Just to give a little bit of a background, I am a veteran of the RPG genre, having played many, many RPGs from early 1980s to modern day games, including most of the greatest ones. ELEX is by no means a perfect game, but it is one of those RPGs that any serious and sophisticated fan of the genre absolutely must play. Because of how the real world works, and how mainstream gaming websites are controlled by advertising revenue, games often do not get a fair shake when it comes to reviews and publicity, and gamers must rely more on word of mouth from other people. For these reasons, ELEX received reviews ranging from bad to lukewarm from most places, despite the fact that most of the critiques were either shallow (lack of cutting edge graphics from a team on a small budget), wrong (bugginess when the game is actually very stable compared to most open world releases), or biased (ELEX's combat system was picked on for all its issues, when far worse combat systems from more established studios get a pass, e.g. Bethesda games). But if you ever talk to sophisticated RPG fans, most of them had a fairly positive experience with ELEX. This game is simply oustanding in certain areas. It features a massive open world with a highly original setting. At first, the mixture of sci-fi, medieval fantasy, and post-apocalypse seems very cheesy, but as you play it, it all starts coming together in elegant ways, and provides an intriguing contrast to the usual RPG settings. The ELEX world also makes use of verticality, or 3rd dimension, in a way no other RPG I have ever played before did. This is accomplished with a combination of rapid altitude changes in the terrain (mountains, cliffs, towers, sheer drops, etc) and the player's jetpack. The combination of the huge open world, the interesting setting and lore, and this verticality creates for some first rate exploration. Another area where the game shines is the quality and quantity of quests. It has something in the neighborhood of 500 quests, which dwarfs most other RPGs. But these aren't just some simple fetch quests which so often plague the genre. Most are deep, involved missions, that are tied in the world at large, allow the player multiple ways of tackling them, present various choices, and have an effect on the game world. The combat system is probably the worst of the major elements of this RPG, but it's still better than many popular games such as Skyrim, Fallout 3 or Mass Effect. It could have used more time and money, without a doubt, and can be a bit clunky at times, but theres some depth to it, and it's tied in to the character's RPG progression. It's also very challenging, especially early on, so be prepared to die quite a bit. At the end of the day, if you are into cutting edge graphics, world-class voice-acting, or mindless auto-pilot modern day RPGs, ELEX will not be for you. But if you want to see how one of the great companies in the history of RPGs is trying to move the genre forward in meaningful ways (despite being severely limited in money), then you can't go wrong.
