ELEX

This game stands on its own as a pillar of what developers are doing with games these days. Elex is a game that is similar to Skyrim and Gothic in being open world yet the quests are bugged, fail to deliver, and leave you unimpressed. Elex starts off with you crashing and forgetting things while having periodic flashbacks. The graphics, cranked up all the way, look absolutely horrid on the characters while the scenery isn't as bad. For a game released in 2017, I have to wonder where the production time went. Combat is a complete mess. The first few levels you are barely staving off animals in the forest. For a supposed fighter, he can't handle himself at all. It isn't even the characters fault but more the fact that combat is so unforgiving and rediculous you can't accomplish anything. I'm not talking Dark Souls hard where it requires skill, I'm talking about hoping to land a hit with the terrain not getting in the way, the animal not dodging while you continue to flail needlessly unable to stop, and assuming you connect with the hit box, actual damage is done. The conversations in the game are long, drawn out, and seem to ramble on about nothing. I got tired of listening to the first guy you meet talk about useless crap. Backstory is nice but I don't need his whole life's experience about nothing. Additionally, the quests are occasionally bugged and vague. It's nice to have goals but how about something that makes sense and not "go talk to the apprentice that needs a bow but happens to have one on his back"? Elex is the epitome of bad. The controls are bad, the camera is bad, the story could be interesting but is busted, quests are bugged, combat is bad, and the graphics, other than the terrain, are bad. Uninspiring and typical of this developer. From now on, they are on my black list.

Unfortunate, that's the best word to describe this game. Had a great deal of potential, it really did, but it was squandered away on a sub par product. This game was death by a thousand paper cuts. The story itself was great, well paced, and interesting. Unfortunately, it was horribly buggy, such as when it decided that I really should't be able to shoot my gun anymore during combat (you have to put it away and re-draw it to be able to shoot in those situations). Picking up items was also a bit less then stellar. If you aren't positioned in the right way around them, you don't even know you can pick something up. The option is not there. The mini-map is not that, just a radar that shows you where things may be on a black background. You don't know what time it is, ever! In a game that has battle robots, you cannot find out whether it is morning, afternoon, evening, or, in some places, night. I know what you'd say, night is when it's dark, well, normally you'd be right, but not in this case. Dialogue is wooden, and not just from my character. You stop noticing it after a while, but at first it hits you like a bad high school play (to be fair, many high school plays were actually a bit better). Graphics leave a great deal to be desired. I mean, there is no reason why these should look barely better than what I used to play on my old PS2. Did I mentioned that during many of the longer fights, like with the final boss, my gun would just stop shooting? At first I thought that whatever I was fighting just paralyzed me or something, but no, it was just the game glitching. Overall, the game had so much potential, and it was all squandered one annoyance at a time. I'd say don't bother with it unless you can get it for less than $20. Anything else and you overpaid.

You can't choose the graphics device on whinch you want the game to be rendered, so laptops equipped with both integrated and dedicated GPUs may force the game on the crappy iGPU as in my case. Otherwise, it's a great game kind of a sci-fi Gothic. Although even the easiest difficulty is a punishment, it's worth playing.

Elex got me hooked right from the start. Easily 5/5 :-) World: - detailed - well-designed - rich - brutal but beautiful - COMPLETELY explorable! Both horizontally and vertically :-) I love the open world which follows Piranha Byte tradition in a sense that there is always something to find and explore. You are not forced to go with one gaming style. So I spent the first 60-70 hours of the game running around the map just because I wanted to know whether I could get on that mountain/structure and if it would be worth it. The answer to both is "yes". Sometimes it takes a while but you can get on everything - thanks to jet-pack which has small cooldown and doesn't need fuel. Enemies: What I especially like that there are low-level AND "high-level" monster in every region. I can see why it might be a little frustrating at the beginning to realize that you actually have to be careful and not shot everything randomly. However, I think it is a strength of this game which contributes to the overall immersive atmosphere. Also, the developers were kindly enough not to put the really challenging opponents in the starting area. Quests: I really like the quests and the option to really screw up nearly every conversation - possibly ending killing a lot of people. The game offers different options actually influencing the outcome of a lot of other conversations. Often, you pick a choice guessing what might be the outcome only to be completely surprised that the world is not as easy or black-white as you'd like it to be and scheming is far more common than you might expected. Factions: The possibility to join different factions and engage in this world with different goals is really fun and increases the "replay-value" immensely. At first it might seem like an easy decision but after some time you realize that none of them are perfect and more or less screwed up. Story: To avoid spoilers, let's just say I love the story.

I really, really enjoyed this game. As in, first time I played the game to completion straight away, addicted until completed and fully intend to play again. If you've read other reviews you already know joining the Clerics is OP. That's what I did, but next time I intend to join the Outlaws as although they are complete ###holes, I did have fun with their missions and what to see more. The companions and quests are almost all good. Think Fallout New Vegas type writing. The companions join in when you're in conversation with NPCs. It's sometimes a bit clunky with some companions, but it's a HUGE advance on the Skyrim pack mules who follow you around blindly. The world is beautiful, thoroughly enjoyed it. Not quite Skyrim level of just wanting to wander around exploring, but close. Perhaps the main flaw of the game is how the enemies go from suicidal to try and fight to one or two shot kills fairly quickly, but that may have been because I focussed on levelling up rather than advancing quests and the main story. I see some reviews complain about the final boss. It's true it is seriously annoying if you fail first time round, as you have to go through all the tedious dialogue again. But the boss is actually really easy once you know what you need to do (no spoilers here!), so I just assume the folks complaining are serious noobs or are just playing on settings too difficult for them. Eh, I would review and perhaps expand with proper wall of text but I'm drunk. Just give the game a go and stick with it a while before making your mind up, i.e. don't be one of these attention limited tw*ts.