ELEX

If I knew I could not remap my movement keys to my usual 4 keys I've used since 1996 (Quake), I would not have bought this. And considering how clunky the combat is, it was impossible to learn to use other keys for movement. I tried playing this game twice and gave up shortly after arriving in the first town. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it, even praised it if I could use my own movement keys. Seems to me this game was built on using a controller. However, I'm a PC gamer, not a console gamer.

I had this one on my whistlist for a long time. Like two weeks ago I had some money on my Skrill account and this was on a great discount, so I bought it. I'm playing with an Xbox controller and, at the time of writing this, I have 50+ hours into it. It is a great game, for people like me that like lengthy games with a great story. Combat and progression are a bit.... different. You have to know what you're doing, which comes with practice. Don't mind people saying it's a soul-like game. It isn't. First, you can set the difficulty and second, battles will be easier after you get the hang of it. Get a lot of potions, dodge, roll and attack. Rinse and repeat, like 10,000 times, until you get magic, heavy weapons and can upgrade your items; then do the same things and life will be 100x easier. There are some bugs: some icons or prompts dissapearing from the screen. Jax waves his hands in a very weird manner on some dialogues, etc. Nothing game breaking. Exploring is a wholesome experience: landscapes are well made, you'll find a lot of loot and lore while doing it and also a some missions you won't find elsewhere. On the story side: it is a great story IMHO. Well written post-apocalyptic theme when humanity does down the toilet after millions of people died after a "Comet" strikes the Earth. If you like exploring, you'll find out what really happened. Bottom line: don't pay full price, wait for a discount and play it!

I love the main story. After I finished it, I still felt compelled to return, to search the world for more side-missions.

Elex is a type of game that makes excellent impression at first glance, but the further you go, the less appealing it become. At start, you got blasted with vast and open post industrial (or post apocaliptic, depending, what part of map you visit) world, that can be explored on foot or by jetpack, quite engaging main plot, factions with different lore and viewpoints, important choises to make and so on. It's like typical Gothic game, but with enhanced story, better graphics and pretty well made blend of fantasy, sci-fi and modern references. NPCs have quite a lot of line to tell and even main character moves without typical Piranha's stiffness. What could go wrong? After initial part of game, you get into endless string of standard "go there-do thing-come for reward" quests. Sometimes you get some more complex, but also not really memorable task, which sometimes goes so silly, that you hardly believe what you just saw. One taskgiver need you to bring master tactican to lead nearly impossible to success massive siege. You bring him master tactician, who order ... frontal assault. No stratagems, no tactics, just human wave running straight into enemy line. Job well done. Main story goes fine until halfway, then dev team simingly ran out of time, because the quality goes down in shocking pace. From tight net of seemingly inscrutable intriques to ... well, heap of wet cardboard. It was very disappointing. Exploration is ok, however you'll keep finding either some basic stuff or unique items, that you won't use unless buffing yourself over the charts. Character progresssion in as painfully generic as it could be. Figthing is less lifeless than in previous Piranha's productions, but it quickly come obvious, that way to success is through repeating certain actions rather than adapting anything new. To sums up: Is Elex worth to try? Yes, but overall it goes as mediocre as possible, so waiting for discount is advisable.

I'm playing this with English voices and text. The voice actors do, well, a rather poor job of it. There is little nuance in the delivery, and they talk _at_ each other. The writing itself is very clunky, peppered with idiomatic expresions which seem to be taken whole-cloth from German. The combat system is a let-down: the melee fighting was better in Gothic II, and the ranged weapons have no *oomph* factor. I'm not going to compare this to Witcher III, but even Skyrim did better on all the above 6 years before, and asked for the same price. If you don't mind the issues, the world is huge, and there's plenty of sandbox to have - combat, exploration and quests. I do mind - especially the story, writing and delivery - and I'd advise getting this game for $20 or less.