ELEX

I am a Gothic 1 and 2 fan from Pakistan and I bought this game because I cannot play any other game after Gothic. Well except for Risen. It's because unlike other games, Gothic challenged me and I am hoping this will as well. :)

Very difficult to get into as combat is awful due to unresponsive controls (I used KB and mouse). Initial quests are boring and there is no manual only an annoying in-game help for the basics. However, it got better. Ranged combat is ok, not good but better than melee (for me). The quests get more fun and the world is varied and interesting. The graphics and sound are very good the English voices were ok. The back-story is largely told thru audio recordings and notes that you find and they really added to the immersion and involvement with the world. The recordings play automatically but the notes can be a pain to read as you end up searching thru your massive inventory to read the note you just picked-up. The story-line was different and had enough substance to keep me interested to the end. I thoroughly enjoyed my time from about 10 hours in when I figured out how the crafting and character advancement systems worked and didn't have to run away from EVERY encounter. Don't give up.

I was apprehensive about this game but thoroughly enjoyed it once I gained a few levels and better gear. See, Elex does not hold your hand with enemy scaling. You WILL get one-shot frequently in the early levels (quick save is your friend!), but it was so fun to get some pay back later. The controls are not perfect, but you get used to them. The jet pack concept was incredibly fun! I played through twice to experience two of the three factors and see two different endings. Can't wait for the sequel!

It's not a terrible RPG, but at the same time there are many holes in the design. Most notably that the world itself is disconnected from lore. There are supposed to be surviving colonies of different factions that don't see eye-to-eye. There is a framework for faction warfare there but the game does nothing with it. Instead the world is haphazardly filled exclusively with creatures with very little meaningful interaction outside of it. It's a disappointment from both warfare and lore perspective. It gets tedious fighting the same enemies which makes you feel like there's not much point to it. The combat would be far more engaging if humanoids got involved. Basically most of which is written in lore is paper-thin with nothing tangible under the surface. I feel they could have just named it "Creepy crawler slayer" - because that's essentially the entire game loop. Nothing really against the creature design or even the combat, it's more that it's the only thing happening in the game. Ultimately it doesn't give you the motivation to play longer than the bare minimum that is necessary to finish the plot, if you can even muster the enthusiasm for that. The lack of lore-based encounters is supremely disappointing, so is the lack of variation in warfare. I think the game could have been very cool if they would bring these "simulation" factions to life and have them play a real part in the world.

Not bad, Open world, so enough play time.