Rust (Alpha) Review – An Addictively Grueling Survival Experience

Rust
Facepunch Studios

My digital avatar stood with his feet frozen to the spot, as stiff as the snowy biome that my two friends and I had decided to erect our base in. I gazed across a flowing river at a small base that had likewise been built not far from ours.

“Uh…guys, we’ve got some company,” I reported to my two comrades. “We’ve got two or three people moving around across the river.”

“Are they coming towards you? Have they seen you yet?” One of them asked.

But I remained silent—content to stare at the potential enemies to see what they were doing. Moments later, they moved up towards the makeshift bridge that we’d constructed over the icy currents of the river, since you could easily freeze to death if you got wet in such a frigid environment.

“They’re coming over the bridge!” I said as I finally jolted myself out of my temporary daze. Just as they crossed over to our side of the river I turned and bolted back towards our cliff side base. As I began dashing off down the coastline I could hear arrows whizzing through the air all around me. This in turn made me zigzag back and forth in order to better avoid getting hit.

Since my friends and I had only just started a game, we were unarmed and so were no match for our assailants. Our only hope was to get back to our base since we had found a shotgun turret at a nearby airfield, and placed it within our walls.

“Run for the base, hurry up!” One of my friends said.

“Almost there!” The other one said.

We converged on our starter base at more or less the same time. It was a three story affair, composed of stone. Its upper areas were still under construction since we were in the midst of building it. But its lower levels were still relatively safe and secured.

I made it into the front door first. It was an airlock—meaning past the front door there was a small chamber where another locked door stood. That way, if someone ambushed us while we walked out of the front door, there was still another door behind that, which would prevent any would-be base invaders from getting in. We’d also placed the shotgun turret in the airlock so that even if someone got through the first door using demolitions, they’d have a nice little surprise waiting for them.

After one friend and I made it through the second door and into the base’s entry area I heard the third one crying out. He was getting pelted with arrows as he ran towards the airlock. When he finally did make it through he emerged from the airlock with several arrows poking out of his character’s body. He reported to us that he was bleeding profusely and losing health at a rapid rate. I already had some materials in my hands in order to make some bandages. That’s when we all heard the first explosion just outside.

As you can probably tell, Rust can be a downright stressful experience. But luckily, its developer Facepunch Studios has given base defenders more tools to utilize against unscrupulous base-raiders. But let me back up and explain what Rust is all about to those not in the know.

Rust is indie developer Facepunch Studio’s post-apocalyptic survival game extravaganza. You start off each new game with essentially nothing except for a torch (there’s a full day/night cycle present) and a rock. You bash your little rock into trees and boulders in order to get your first resources—wood and stone, respectively.

Oh, and you also have to collect hemp bushels for cloth and hunt wild animals for food. At night you have a choice of starting a fire and staying warm (which also allows you to cook any meat you’ve accumulated) or stumbling around in the dark. The former choice may just get you noticed by any dastardly bushwhackers in the vicinity, while the latter might just see you freezing to death.

Once you (and any friends you have) have collected enough resources, you can build your first base up wherever you see fit. My friends and I usually favor erecting bases along cliff sides since it keeps our profile relatively low and limits the amount of avenues of attack.

From there, you can either strike out and raid other people’s bases or go on runs to any of that particular map’s (they’re all randomly generated) special loot zones. The loot areas are usually hotbeds of contention since pretty much everybody else on the map also wants to scour them for valuable items, such as the aforementioned shotgun turret we’d found.

Speaking of turrets, as of Rust’s most recent update on May 18^th, shotgun turrets have been introduced. Labeled as “shotgun turrets” these traps can be placed in a base in order to catch any aggressors who are raiding it, off guard. Also, you can now place flame thrower turrets closer to walls, which means you can viably place them in airlocks (yes!). This gives people having spent hours and hours of their real life time building up their bases a little more defensive firepower. After all, there’s nothing like carefully and meticulously building a base and having some assailants start blowing it up, door by door and wall by wall.

Rust still remains one of the most popular survival games on the market right now, and is always top-ranked on Twitch TV. The developers update the game every single week, so people tend to keep coming back to see what is new in spite of the game’s legendarily toxic player base. In the end, if you are a fan of survival games, especially grueling ones, you may want just to give Rust a try.

SCORE: 85%

Rust offers some much improved visuals since its debut back in 2013. However, you have to have an equally fast gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:

 

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