Hey, hey, people. Sseth here. Today I'll be reviewing a game that's not often talked about. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Have you ever been so thirsty you drink water straight from a toilet, only to catch ass parasites and die? Have you ever been so upset from getting caught in the rain that nothing could make you feel better, except a soothing shot of heroin? Have you ever decided to surgically implant yourself with bionics that allow instantaneous physical teleportation ... only to teleport inside a concrete wall and be crushed to death? All of these are distinct possibilities in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is a turn-based sandbox roguelike set in modern times following a sudden apocalypse. As a grueling survival game with permadeath, Cataclysm pulls no punches in creating a tense and sometimes bleak setting. Yet despite all that, it's incredibly, incredibly fucking fun. Story: the best part about the story is that no one knows exactly what happened. (not even the devs) But i'll give a simple gist of it: while future governments are busy bickering and frightening eachother, the cataclysm hits, we get invaded by different extra-dimensional organisms vying for control of Earth. Some of these are multiple species enthralled under a superior controller intelligence. Some are part of a sentient fungal hive mind that spreads its spores throughout the planet. And some are part of the most widespread and prolific group, known only as the blob. The game takes place several days after the cataclysm, by which point most human life ... has been extinguished in major cities. The sentient blob organism infests any living creature, and rapidly divides inside them until life functions fail. At which point, it will revive them as a host for the blob, using the body's biomass for fuel and muscles for locomotion. Any hosts of the blob are extremely aggressive, as their primary reproductive strategy relies on spreading the organism through open wounds. The infection is treatable, which is why blob hosts prefer to utilize mawling, deep bites, cuts, and claws ... to inoculate as much of the organism as possible. Preferably killing the victim in a process whose whole body will be hijacked within several hours and rise again ... as a fresh host. There is only one goal in Cataclysm: Survive. In the rare case you managed to live long enough to see winter, only then you can start developing ambitions. Go from just surviving, to controlling and dominating your environment. Find other survivors, and have them join you as companions. Follow radio signals and trails that lead to some of the last bastions of humanity... ... and help re-establish civilization. Cataclysm is designed as a survival sandbox and doesn't force you to do more than the bare necessities. The rest is up to you. Gameplay: Cataclysm is a roguelike A complicated one at that. You'll need to utilize your entire keyboard to make use of all the functions given to you. There's no point explaining the controls: just play it and play it until memorizing them is second nature to you. Download my copy, and play random characters until you figure it all out And don't forget to tell us how you died. Most of your characters won't live long, but if it's any consolation, my first character... ... was a literal neckbeard. I walked barely 5 meters out of the evac shelter and got attacked by a wild moose ... and which i somehow managed to kill by thrashing its skull with my Nintendo brick. It broke both of my legs, so I couldn't walk. So I played gameboy instead to avoid depression and distract from the pain. i was getting ravenously hungry I was getting ravenously hungry, so I dragged my crippled body to a sharp rock ... and used it to rip out raw chunks of Moose flesh and intestines Playing game boy in between bouts of regurgitating the disgusting flesh and entrails While dying at first then a pack of coyotes ate Then a pack of coyotes ate me alive. It was at this point I realized... THIS is the game for me. But stick with it, and you'll find yourself dying less from stupid circumstances... and more from your own stupid decisions. As briefly mentioned before, you play different characters in Cataclysm. While you can generate different worlds. These can Accommodate multiple characters, starting in different, unique scenarios randomly spread throughout a world. The class and background of a character you pick will either improve or hinder your odds of survival while their traits and quirks make for some hilarious situations: You could be flat-footed and stealthy, or brawny and resistant to disease. Or, you could be a psychopath, that feels no remorse ... when mowing down undead children with your Volkswagen Or you could be a schizophrenic suffering auditory and visual hallucinations. You can even start the game as a genetic dead-end having an allergy to almost every type of grain, fruit, dairy, or processed food. I hope you enjoy bulimia. Because that's a condition in this game. So is anorexia In many ways, Cataclysm is the quintessential teen girl simulator. Many of the classes in the game range from sensible, to complete meme material. You could pick anything from a police officer to a crackhead hooker BDSM gimp or even a religious preacher. On that note, very few games out there actually let you play as an Imam. Imams naturally start with increased diplomacy. lalalalala allahu akbar I recently did an imam playthrough of Cataclysm. Being a people person, I was more a talker than a doer. Within days, I had shown several survivors the true path to Jannah Equipping them with Kalashnikovs and gunning down every heathen on our war path to glory. This worked well, until we ran out of ammunition. Unfazed, my men continued to bash the enemy. As admirable as their courage was, we were assaulted by a zombie Hulk And who left my men in pieces, and me splattered on the sidewalk. Where you start on the map and what challenges you'll face are largely determined by the scenario. You could start as a standard survivor in an evac shelter, some miles away from the nearest city. Or a prisoner trying to break out of living hell as your inmates turn on you. Or a group of miners cracking through the earth to relive the events of John Carpenter's Thing. The game is so jam-packed full of content , that you'll never be bored. Cataclysm makes you realize that in a post-apocalyptic situation, where the power grid, infrastructure, and social services have collapsed, the most valuable thing on the planet becomes books. The brainless who can't read will be consumed by their lack of adaptation, while intellectual 105 IQ geniouses like myself will bloom. Books found across the world, especially in libraries and schools, can teach you technical skills that a lay person wouldn't possess. From being able to make simple tools in the wilderness To working and repairing cars, to complex metallurgy, and even making your own biodiesel. This goes all the way up to attempting bootleg surgery on yourself to install bionic implants to ... transcend your own humanity with only a small drawback Botched surgeries will leave you spilling out your own organs and permanently disfiguring you on your deathbed. Cataclysm's crafting system is amazing. Most recipes in the game follow a set hierarchy of ingredients Building up from raw materials and simple devices And breaking back down to those components when disassembled in their complex form. Let me give an example: if I know some simple electronics, I can assemble a flashlight with an amplifier circuit, scrap metal, a light strip, and some copper wire. Once I've made this flashlight, I can pull it apart and break it back down to those base components. You can spend hours poring over the absolute volumes of different crafting recipes available to you And many recipes in the game are flexible, don't have the optimal parts for something? That's fine. You can often substitute them for something else. Let's say I need medical supplies to disinfect wounds, but I lack rubbing alcohol. Then, any sufficiently strong spirits like vodka, brandy, or rum could be used instead. And no alcohol at all? Then you can still sterilize the gauze with concentrated honey. The system is fucking amazing. And there's no game that comes close to the amount of code reserved for crafting. At the beginning of a game it's unlikely you'll find a working car. Most left behind would be trashed or broken by now. But, whoever through sheerluck or some mechanical know-how You can commandeer your own personal vehicle. Cataclysm is the best turn-based driving game I've ever played in my life. It's absolutely insane how intense driving can be... ... when you're desperately plundering buildings for resources while avoiding hordes of zombies ... that want to pull your skin off. "But Seth, a car is huge, why not just mow the zombies down?" Sure, you can afford to run Sure, you can afford to run one or two or several, but the damage to individual car parts accumulates. And sooner or later, your engine will start coking. Your wheels will start coming loose and your windshield will be smashed to a pulp. Leaving you either dead in the middle of an ocean of undead closing in on you... ... or splattered on the pavement when your seat belt fails and sends you flying at a concrete wall. That is until you experience the world of high-end car crafting. If you somehow got hold of welding equipment you can pump up your hippie van to be a mobile death machine. Replacing the crappy eco-friendly plating with kevlar you scrapped off an APC, remove a gay inline engine and replace it with a V12 sports engine, add serrated spikes to the hood of your car and turn your current playthrough into a high-velocity Mad Max rampage Survival in Cataclysm is difficult, especially at the beginning, but through careful use of your own abilities and the resources at your disposal, you can make the game bend to your will. Or, you'll get tired of careful living, and start drinking public sewage water to malform into a hideous monstrosity. You won't miss those legs anyway, especially now that you've got eight of them. And can dangle from roofs constricting survivors and enemies as a gigantic mutated octopus. Or maybe you'll come to realize your struggle is pointless and futile, and decide to join the enemy. As a final word of caution: NEVER trust NPCs. The most dangerous creature in the Cataclysm is, still, other humans. And don't be surprised when someone plays innocent only to get close enough to aim a crossbow at your face ... and rob you blind. If I had to describe this game in one sentence, it would be single-player DayZ. Except fun. You can have someone call you a shithead dickhead Then immediately after ask you to avenge their friend who got eaten in the woods by a jabberwock. The bipolarity of NPCs is hilarious and dangerous, and really adds to the experience Also, the aforementioned jabberwock? Half of a time that quest completes itself So you don't have to do anything as either of a jabberwock gets eaten by something else... ... or steps on a landmine! I hope I've convinced you to try the best, Post-apocalyptic cotton farming and crack-smoking simulator on the market Also: it's free. So what have you got to lose? As always, more content to come, so stay tuned. A warm thank you to the many members of the ever growing merchants guild. For funding these videos. Stay Kosher.
Only someone like MandaloreGaming could top this review.
This is one of the best reviews for CDDA I've seen. A bit long, but it gets through all the essentials in the first 5 minutes. Great narrator voice, too.
I fuckin' love this guy's channel
So glad to see Szeth review CDDA, and I'm glad he absolutely loves it.
This is how I found this game. Been enjoying it so far.
Sseth usually gives pretty mocking reviews of games even when he likes them so its pretty telling that he had a lot of fun with it when half this video is looking into interesting mechanics lol
I can see the gravestone being used for some great jokes now. I wish I had the talent and patience to do it though
Just boil it its fiiiiiiiiiiiine...
When Sseth uploaded this I knew that he was godlike