Recent reviews by Bepple

We are so back

Oct 12th patch fixed most of the big issues BA had at launch. Functional lock-on and early-mid game Mobile Armours are no longer a slog. AI have had slow improvements over time as well. Game's in a much better state, worth getting now.

Just posting this to say that premium currency does NOT expire. It expires in JP as with all premium currency in games, due to legislation. EU, NA and Asia do not have expiration dates on premium currency, wish the 200 reviews getting this info wrong would actually enable comments but I'm pretty sure they know and just don't want to acknowledge that they're wrong.

Balance is (mostly) fine, servers are spotty during peak times, microtransactions aren't that bad compared to other F2P games and the core gameplay loop is great. It's free, you've got nothing to lose by trying it.

Babylon's Fall is a slow burn that takes a while to ramp up to it's full potential. It's initial few hours are, quite frankly, garbage. However, the game opens up significantly upon reaching the endgame once players have unlocked more tools to worth with.

Upon completing the "1.0.0" campaign (They have since added a 1.1.0 campaign, and plan to release another one within around a month) the player gains access to multiple weapon modes, per weapon, consistently better gear with a large pool of Enchantments to modify it, multiple new game modes (siege, gauntlets, duels and skirmishes), alongside "class" abilities referred to as Gutwork abilities, dictated by the players equipped Gideon Coffin.

The decision to lock these behind campaign progression has severely hurt the game, as your initial few hours are very much a bland, button mashing slog. Once unlocked, the game is much more enjoyable with a significant amount of build depth for your four characters. Given some time, I believe Babylon's has the potential to really shine, but in it's current state it does need some work.

The developers are responsive to feedback, listing feedback they are hearing commonly and going over their plans to implement said feedback. If they keep up their current trend, the game has a hopeful future.

Current glaring issues consist of asset reuse, with a lot of the endgame "skirmishes" unfortunately being copy/pasted levels with their scaling adjusted, alongside some fairly ridiculous MTX pricing. $20/£20 for a 2B skin+hairstyle is a joke given the £60 asking price just to play the game.

Provided the developers continue implementing feedback, I can recommend this game at roughly half off, which I feel is a fair price. If the cash shop prices are reduced, I can recommend it at the full asking price. While unlikely, if the game does ever see a free-to-play release, I can wholly recommend it regardless of the cash shop prices.

I run a program called AutoHotkey for multiple macros for ease of access. (Mostly statchecking and trade macros for several games.)

BDO blacklists AutoHotkey as it's a "suspicious program" and refuses to let you play with it running.

That's a dealbreaker for me, and likely most people who frequently use AHK, and it's unlikely to ever be deflagged.

I've honestly never had a video game make me smile as much as this did, it's fantastic.

What other game can you play with Kazoo Kid? 10/10.

Colonials have the Wardens down to their last city
Front lines have been at it for two hours
They literally just have pistols
Kids at the front line complain about logistics
Logi's resupply the front
Kid takes a truck loaded with 70 clips
The truck blows up almost immediately
Blames logistics

10/10 would push one city for 3 hours again.

Disclaimer: War of the Chosen has come out, I will not be buying it until it sees a price drop. This review is exclusively for the base game, see other reviews if you plan on purchasing the DLC.

I'll start this off by saying this is one of the few games where I genuinely wish there was a middle thumb option, my opinion on this is very torn.

To start with, for the most part XCOM 2 is /not/ a bad game. It's pretty, it plays well bar the odd hiccup with cover destruction that likes to murder my fps, and is generally nicely balanced. There's just two issues that make this game absolutely sting, and it near-killed my experience with the game.

The first, and most important one, is the fact most missions are timed.
I cannot stand this concept. In a game with such heavy RNG, and higher end difficulties making playing careful and safe a must, they slap a 12-turn timer on you and say "get to other end of the map or lose."
It's awful. A few missions have timers where it's acceptable, eg: a downed UFO will call for help, shut down the transmitter before backup arrives.
But to have a timer on most of your game completely kills the strategy aspect and forces you to go balls to the wall rush, and pray RNG somehow rolls in your favor. Usually forcing you to sacrifice rookies along the way.

Mods do fix this, but I can't recommend a game that I need a mod to make playable. And for my first campaign run I played it without mods, it wasn't an enjoyable experience.

Comparable to XCOM 1, they had a "Meld" system, where you would have to progress throughout the map very quickly to recieve Meld as a reward. This was a proper way to stick a timer on your mission as it offered an effective risk/reward strategy, rather than outright failing a player who didn't want to run his 4-man squad into 3 sectoids and an ADVENT squad. (Especially on Commander+ difficulties where even a 3-man pod can be lethal if started poorly.)

The second issue is a gripe on the ending, so spoiler warning.
The final mission has a massive difficulty spike at the end which most players aren't prepared for, XCOM 2 wasn't balanced to be a room-filled slaughterfest, so why make the final mission exactly that?

With the mod to fix the timer, the game is excellent. There's a few mods, one extends the timer, one stealths your squad and doesn't tick the timer until revealed, and another outright removes it. All three are very nice and mostly player preference.
But, as I said above. With this honestly game ruining issue, I can't give it a positive rating when it needs a mod to fix.
Otherwise, fantastic game. Aside from when you miss that 95% chance to hit with a shotgun, then it can go screw itself.

One of my all time favourite games back on the consoles, finally ported over to PC.
Just like Bayonetta, a flawless port. Great controls, incredibly well optimised and has full 4k/144hz support.

Fantastic job on this, I can't describe how amazing it feels to play this again. Though I get sub-30 on my absolutely ancient machine, I'm holding off on any further gameplay for when I get a proper PC in a couple of months. This'll be the first game I play.

Keep doing what you're doing, Plat and Sega<3