Used to love Pokémon games ages and ages ago, but can't really do that formula anymore. Great if you have a ton of free time. For everyone else, it's just grindy time wasting. Can't really spend hours at this point in life. Is probably more value to someone who does not have as much responsibility and can waste time on it. Hits the nostalgia center of my brain, but reality is, I just don't have time for a game like it anymore.
Time to Boom&Shoot like it is 1999.
Malnourished, no skills, one arm, and stuck in a desert full of slavers that want you in a cage, and bugs that want to eat you. What could go wrong? Losing limbs is actually a benefit in this game. Being enslaved is actually a good way to survive at the start. I've had this game on Steam for years, and still find it fun today. Go back and play it every so often, as it is just very hard, very punishing, and has no real end goal, but at the same time is somehow just fun to play and get lost in. And in fact, that might be the one downside to the game, is that you can end up losing hours in your day to it. It can get addicting very easily. I give it five stars!
The game is utterly hard and unforgiving. After playing Grip, I wanted to do something less combat race, and more of a pure sci fi racing game, but quickly learned that any mistake, and I mean ANY mistake is a losing situation. It's not helped by poor controls, at least with a gamepad. For the campaign, I was able to get mostly silver medals, and a few golds, but soon as class II was open the AI just destroyed me. I had to do class II all over, cause I just could not get ahead any. So I reset profile, started again, and just stuck to one vehicle, unlocked Class II, fully upgraded it, and... got destroyed by the AI. You are allowed zero mistakes or watch as your pole position number goes higher and higher, and then you can never recover from that position. It has a neat idea of using the right analog stick to control drift/pitch, but I found it functionally not working well. Most of my time was spent grinding walls, or ping ponging back and forth between them as I desperately tried to correct with strafing/turning/braking. And any time you touch a wall, or brake you're in last position, and the AI will not let you get any position back after that. You just have to restart and hope and pray that you somehow don't make any mistakes. This is also made worse by the fact that the AI seems to just grind around corners, but are not slowed down any by it. I even watched as an AI racer got bumped off a ramp and somehow just rubber banded back into place mid-air. Sure, you got some control in the air, but not like that. The AI does though. I saw reviews talking about their car exploding a lot, so I tried using a durable racer. DON'T! Durable means you will live, but also means the AI is going to utterly blow your doors off as they fly by. Which they will do anyhow as soon as you inevitably touch a wall, even if you use a fast racer. It gets some point for style, but not enough for me to recommend. It's just way to hard to be fun for me.
Always gives me a headache, makes my nose bleed, and sends me into convulsions! 10/10 highly recommend! All jokes aside, this is a great game for only £11 (at time of buying), and while I hear the Steam version is slightly better, it's also a lot more pricey at £23. So I'm giving it four out of five stars just for missing some of the things the other version has.
Bought the game on Steam, and gonna put the same review here, to hopefully save some people some cash until the game is something better. "Game crashes constantly, and character gets stuck in terrain constantly. Yes, it is a BETA, which is why it should not be a $60 game, as it is not at all finished. Gameplay wise, if you are expecting Baldur's Gate 2 in 2020, then you will be disappointed. This is a very different kind of rpg. You won't find that AD&D style play here, or isometric gameplay (though you can zoom out to something similar, but it mostly seems focused on being third person) that you may be familiar with from the old games. Combat also feels more like xcom or something of the sort, since combat is turn based, and are some bugs with that, due to character getting stuck on terrain, which can end your turn without moving or taking an action, but again the game is a BETA. You can turn off turn based combat with Shift+Space on your keyboard, but the game was obviously not meant to be played in real time. Is a whole slew of issues with real time. Of course, that is if you can ever get through five minutes of play without a crash to even do any combat. All together I'd say to pass on the game for now, wait a year until it is finished. In it's current state it is not worth paying a AAA price tag."
I gave it a full week, and a play to completion, and I have to say, it is a pretty good game. As others pointed out, it is in a similar vein to games like Xcom. There are differences however, and some areas it could improve on. The cog system that is used for what your Tech-Priests can and can't do tends to end in a lot of turns skipped unless you are going full melee, since I found that a lot of ranged weapons had cog costs that were way too high to be viable. It's also a bit more simplistic when compared to Xcom for example. There is no cover system at all. So the only way to avoid enemy attacks, is to avoid direct line of sight. Coupled with the cog system, I seemed to always be sitting my troops next to cognition points but also eating enemy fire, just so I could have an opportunity to return fire. On the plus side however, you never have to worry about missing your enemy. All shots are 100%, so long as you are in range, and have line of sight, your weapon will connect. Also the ability to customize your Tech-Priests made each one of them I got feel that much more unique. You can mix and match as well, and I am sure there are people who have learned ways to completely min-max the customization to the point that the game is a cakewalk. All together it is a pretty solid game. Has it's flaws, but nothing that can't be tolerated and overlooked. And besides, who don't love a group of crazy, cyborg, gun loving, space monks from Mars?
