The Ashes 2063, DMW, and Afterglow gaming and Q & A thread

Ashes is pretty much the only «franchise» i am playing these months and i am playing at a very slow pace.
I replayed Ashes 2063 and DMW and still had a blast.
My only complain were the platforming segments and the lack of plot twists in DMW.

I am enjoying Afterglow so far.
Just finished the flooded district, and i was very much impressed by the sheer size of this level, and the fact there are so many doors leading to already explored areas.
Although, i was a bit less impressed by the character i've met in the end.
It felt a bit like the dev wanted me to have a specific impression/feeling about the character, but it feels like it was overdone a bit.

 

Possible bug
When i talk to Silver in Prosperity, asking about a job, when i tell him i have to clean the tunnels of mutants, Silver answer the same as if i asked about how his friends look like.

 

You didn't get me.

Silver wants me to find his friends.
When I ask him how I know that I found his friend. He gives me answer AAA about how they look like.

Then, I have other dialogs with silver. There is a category of dialogs on which I talk with him about the other quests I have in the city. Like a different question and a different answer for each quest.

When I mention the quest about mutants in the tunnel. His answer should be answer BBB, about the tunnels and the mutants. Instead, He gives me the answer AAA about how his friends look like, which is an entirely different quest. So there is a bug in his answers.

Do I need a screenshot or you got what I am saying ?

 

Once the initial dialog happened and Silver invites you into his building, and you open dialog again, there a dialog section in which you can ask him question about several quests in the city. I guess the protagonist is more inclined to seek advices from the people in the same line of work.

PS: I am playing on 1.05 version.

 

I had to took a hiatus from playing it as there is a lot going on IRL at the moment, so the screenshot will be delayed.

I didn't see this video as i am afraid of possible spoilers, but it might be a good one.

 

afterglow doesnt really work on the computer i use today

 

I am very late on these screenshots. Didn't play it for months, and then forgot.

I asked question 2 on first screen, then question 1 on second screen.
Instead of answering about the mutants, he answers about his friends.

Does it run Windows 3.1 ?

 

I finished Ashes: Afterglow yesterday, having played Ashes 2063 and Dead Man Walking beforehand.
I don't have a way with words, even in my native Spanish, so I'll keep this comment short...ish. Be it as it may, I tried like 5 times to write a short comment, and I'm simply unable to. I'll simply drop a list of bullet points to summarize my thoughts.

• Ashes stands alongside the greats of post-apocalyptic canon, such as classic Fallout and Wasteland. For Fallout fans, old and new, Ashes is a must play.
  
• There are hardly any low points to both games. I say "hardly" because I can't think of any at the moment.
• The aesthetic and sound design are top notch. You just need to play through the first level of 2063 to come to terms with this. The soundtrack is just killer.
  
• The games don't waste your time anymore than Doom does. That is, it's a thrilling ride from beginning to end, with "where is that key" being the only thing you need to bother with.
• Itemization is short and to the point. If you can pick it up, then you will have a use for it. If you don't want to use it, you will be able to trade it for valuable cash.
• The weapon selection is *chef's kiss*. My only criticism, if anything, is that some weapon modifications made the guns look uglier instead of more awesome. So I didn't take them.
  
• The story is actually very nice! In true Fallout fashion, it isn't spoonfed to the player. No exposition dumps. No constant retread of stuff you already know. You uncover more and more of the world as you play through it, and it is great because it lets you speculate and see whether your theories paid off.

I burned out on Fallout: New Vegas in the past few months, wondering when (if) I will replay the game. And Ashes 2063 and Afterglow showed me exactly why. Virtually everything I disliked about the game was either 1) Not present in Ashes, 2) Addressed.

A basic example that explains what I mean: in classic Fallout, locations used predetermined music tracks. This let developers set the tone for those areas. Bethesda scrapped that, and New Vegas sort of followed, with exceptions. Engine limitation or not, Ashes also uses predetermined music tracks. Not just for levels, but also during levels. At times you will be rocking an awesome song, only for the soundtrack to go mute minutes later... and you begin to fear for your life. It's so effective, yet so simple in hindsight. And the games are choke full of great details like these.

I took so many screenshots of these games which I would love to share. But the locations and characters encountered in Ashes are so fascinating that even sharing them would feel like spoiling the experience.

I do have a question to ask, though @The Dutch Ghost Dutch: is something wrong with my install, or was the neat colored dialogue removed in favor of plain white text? All videos I find use that colored dialogue, but then again, they are older than the latest release.

 

You are welcome!

I did play Doom and Doom II in preparation for my Ashes playthroughs. It didn't feel right otherwise, plus I scratched off those two from my "games to play" list. Amazing games.

The pace of Ashes is signficantly different, being more narrative oriented, with levels resembling plausible locations as opposed to a mechaflesh fever dream where nothing makes any sense whatsoever (even if the gameplay is fantastic). I can't recommend these games enough.

My only other (probably engine-related) criticism is that I couldn't seem to take screenshots during dialogue.

 

Alright.

I deliberately avoided the coolest locations, as well as major story locations.

Spoiler warning anyways:

Spoiler

 

I used the GZDoom source port. It improves the resolution, and it has neat visual features if you are into them.
I definitely enjoyed them! And this was the first time I played them, mind you (as a kid I remember my brother playing Doom from time to time). Certain levels are worse than others. It just shows that in an FPS arguably the most important thing is level design.