I got off to a bad start with this game because developers can do silly stuff these days. And there is a few things in there that could be redone - like how hard points work on the mech. And traits for the main character. But this is basically everything I've wanted in a MW game since MW2, and then they expanded on it all. It's got a few issues to be fair. There's an issue with advanced graphics settings that I'm sure they'll fix. But no Mech title has had me smiling as much, or just outright glad that they did a certain thing. I never thought we'd get the salvage mechanic again, never thought we'd see the scale of the mechs represented correctly, or so many of them in a game, or so much of the universe to play. There's just too much to write down in terms of what they got right, and only minor things they got wrong that will probably be done by mods. And it's a mod supporting game so installing them is easy. We need another expansion. Happy to pay full price. And I think the last time I paid full price for a game was over 10 years ago. To summarize: everything the community has wanted for over 25 years in MW games, they seem to have nailed completely. They took notes, put it in the game, and added stuff that's fantastic. And you should support this developer.
I got off to a bad start with this game. Did a level 7 mission against x1 hunchback, x4 urbanmechs, x1 panther, then endless mechs (and tanks) to the end of the mission that killed my lancemate. Then days later a level 12 mission against a few enemy mechs and destroy x2 bases. So believed the bad reviews on bad developer decisions and with the radar thought it was a broken game. However: over the years everyone has wanted certain things from the Battletech games, and the developers of this game have put them in here. Salvage, countless mechs, weapons that count, MW4 gamplay, MW3 clunking mechs, and a massively expanded MW2: Mercs universe. The mech upgrades are the best thing added to a mech game ever. With those two features, and a tiered weapon you can take your favourite centurian with you in your career. But the heavy and assault mechs are something to fear. There's a couple of headscratching decisions in there that I don't get yet. Like: why take lancemates with low capped skills and train them to those caps when I can take elite pilots at the game max caps?. Or: I'm expected to spot a Star-League era rare mech when I don't have access to the blueprints of the standard mechs?. I miss game manuals. The original Mechcommander came with a book in the box with all mech blueprints... Also the RNG of the game can have some drawbacks, but it's worth it to have created the universe it has. Would have been nice to gradually work on a mech to upgrade it to a rare/hero mech over your career instead of finding them on a roll of the dice. But whatever complaints I have (such as the radar one on first impressions in my bad review, later proven wrong because they did include BAP, and it works despite internet naysayers' false info) this is a fantastic game, that I have enjoyed more than any title released in at least 5 years, and it is (so far) the best title in the series. When is the next expansion pack coming out?.
People should call these games GRPG: Gambling RPGs. You start off with 100hp and not skills against a 1000hp boss and I was able to win. But because everything is a gamble: level up skills, loot, cards/spells available, encounters, basically everything, and on my current run I've essentially rolled a '1' (fail) on each of them - I can't beat the third boss. I'm doing x1 damage his shields to him and his cronies with my pathetic offensive set, I don't get to stun him when he buffs (lacking card) the shields again, and after several hours of whittling them down, he just keeps buffing up again. I'm enjoying the game, but it's mechanics like this that make people quit.
- Needs optimising a bit more, but it's great.
I've put years into the X games. Years. Star Wars mod & Battlestar Galactica mod on X3 are hand down the best mods for a game I've ever played. Was really looking forward to this. So booted it up, looked at the controls, sat there for a while and remembered what vanilla Egosoft is and the design decisions they make...uninstalled, refunded (thanks GOG) and will never touch it again.
Massive Syndicate Wars fan, and I enjoyed Syndicate. A game that killed your whole squad within 1 of starting the last mission. Yet that wasn't as frustrating as this mess of a game is. Constantly. I just fast travelled my squad, but a glitch left 1 member behind. then another glitch caused the other 3 agents to overlay each other. So I tested out the time slow ability, and didn't realise it deselects all my team. So then I test killing a lone enemy and get all confused when I have to reselect my team and then cancel time slow which again deselects my team. So now I've got a bunch of enemies attacking my 3 agents (I thought it was 4 but they're all bunched up) and I can't understand why the fourth is getting killed. Then I realised what happened. So for a game that expects a working system from the player, it's built on a flawed engine, with flawed design decisions and is still full of glitches. Your squad gets stuck in the terrain. They don't respond to commands properly. They get stuck while shooting enemies in the back from stealth. The pathfinding is a mess. Simple commands with easy situations end up with all out war against impossible odds because your agent went the wrong way. I played this game when it came out and rage quit. And for the past week I've tried getting back into it. Restarted over 15 times to 'get gud' the sheer FRUSTRATION of the Unity engine and all its quirks and the glitches that the developers obviously gave up on just makes the game a massive chore. Oh, and to add insult to injury I can run Cyberpunk in high graphical settings but (yet again) the Unity engine is setting the fans off every once in a while. And there's microstutters. Save yourself some agro, don't buy this game unless you're desperate for soemthing to play. And we should boycott the Unity engine. I supported and spent more money that I care to admit on Unity games and they're all hardly worth playing once because the engine is such garbage.
Playing this game is like being a character in a film. I've lost count of the amount of times I've sat here grinning like an idiot as I was in a gunfight crouched behind the bar as enemies shot up the bottles around me. Or as I missile launched an enemy off the roof, went into bullet time and then dove off after him as he fell unloading an assault rifle magazine into him. The car combat is like an action movie, the story is perfect, the cyberware and XP perk system is shooting hoops and slamdunking as you gain power. The atmosphere and graphics are unparalelled. Only enhanced by the story and characters. The attention to detail, NPC culture and gang culture is nothing less than world building. The sounds and weather make you feel like you're living in the game. For a month I was borderline addicted (still haven't finished the game) and restarted multiple times. I'm not exaggerating when I say this game is a breakthrough and a revolution in gaming. But after 1 month of playing it almost constantly I've rage quit becuase I can't deal with the moronic 1-shot fall damage, self inflicted splash damage, level scaling of enemies and stat checks (which destroys roleplaying) and the randomisation of stat modifiers on cyberware - some of which don't actually do anything. As I'm a bit OCD I want to play the game on ironman mode, I'll come back to it in the future when I've got the time to find mods that fix this stuff with the current patch. And right now the thought of starting again is just beyond me. Got me worried for a minute there...almost thought the game was perfect, and it would take over my life.
I'm not far into this and can tell it will be one of the best. Yes it needs polishing and there are bugs, but the developers deserve a buy now to support their sheer ambition - its like they've taken all of the things I wanted when playing RPGs from the past 20 odd years and focussed entirely on the good stuff. It's hard, and the rules are complex - but in a good way, like they've actually evolved the genre, instead of just making pointlessly complex rules that do nothing. And classes actually stand out now because of how well (and how much) of the Pathfinder rules are in the game. If you take RPGs even slightly seriously you have to buy this game.
I've been gaming 20+ years, and was one of the $1000 contributors. I've bought/played every game except South Park & Tyranny released by Obsidian and considered them the last developers remaining capable of providing an oldschool RPG. I only started playing POE a few weeks ago, and only made it as far as completing the first main quest/obtaining the stronghold. I doubt I'll go back to this game unless there is a real drought of RPG's in the future, and don't see the point in listing the negatives - because if they made the decisions they made with this game, then they either arn't listening to the community, the community/developers have changed significantly (Chris Avellone wasn't a main writer) and therefore a negative review or informed feedback will have no impact whatsoever. It's above average in comparison to RPG's being made today, and worth £20 or so. I'll be waiting for the GOG sale release of POE2, and will likely play through both and dedicate 50+ hr's to each game, if I feel I've been ralaxing too much and need to do huge amounts of work.
