Graphics: Check Story: Check Gameplay: BIG RED X The game starts out fine and I was quite pleased with the camping characteristics then not only do the bugs start ranging from after switching weapons you can never again use another weapon and those casting spells can never use weapons again to the occasional game crash to save games entirely disappearing or never actually happening. My first game outright vanished. "Its your machine!" Sure, it happens to ONLY dislike PF:K save games. But this, unfortunately isnt the worst part. Game "scaling" is broken. Im in an "Ancient Tomb". I save after entering since I know its likely something will break. I wander in and get into a fight. I quite easily smite everything with ease. Expected. Fast forward 10 minutes game crashes. My bad, didnt save every 5 minutes. No problem Ill just go back to the tomb. WRONG. This is a reload so NOTHING should have changed, WRONG. I start the fighting just as before and in literally 20 seconds my entire crew is dead and Ive hardly laid a scratch on the mobs. What!? Ok fine. Fluke right? WRONG AGAIN. Reload after reload after reload. Im decimated seemingly worse each time. Its a joke. "Just leave and travel elsewhere I hear you say?" WRONG! First encounter, happens every time now, on the road is even worse than the tomb. Same kobolds I killed 6 times before but clearly a simple reload has changed the entirety of the game scaling. No, its hopeless and consistent with the last game in which I was stuck at the Inn in which the game went from a challenge to outright impossible with one shot kills on all my characters and every attack a miss. Note Im talking about the NPCs as well so its absolutely not "my build" or my "clicking wrong". Same npc, same equipment, same click as before but utterly futile. No console commands hence 3rd time to restart. Maybe not since I probably will never play again. Guess Im suckered 40 bucks. Dont even get me started on returns. Also futile.
I have owned F3 for years and its hand down in my top 3 games of all time. Story, graphics, controls, feel, dream causing, drug like addiction inducing... "game". It took too long to get here but I am very happy to see it made it. Unfortunately having bought it for ps3 way back and PC way way back I see little incentive to purchase now, again. Shame, I suppose, on you Bethseda. Though, Im a bit of a "crit" as I bought F4 before it came here too. Its also kind of BS that its 19.99 when it was going for 5-10 at stores in the low tide of its day.
CONS: -Graphics are 1990. -UI is worse than 1990. PROS: -Highly complex and bewildering interface that makes no sense, if you like that sort of thing. -Did I mention you cant tell enemies from your own ships or allies? Ah... Well you can but ... not really. -Story is your typical for the genre. Yes, the pros are cons but then the whole game is a throw back. Even while the UI is failing so bad you cant figure WTF is going on or what you are supposed to do even with the abysmal tutorials the game has its "qualities". Kind of like that date that just went really really bad but somehow, how do I explain this, went really really well. Oh I didnt explain? Yah, well, that is the game. Got it? Is the game that bad? No, well yah but not and at times it is. Its this thing they call a conundrum and I, full admission, lack the ability to explain it. Is the entire package worth 19 bucks. Yes.
If this was a movie 4-5 stars. As a game due to controls, etc, 2-3. Unfortunate. I am torn. For every amazing dialog and graphic this game has it has an equivalent of the controls suck. If the controls made sense from a story style gaming experience it would be a 5 but since they make absolutely no sense nor are explained nor a tutorial at least a -2. Not to mention that the game requires a play-through to even figure WTF your keys do. Not good. The artists should do art. The programmers code. The engineers interfaces etc. Artists and coders suck at interfaces in general. Sorry. Or they stopped teaching the classes and everyone is too concerned with "looking cool" vs "being functional". Also if I am going to buy a "movie" I should have the ability to get to the end and not require my having to hack code to do so. Its equivalent to denying my access to the last 100 pages of a 300 page book cuz " I dont do what the author wants " and in which case go F yourself.
Graphics, mechanics, story, art, acting, voice overs, etc. A 4-5 all around. All just what I would expect from this crew. Unfortunately though the game is unplayable. Its not unplayable due to controls etc but rather the scaling in the game is SO bad it cant be finished even with cheats. That is, unless, my game constantly has the same bug over and over. If anyone ever played Urban Terror on nightmware mode. That, is a cake walk. Once the zombies hit they level from 0-95 in 5-10 minutes both on bases and forces. Then even neutral factions start hunting you down who are also, you guessed it, 90+. I decided to cheat, as Id really like to play the end story that I paid for, and leveled my character to 98. I had a full ship with massive components. Tried torpedoes, missles, lasers, swarms, you name it. At one point I had so much KITTEN flying around the screen I actually caused the game to lag. My ship... Couldnt even kill one of the tiny little ships flying around the larger zombie ships. It damaged it but after 3 minutes of a solid beam of light the size of my ship slamming the tiny ship and watching the red pixels creep down maybe 1 every minute at most. I gave up. You know that level 30 fight with Jamison? This is stage Im talking about. Not that fight but just encounters. The game was fine up to that point but soon as that stage came on it wasnt down hill. It was a cliff. I have restarted. Ive tried the easiest mode. Nothing works. Even with cheats no story for me. At least not the one I downloaded. And just when you thought it cant be worse I actually used a weapon off one of their ships that had been used to kill me repeatedly. I tricked npcs into the fight and their exploding ships did the trick. The same weapons that would destroy my ship in seconds did quite literally NOTHING to them. Could have been 4 stars now its 2 for effort. If Im in a masochist mood I might try one last time but at this point I consider the game busted.
If you like platform games and the jumping methods from the 1980s you will love this game. The bonus is the added element of a zombie apocalypse and some very low par crafting. Its little more than that. If you want a survival open world (ie: Fallout 3) where you are truly free to do anything and in a vast open world then this is not for you. Value: Not worth 60 bucks. Maybe 20. Pros. 1)Great 3D Platformer 2)Excessive violence and gore if thats your thing. Have to admit its somewhat satisfying "boot to the head"ing to death a zombie that just tried to bite you. Cons. 1)This is a 3D Platformer game as that is 90% of the questing, skill and requirements. Gave this a negative also since that is not what the game is described as and the concept is beyond burned out. 2)You have one saved game outside of you copying locations which I might add does not always work and appears to, on occasion, result in corrupted/refused saved games. By design? Probably. 3)You can drop 200 feet into a bag of garbage and walk away but if you land in 12 feet of water from 30 feet you die instantly. 4)Extremely poor secondary item controls. Rack this up the usual. Console controls suck hence PC users tend to have to suffer some of the carry over suckiness. 5)Graphics for a modern game are average. I expected a LOT more as should anyone. 6)Gameplay is fun but 50% of the time simply annoying. ie: Getting into Gazies house is 100% platforming and made annoying on purpose. 7)Outside of some serious hexeditor kung-foo you wont be cheating to make the game funner once you get bored of the constant hippity hoppity jumping aspects of the game. Like my prior purchase I really wanted to like this game but it fell way short of not only its description but, like most things in life, the hype as well. Im also changing my rating methods from our 5 star society. This is "ok" hence 3 stars. Should be 2.5.
