![]() ![]() A koi pond becomes a terrifying and deadly game of cat and mouse as you explore the water’s depths and avoid the oppressive gaze of the pond’s gilled master. ![]() A child’s sandbox becomes a hysterical, hostile desert where staying out in the sun for more than a few seconds causes you to burn up, so you’ve gotta dart between patches of shade for cover. One inhospitable and extremely rude area of the yard has an overturned charcoal grill that acts as a volcanic mountain range, while another has a leaking bug bomb that fills the area with a noxious gas and mutated insects. The star of Grounded is hands-down the backyard itself.Įven with memorable characters, though, the star of Grounded is hands-down the backyard itself, which is completely beautiful and oozes personality from every blade of grass. I wouldn’t trade that moment for anything, and Grounded’s remarkably idiotic story is positively chock-full of them. In fact, one endgame reveal was so over-the-top and wonderfully stupid that it caused both of my teammates to remove their headsets for a few minutes to “walk it off” as I howled with delight. One of your main allies is a fiercely annoying, spatula-handed robot who’s programmed to cook burgers the bad guy’s name is Director Shmector and you spend a lot of time running around collecting a currency called Raw Science – Grounded just never takes itself seriously, to hilarious effect. But when it does take the spotlight, it shines by being utterly ridiculous and laugh-out-loud funny. Grounded’s tale of shrunken children in search of a way to return to their normal size isn’t always front and center you might spend a dozen hours gathering supplies and improving your base without that goal ever coming up. Admittedly, there aren’t very many NPCs to find and most story development is either told via collectible audio recordings or locked behind hours of survival gameplay and a bit of grinding, but Grounded strikes a great balance between making you feel on your own in a hostile backyard and meeting quirky characters, most of whom inevitably try to maim you. Numerous character progression mechanics, an enemy weaknesses and resistances system that had me poring over data in the menu, the elaborate boss fights, and NPCs and dialogue options that break up the action all make it feel more like a roleplaying game than most of its survival peers. You’ll split your time between scavenging the charming backyard setting for materials, crafting awesome items from the corpses of your enemies, building badass structures to protect yourself and your stuff, fighting giant bugs that gave my co-op partners nightmares, exploring extremely difficult dungeons, leveling up your character’s stats and equipment, and more. Grounded is a survival game first and foremost, but draws a ton of inspiration from Obsidian’s history as a team of RPG wizards as well. ![]()
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