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Recent reviews by na

Showing 1-6 of 6 entries
32 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
0.0 hrs on record
Eh, I guess my expectations were too high. I can recommend this if you've played infested planet, but it doesn't really add as much to the game as I had hoped. It's really just a map overlay to give a less than deep sense of progression. After a few play throughs I thought maybe I was missing something, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

It's not great, but it's not terrible, nothing seems broken, no crashes. Overall, infested planet is a pretty decent game, albiet a bit shallow as far as games go. This addon could have been much greater.
Posted December 14, 2016.
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6 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
28.7 hrs on record
The core of the game is extremely monotonous. Go here, shoot bad guys, rinse wash repeat. I lost desire to play the game after 5 hours, but kept telling myself 'it will get better.' and 'I must finish what I started.' I ended up beating the game, the main story line probably could have been beaten in a quarter of the amount of time, I spent a ton of time flying to asteroids to collect upgrade items (artifacts) and pointlessly killing worthless pirates thinking that the money was important.

Overall, functionally, the game is great, only crashed 3 or 4 times, ran well, no technical issues. But the game itself feels basically over after a very short amount of time.
Posted December 1, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
83.4 hrs on record
After 80 or so hours of gameplay time, I've come to realize that this game is somewhat dull and shallow, especially compared to it's predacessor. Graphically, the game didn't wow me like it's predacessors. I expected a step up, but it felt more like a step down visually. I am not big on graphics, but I was sure that the game play and overall idea of the game would be at least equal while the graphics might be a minor improvement.

Overall the game simply feels less than what it should have.
Posted March 1, 2015.
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1 person found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
23.5 hrs on record
These games are barely games, more like interactive shows. Maybe that is wonderful to some, but it's a really boring experience for myself.
Posted January 27, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
169.3 hrs on record (164.0 hrs at review time)
To put it shortly, if you are a fan of grand theft auto or games of a similar genre, it's absolutely worth a play through.
Posted January 27, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
623.8 hrs on record (571.0 hrs at review time)
After playing this game for 100s of hours, I can say that I both love and hate this game.

Pros:
Very fun and varied; There are two sides and each side is unique and interesting. Most other shooters I have ever played is little more than identical teams against one another.

Well made; The game has enough polish to it to please myself and others.

Deep and interesting; This game has a lot going on and has a lot to take in. This can be a challenge, but it's also allowing for a less than boring game.

Cons:

After writing for a few days on this matter and re-editing several times, I've come to realize there really is only one note worth issue with this game.

Lack of player balance; Halo 2 had it going on back in the day with it's amazing ranked matchmaking system. It wasn't likely that a rank 45 player wasn't going to face a rank 5 player in halo 2. But in natural selection 2, this is and has been really rampant, lots of newbies facing against seriously seasoned players. This might not sound like an issue to some, but I think this is a devastating flaw to this game.

The skill ceiling doesn't exist in this game, it's incredible how good a player can be in this game, but this means the learning curve is nearly a straight up wall in which many players simply can't climb when facing 100+ hour players as newbies themselves. I love how deep and skillful this game can be, but the lack of forced ranked matchmaking may have been it's greatest weakness as a game because of how extremely skilled a player can be within this game.

To add to the player balance issue, I have encountered many matches where a small number of friends played together on the same team. This is great in many ways, I love the idea of teamwork amongst friends, but the problem was their enhanced synergy and usually higher combined skilled level was compounding. I might go so far as to argue that two friends that played well together were worth 3 strangers even if all involved were of similar skill level and experience. So if a group of 5 friends joined a 16 player server, the results were often horrific for player balance. If I could, I would develop a game similar to natural selection 2 but include solutions to this problem relating to player balance which I imagine might solve a lot of other issues. Basically, forced ranked matchmaking is likely the only way to manage a game such as this and I'd adore to see it done well in any game, but especially one such as natural selection 2.

Overall this game is incredible as far as shooters go, but the vertical learning curve, lack of matchmaking and seemingly tenaciously negative player base (likely heavily bittered by the games lack of matchmaking, awareness of this or otherwise) really ruins this game for myself. As I am sure you can see, I've played this game a lot and purchased it before it was even released (played natural selection 1 100s of hours as well), while I think that even today this game would be worth a $60 buy in many respects, the other lacking issues make the game, in my opinion, a frustrating mess that is nigh unplayable. You can certainly enjoy the game and playing it plenty, but most of the time most players probably won't have a great time playing it.

Online multiplayer shooters haven't existed for very long (compared to human history or the total time the universe has existed), but ranked matchmaking has been the best experience in terms of gaming I have ever encountered and without it many games end up being less than viable. Sadly, this idea seems to go wildly ignored for reasons that elude myself. Many newbies, people who I have given this game away to for free, absolutely refused to play this game after a short period of time due to this reason. Being obliterated in a game by extremely skilled players isn't something many enjoy and when trying to introduce someone to this game they become soured towards the idea if while just trying to gain some understanding they get torn to shreds non-stop.

To add to my anecdotal tale that I am sure nobody will ever read, I have spent some time playing with a small number of random players of NS2, talking with and playing beside, some lesser skilled, a few wildly too good at this game. For some reason, every player that I played (on a deeper sort of friendship level) with saw zero value in the notion of ranked matchmaking, but became infuriated and hateful towards newer or lesser skilled players on their team if they didn't live up to their own expectations. Naturally, I stopped associating myself with these types of individuals, but it did an excellent job of reinforcing my opinion that a game like NS2 without ranked matchmaking is no game at all. A game like NS2 is about competition (like many multiplayer shooters), there isn't much competition to be had when one of the competing sides is obscenely superior to the other.

In summation, this game is phenominal, but it's death(at least in my opinion, and certainly for myself) was spawned by a lack of ranked matchmaking. I am sure ranked matchmaking sounds complicated and difficult to impliment, but without it this game seems like it wasn't worth the time, sad as it is to admit. You might argue that I got my moneys worth, but truthfully I wasn't eager to continue to play this game after less than a lengthy period of time because of the flaw, I only hoped things would change.
Posted January 20, 2014. Last edited December 27, 2015.
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Showing 1-6 of 6 entries