Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

[RCoon]

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a hybrid mix between turn-based strategy and a free-roam RPG. While it takes ideas from the basic concoction of strategy games, it sets itself apart from the group with a nice sprinkling of compelling story and some truly bizarre and unique characters.

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[Space Lynx]

More games should have an integrated graphics preset, that is a great idea.

the 62 fps cap is a little bit of an odd number, lol

 

[RCoon]

the 62 fps cap is a little bit of an odd number, lol

It's weird how common it is to turn VSync off and find yourself sat at 61 or 62 FPS these days. I dunno what magic some of these games are crafted with that churns out that particular number to get stuck at.

 

[bug]

The expanding awareness circle could mean when you get close, the enemy simply becomes more alert? Imagine yourself on a patrol and suddenly hearing something of feeling someone around.
Idk how well that works in practice, but that's my feeling about that circle getting bigger when you get close.

 

[RCoon]

The expanding awareness circle could mean when you get close, the enemy simply becomes more alert? Imagine yourself on a patrol and suddenly hearing something of feeling someone around.
Idk how well that works in practice, but that's my feeling about that circle getting bigger when you get close.

It makes that circle somewhat pointless though. As a player you will never ever reach the edge of the initial circle since it changes as soon as you get within a few meters. So why bother making it that small in the first place? Why not make it the larger size by default?

 

[bug]

It makes that circle somewhat pointless though. As a player you will never ever reach the edge of the initial circle since it changes as soon as you get within a few meters. So why bother making it that small in the first place? Why not make it the larger size by default?

Keep you on your toes?
Who knows, maybe they wanted to give you the ability to get better at stealth so that if you got good enough the circle wouldn't expand anymore? But yeah, if all it does is make things unnecessarily awkward, it should probably be revised. Maybe in a day-o patch, since the game wasn't released when you reviewed it?

 

[Hellfire]

Great review, I've had this game on my radar for sometime, so will definitely look into it. The fact it does borrow from Xcom just makes it all the better for me.

 

[Assimilator]

What engine is this? UE4?

 

[Hellfire]

What engine is this? UE4?

Yes, I believe it is UE4 from back when I looked into it.

 

[RCoon]

It is indeed UE4. I used to mention game engines in every review but people didn't really care.

 

[bug]

It is indeed UE4. I used to mention game engines in every review but people didn't really care.

Fps seems rather low for a UE4 based title. Any idea why?

 

[RCoon]

Fps seems rather low for a UE4 based title. Any idea why?

Didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. There's a 62FPS cap in place so that's preventing a true idea of what max FPS could be. I'd also posit that optimisation is probably not cutting edge right out of the gate.

EDIT: When you have a cap in place it really skews the average and min statistics since the variation is tiny over a certain period.

 

[Hokum]

This game looks great, I may wait for it to get a discount first though.

 

[Hellfire]

Didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. There's a 62FPS cap in place so that's preventing a true idea of what max FPS could be. I'd also posit that optimisation is probably not cutting edge right out of the gate.

EDIT: When you have a cap in place it really skews the average and min statistics since the variation is tiny over a certain period.

have you peaked into the config files to see if you can remove the cap?

 

[RCoon]

have you peaked into the config files to see if you can remove the cap?

There's a config file in %APPDATA%\ZoneUE4\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor that you can use to change the cap from 62 to whatever you want. My issue is the fact you have to change this at all and why it's not tied to VSync being on or off, or the screen refresh rate in the game's menu.

It's easy enough to rerun the performance analysis, but I like to make a point to developers not to make stupid decisions.

 

[Hellfire]

There's a config file in %APPDATA%\ZoneUE4\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor that you can use to change the cap from 62 to whatever you want. My issue is the fact you have to change this at all and why it's not tied to VSync being on or off, or the screen refresh rate in the game's menu.

It's easy enough to rerun the performance analysis, but I like to make a point to developers not to make stupid decisions.

Totally, and I am with you on that thought track, I don't know why Devs decide to cap FPS, my hate is when they tie game speed to the frame rate, it just feels lazy.

I was just curious how it performed if you removed the limit. maybe the RPG/moving element is tied to the frame rate?

 

[RCoon]

Totally, and I am with you on that thought track, I don't know why Devs decide to cap FPS, my hate is when they tie game speed to the frame rate, it just feels lazy.

I was just curious how it performed if you removed the limit. maybe the RPG/moving element is tied to the frame rate?

I'll rerun the benchmark tonight uncapped and add the slide.

 

[bug]

Didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. There's a 62FPS cap in place so that's preventing a true idea of what max FPS could be. I'd also posit that optimisation is probably not cutting edge right out of the gate.

EDIT: When you have a cap in place it really skews the average and min statistics since the variation is tiny over a certain period.

Oh yes, the fps cap. I read it in the review, but forgot about it.
I was used to UE4 titles having higher frame rates, but a frame cap will kick that in the nuts. Thanks.

Totally, and I am with you on that thought track, I don't know why Devs decide to cap FPS, my hate is when they tie game speed to the frame rate, it just feels lazy.

I was just curious how it performed if you removed the limit. maybe the RPG/moving element is tied to the frame rate?

I limit the fps myself (adaptive vsync) when I can. If the title doesn't need high fps, why crunch frames you won't see? You can save some Watts that way and maybe allow the fan on the GPU to take a break

 

[RCoon]

Oh yes, the fps cap. I read it in the review, but forgot about it.
I was used to UE4 titles having higher frame rates, but a frame cap will kick that in the nuts. Thanks.


I limit the fps myself (adaptive vsync) when I can. If the title doesn't need high fps, why crunch frames you won't see? You can save some Watts that way and maybe allow the fan on the GPU to take a break

Which is why as a developer you either add a "hz" option in your resolution picker (1080p60hz, 1080p75hz, 1080p120hz etc), or you add an FPS cap slider which edits the config file for you. It's very very little work for a UI that already has these things baked in (Source: I can do it it Unity).

 

[bug]

Which is why as a developer you either add a "hz" option in your resolution picker (1080p60hz, 1080p75hz, 1080p120hz etc), or you add an FPS cap slider which edits the config file for you. It's very very little work for a UI that already has these things baked in (Source: I can do it it Unity).

You still have to test all of these though. If you know your title doesn't need high fps, sticking to 60 and cutting costs is at least understandable.

 

[renz496]

no comparison from low end to high end GPU?

 

[bug]

no comparison from low end to high end GPU?

To show what? A 1060 gets 57fps maxxed out in a game locked at 62fps. That already tells you you can play on anything at toned down settings. And that a RTX 2080Ti won't give you anything more at 1080p

 

[RCoon]

no comparison from low end to high end GPU?

I don't have a pile of graphics cards - game reviewer =/= hardware reviewer.

 

[Hellfire]

I don't have a pile of graphics cards - game reviewer =/= hardware reviewer.

Well that's not just good enough.... I demand the review contains every graphics card, every ram speed and every CPU.

A combination of all as well. Then at least 20 benchmarks per combination to get the mean per combo,

Should only be a few hundred combos right...

 

[bug]

Well that's not just good enough.... I demand the review contains every graphics card, every ram speed and every CPU.

A combination of all as well. Then at least 20 benchmarks per combination to get the mean per combo,

Should only be a few hundred combos right...

I believe that would be a few hundred video cards, let alone combos.

But you are too easily pleased. I also demand testing with 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 GB RAM, motherboards having high-end and entry-level chipsets and for games with an online component using 10, 100 and 1,000 Mbit connections. Also dual and triple monitor setups as a bare minimum.