It's like they took the first level of Unreal and made all of Hexen out of it. I was half ready to dismiss this game as saucy bait for the weak-willed but it's a solid improvement on the Doom / Hexen / quake formula in just about every way. The environments are varied, the puzzles are interesting without being belabored, there are secrets all over, but they're not so obscure that you have to wander around randomly interacting with walls. The story seems good but honestly I played for too long in one go and stopped reading. It's 4 am. The melee combat is cool, and feels powerful enough to stay relevant well into the game! In addition to the axe, you can punch, kick, do flying kicks mid-air, or slide tackles on the ground. The ranged weapons are pretty cool and seem to have some depth in their alternative fire modes which I haven't totally figured out yet. If you aren't impressed by the screenshots, and graphics are really really important to you, follow your heart, man. Me personally, I just like kickass gameplay, and this delivers.
The core gameplay is quite fun. I actually love being run down by a mutant spider because I am trying to haul a full set of plate mail to the next level. I like being crushed by traps because I let my hubris get the better of me. I like masterfully hiding in a corner while a half dozen skeletons pour out of the trap I just accidentally walked into. Not much micromanagement to speak of. You set a trajectory for your core stats by picking a class and you don't have to think about leveling up too much after that. Your skills develop based on how you play. Want to be a warrior focused on bows? Just use bows a lot. There's no opportunity cost to experimentation. It's actually kind of nice that you aren't constantly being faced with tactical decisions that could end your run. Want to try a slightly different strategy based on the equipment you found? Go for it. Not working? Just go back to what you were doing before. P.O.B.C.A.K. - Progress occurs between chair and keyboard. On your first run you will likely die to the first thing you see. On your second run you probably won't. The difference isn't that you unlocked some inter-run stat boost or perk that made you stronger, you just got better at the game. UI: The UI was very recently redone and is a lot more polished than what I have seen in old youtube videos. If you see UI complaints in the reviews, they might be outdated. MULTIPLAYER: Important to point out that *as of this review*, the DRM free version of the game isn't going to have the nice fancy server lists you would be getting via Steam or Epic Games. You can still play online multiplayer with anyone (cross platform included) but you need to be comfortable with port forwarding on you router and putting direct IP addresses into the game. This is done via the LAN connection option, not the "online game" option, so don't freak out but set your expectations appropriately. I wanted to play with friends I knew already so playing online was easy enough.
I'd like to preface my this with a disclaimer that there are no spoilers in this review. I was excited for this game when it was announced, but I didn't follow the marketing or promises super closely. When it came out, I saw a lot of negative reviews and a lot of complaining on the internet so I shied away. Decided to pick it up on sale now, like a year after release? Overall, It's a lot of fun. Here are some things I like, with examples: 1. Small performative details that make the game feel more visceral. Characters rolling car windows up and down, or opening a sunroof. Giving the player options to sit or stand during conversations, and even to walk around freely without stoping the dialogue. The fascinatingly accurate sound of a man slapping his hands on a table, or crashing into the dirt from a staircase. The game letting me get in the drivers seat and the NPC asking me to scoot over when I'm supposed to be the passenger. These are a lot of details that could have easily been left out / avoided, but are there and are very cool. 2. Skill advancement ties into the story and dialogue - and with higher skill levels I was very pleased to find that my character started sounding like an expert, which was also very cool. 3. None of the voice acting has been bad or repetitive. We all probably know like the 8 voices from skyrim, there seems to be a crap ton of diversity in the acting in Cyberpunk. 4. Satisfying power ramp. I'm still on my first playthrough, but I found I started off having a hard time with many fights but over time I have started feeling suitably powerful and have been going up against harder challenges, rather than the same dudes scaled to my level. 5. FOV slider. AND ultrawide support. OMG. I have run into bugs! It has not been a bug free experience, but it's only required a little bit of troubleshooting here and there. Like once in a 5 hour stretch. All easy to fix so far. Oh and coming from Fallout 4, the story line is way more compelling.
Hey it's a shooter version of FTL! But actually, everspace is a pretty great game. I've played it off and on over the last couple of years and I wind up dropping four or five hours on it each time I pick it up. The levels are randomly generated and you progress through an overworld map between levels, choosing branches to traverse as you go. The combat is rewarding and doesn't get too repetitive (at least by 30 hours). There are lots of ways to outfit your ship, and while there are some builds that are relatively "optimal" it will take some time to figure out what those builds are, and then a little skill to accumulate the resources in a run to acquire the pieces of those buidls. I should also mention that there is one build that seems to make the game a cakewalk, and I acutally enjoy the game enough that I still do other, less broken builds because the gameplay is actually fun, it's not just gameplay for the sake of progression. Ultimately, if you like planning ahead, thinking strategically about your tools, searching nooks and crannies for treasures, and then blasting steel space hulls in action packed dogfights this game will probaly appeal to you. I was a little skeptical of the control scheme at first - the mouse pointer guides your crosshair which loosely controls your ship's facing? Eugh! But it actually works out well - it's become intuitive for me anyway, and it allows the freedom of aim I'm used to having with a mouse while preserving the handling characteristics appropriate for the ship I'm piloting. I've had this game for so long I kind of forgot if I got this for free or on sale or something, but I think this would be a real treasure for 10-15 bucks.
