2E

Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020