<p><em>ARK: Survival Evolved</em> is a very interesting preview build of a game. Once you get past the Studio Wildcard and Instinct Games screens and into the main menu, you really have no idea what to do. I sat there and allowed my Xbox One to try to find a session for about ten minutes, then I quit the game because it froze. Then I got a chance to play some single player. While you are navigating through the menus and watching load screens, the game tells you that this is a very early build of the game and that some aspects of it may not work properly, or at all. This had me a tad worried until I finally got into the single player feature. I was greeted with a half put together avatar builder; You only get to chose from six pre-made avatars. The biggest choice you make is male or female, but it doesn&#8217;t matter because the game is first person. The second biggest choice you make is where to spawn. When I chose, I was only allowed to pick from four options: three zones in the East where the difficulty was normal, and one in the North which is hard. I chose the East, seeing as I had no idea what I was doing. After I perished, I found out there were three zones for each direction. South has the easiest zones and North the most difficult, so I decided to hang out in the South.</p>
<figure id="attachment_96865" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-96865" style="width: 795px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class=" wp-image-96865" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/04095410/maxresdefault-1.jpg" alt="Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. Ark: Survival Evolved - Instinct Games" width="795" height="447" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-96865" class="wp-caption-text">Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. (ARK: Survival Evolved, Studio Wildcard)</figcaption></figure>
<p>The game spawned me on the beach where I looked around and noticed a weird crystal in my wrist, ala<em> Logan&#8217;s Run</em>. I then stupidly began testing the controls on the beach; &#8220;A&#8221; is jump, Right Trigger and Right Bumper are attack, Right Thumbstick is sneak or crouch, &#8220;B&#8221; is menu, and as I found out an hour or so into the game, &#8220;Y&#8221; is harvest or pick up. &#8220;Y&#8221; is probably the most important button to have. You&#8217;ll immediately want to start pressing it when you spawn so you can start gathering items which you can later use for crafting and eating. I first picked a rock up by accident, then fumbled my way through the menu to see if I could equip it and huck it at a dinosaur&#8211;I could not. My death toll continued to rise until I finally leveled up somehow and I honestly have no clue why. I hadn&#8217;t killed anything, built anything, or done anything of consequence to earn my Level 2 status; I did happily take it, though.</p>
<p>Leveling up opened a whole new world in the game for me. First, I could pick an attribute to increase. I chose health first. Then, with my next levels I increased the amount of food I could eat so starving would become harder. I was then allowed to chose which engrams to unlock. These would let me craft items very important to my survival. The first engram I bought was a stone axe. This axe allowed me to have a weapon, and made it easier to beat up trees for fiber and wood and so on. Once I started crafting a lot and leveling up the game became very addicting, yet still very challenging. It&#8217;s very difficult to survive in a dinosaur ridden world wearing nothing but tighty-whiteies. With my axe I was able to gather more and more resources for crafting&#8211;soon I had a stone hatchet, a torch, and finally a shirt and pants. My confidence was building within the game and I couldn&#8217;t pull myself away from the crafting and harvesting. I spent my first night almost dying of starvation, just harvesting berries and eating them as fast as I could. Once that terrible night was over, I had grown a few levels and was ready to take on the world, prehistoric as it was.</p>
<figure id="attachment_96869" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-96869" style="width: 789px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class=" wp-image-96869" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/04095400/ark.jpg" alt="Ark: Survival Evolved - Instinct Games" width="789" height="444" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-96869" class="wp-caption-text">(ARK: Survival Evolved, Studio Wildcard)</figcaption></figure>
<p>The sun finally rose, and full of berries and a new hope, I found a Dilophosaurus attacking another dinosaur. I fought that dino to the death and harvested some great items from his corpse, and the corpse of his prey. Suddenly, I had some dinosaur filet mignons and some hide pelts. Once I had enough parts to build a campfire I did so, and cooked up my steaks so that they spoiled much slower. All of food that you find in the wild has a spoilage date, so you must eat before that time hits or you&#8217;ll have wasted a precious resource. There I was, finally doing well in the game, and along comes a Raptor that ends my amazing streak. I re-spawned near where I had perished and searched in vain for my campfire and for my corpse. I had hoped that if I found my corpse, I would be able to pick up all the gear I had. My corpse was gone and I couldn&#8217;t reclaim my lost goods, but luckily the game was nice enough to let me keep my level and my engrams. Immediately I began to punch trees and pick up rocks so that I could build myself some sort of weapon&#8211;unfortunately, I fell back into the &#8220;die every few minutes&#8221; turn. Maybe this wouldn&#8217;t have been as difficult if I had some buddies with me. Solo is very difficult at the start.</p>
<p>The gameplay in <em>ARK: Survival Evolved</em> is fun, the concept is fun albeit difficult, and the graphics are pretty good. I&#8217;ve never really gotten into a huge online game before, but I&#8217;d heard that graphics sometimes aren&#8217;t as good to account for all the online capabilities;<em> ARK: Survival Evolved</em> didn&#8217;t have bad graphics at all. There was some tiling when I would spin around trying to run from certain death, but nothing that detracted from the overall experience. This game is set to be an amazing experience. Seeing as it&#8217;s only a preview build and how much fun I&#8217;ve had with it&#8211;and how much fun I <em>will</em> have with it&#8211;I think Instinct Games has gold on their hands. I&#8217;m excited for each update that may come, and for the day when I can log into a multiplayer session and see what that is all about.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>An Xbox One preview code for ARK: Survival Evolved was provided by Studio Wildcard for the purpose of this preview</strong></em></p>

BagoGames > Articles > Game Previews > Xbox One Previews > What’s A Cubit? – ARK: Survival Evolved Preview
What’s A Cubit? – ARK: Survival Evolved Preview
- Categories: Game Previews, Xbox One Previews
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