Recent reviews by Zak

EDITED REVIEW:

Today, an update came out that specifically boosted enemy footstep audio by 30%, which just so happens to be one of the ways that I self-rebalanced the game to make it easier to be aware of enemies. This change alone was enough to push the game from "frustrating" to "fun" and I'm super excited to see it in place. Coupled with the coming-soon "high contrast mode" that I'm still looking forward to see in action, my single largest complaint with the game has been rectified. I have a few minor quibbles still, but really nothing that hampers my enjoyment, and the single feature request I'd like is already available as a mod (a "last weapon used" keybind) so I have no major complaints left; as such, I might as well flesh this out into a fully-fledged review.

Enemies are designed well, and it feels like you need to take them out using strategy, quick thinking, and using the environment to your advantage. Now that I can tell where they're coming from, this feels incredibly rewarding to do so; drop a landmine here, pre-emptively throw a grenade there, chuck some furniture to the side over there to clear a sightline... and then the combat is fast-paced enough that your prep work all comes to a head in under 30 seconds of action, followed by a period of time to take a breath and scavenge for pickups and secrets.

All made better by the weapons, which sound punchy, have great impact effects, look visually interesting, and have a host of upgrades. Most of the "main" upgrades are pretty simple stat changes, but the alternative weapon modes really transform each weapon, and it feels like there's some great synergies between different weapons using different weapon alt-modes. Finding a combination that fits the style you like feels very satisfying to pull off, building your kit up in a way to cover the drawbacks of your choices with other weapons.

Level design is largely good as well, though I do agree with some other reviews stating that levels can occasionally feel too "busy". This is largely a problem with the earlier maps, however, and by the time you first get to Streets it feels like things have reached the right amount of complexity; there's a much clearer and more intuitive distinction between playable and non-playable areas, and most sections manage to simultaneously look realistic and play in interesting, fun ways, a testament to the encounter design. One of my only major gripes is that, in specific sections, areas can be either too cramped to move around effectively, or too open to have any effective cover; the Hydrocity maintenance areas is the best example of the former, and the earlier sections of Streets are a good example of the latter.

Finally, I need to have a special shout-out to the soundtrack, which kicks ass. It feels very late 90s/early 2000s, but in the best way possible, with each new piece of soundtrack being distinct from each other and representative of the area, but without seeming like it had no direction or connection to other pieces. It's SO good, in fact, that I ripped a few of my favorite tracks from the game files; when the game's out, I'd very much love to see the soundtrack available for purchase, I'd drop a few bucks buying it.

-------

ORIGINAL NEGATIVE REVIEW:

I would love to love this game. The weapons all sound punchy and have incredible impact effects, the soundtrack is 100% bangers so far with no misses and all hits, the movement feels very fluid, the secrets run the gamut between easy to stumble across and almost arcane to discover (but in a good way!), and the enemy behavior is fantastic. They call out to each other, taunt you, suppress and flank you as a squad, change their tactics dynamically based on the situation in play, and generally feel exceptionally fun to fight...

...when you can see them. The absolute biggest, most problematic issue with the game in its current state is the fact that awareness of enemies is capital B, bold text, Bad In a game where enemies are fragile and so are you, quick reflexes, strategic thinking, and accurate estimation of where both you and your enemies are going to be is the secret to success. However, human-sized enemies lack footstep sounds, they blend in very easily with the background, and they can see through the aforementioned impressive impact effects. This also causes problems in areas with multiple windows in sequence, such as during the hospital offices, as the slight opacity to the glass compounds quickly so by the third pane you can't see anything - except the AI can see you clear as day through them, often leading them to land first hits on you before you even know they're there.

Here's two screenshots ( https://i.imgur.com/nRYIGCa.png and https://i.imgur.com/H6g0GRk.png ) I took during a combat encounter. Note by the timestamp, these screenshots were taken one second apart. Immediately before the first screenshot was taken, the enemy was out of view completely. In combat against multiple flanking enemies, a low-contrast target appearing around a corner without any audible cues until firing his weapon and erasing 35% of your health in one second feels frustrating rather than fun, and also makes the impact of finding armor or health feel significantly lessened when at least one instance of this has a chance of occurring during every firefight, making it nigh impossible to sustain any long-term benefit of armor or health beyond the auto-regen 35%.

Now, there's currently a non-functional "High Contrast" mode in the settings, listed as a coming-soon WIP. Whenever this feature becomes available to test, I'd be very happy to try it out, see if it resolves the issue, and revisit my review and adjust it accordingly - but in its current state I can't honestly say that the fun outweighed the frustration for me. To add one last bit of thought to the High Contrast mode, I noticed there was only two options, "Off" and "On"; personally, I'd very much like to see an additional "Enemies Only" setting, because hunting for item pickups is half the fun and I don't need them to be highlighted.

played it for a bit, it's alright i guess

Great game! Unfortunately: Playstation.

UPDATE: Democracy prevails! SNOY is no more!

While I've given it an honest try and figured it wasn't my sort of game, I was happy my friends all enjoyed it. Now, I'm helping them dunk on a colossal screw-up by the devs, who evidently feel like they're entitled to people's money. GG, Gaijin!

Oh boy, so... where to start? I'll go through the positives and negatives first.

Pros:
- Gorgeous lighting and visual effects, really sells the look of the place.
- Pretty solid weapon animations, gives everything the right amount of snappiness.
- Almost entirely bug-free. I got stuck in a wall once after sliding into a specific corner, but other than that... there wasn't a single time where I got trapped in geometry, or had enemies glitch out, or had any sort of instability.
- Diverse weapon sandbox. Every weapon feels like it has its own place in the game, and all of them fulfill their specific niche admirably; on top of that, each of the weapon alt-fires are incredibly handy, and I find myself constantly switching between them to combo enemies.
- Quality level design. There was only one or two occasions where I needed to look around for longer than a moment to figure out where to go, and secrets are an appropriate level of secret; out of the way, but not hidden behind artificial "secret doors" that have no indication that they're there.
- Solid soundtrack. It generally ranges from "suitable enough" to "pretty good"; there's not a whole lot of tracks that'll stick with me after playing, but they all fit the theme admirably, and generally avoid sounding too generic.

Cons:
- The sound design is a little weak. Gore effects feel nice and splatter-y, and some of the guns sound good, but the double-barrel feels pitifully weak just because of its sound. Additionally, a lot of the cutscenes feel almost unfinished with how quiet they are; explosions, lasers, and gunfire often have incredibly muted (or sometimes no) sounds to them, which diminishes their impact.
- The cutscenes themselves all happen in a FOV that's far, far too low, and with how much the camera sways around, it can be genuinely headache-inducing to watch sometimes, especially for someone who plays at 110 FOV.
- Checkpoints can be a bit oddly-placed, and there should be checks for how many enemies are near checkpoint triggers before giving the checkpoint. I once got into an almost-softlock where I ran through a hallway in the middle of a firefight, died to the enemies in the next room, then realized that hallway had a checkpoint that kept depositing me right in front of those enemies. Other places feel as if they don't have enough checkpoints.

Some more specific points that don't fit anywhere else:

The level design on display here is definitely more akin to old-school Quake level design, and it's a design I highly appreciate. Doom Eternal uses maps that are basically a series of arenas connected by puzzle sections, and that's alright, but I personally prefer the more old-school idea where there was less "enemy arenas" and more sections where you're simultaneously killing things AND moving forward. There's still a few arena sections, where you're locked into an area and need to clear everything out to progress, but they're used tactfully and aren't usually placed back-to-back. This can be either a pro or a con, depending on your personal preference, but I absolutely like it.

Rooftops. This entire level is a weird low point in an otherwise-fantastic game, and it's almost entirely because it doesn't make correct use of the gimmick it has. It puts you in control of a flying car, tasked with moving from section to section and getting out to tackle them in whatever order you choose... except you can't actually do that, because one specific point can be done in the wrong order, and it isn't at all communicated that you need to go back through a door you might have previously seen was locked. On top of that, it then forces you to navigate the car through a series of claustrophobic tunnels, but also has enough health that I never once had less than 75% health. All in all, it feels like a gimmick, and a poorly-executed gimmick at that; at least the motorcycle section later was more straightforward about what it was trying to do.

Finally, the choice to only have augments available in stores on higher difficulties is a decision I understand, but basically makes the entire system useless after a certain point. By the time I reached the midpoint of chapter 2, I had more than enough money to buy out everything, and playing on street cleaner difficulty meant that there was dozens of shops from that point on which served zero point. I'd suggest maybe delineating the shop purchases a little further, such as being able to buy health and ammo on Virgin Blood difficulty, ammo only on Regular Joe, and then maybe pistol ammo only on Street Cleaner and Serve Me Pain? That way there's at least some purpose to the shops after buying out all the augs, and it provides a little bit of an extra safety net in case you're low on ammo, letting you fall back on your pistols.

All in all, stellar experience so far, and I'm definitely looking forward to Chapter 3.

So, I really do want to recommend this game. Been playing it since the early public releases, and there's some great new content with 1.0 update. Friendly AI is way improved, animations feel crisp, the sound design is excellent, and the environmental storytelling is pretty good.

However, in its current state... enemy AI is way, way, waaaaay overtuned. It's near impossible to get them to surrender without simultaneously tear-gassing and beanbagging or tasering them, and when they do you'd better not change weapons within their line of sight otherwise they're almost guaranteed to try ambushing you you, because apparently even the most two-bit meth'd-up crackheads of this world carry three backup guns and a knife in their boot. Flashbanging or pepperballing them only gives them a random chance of giving up despite being surrounded by armed SWAT, and their reaction times are so fast that if you don't play every single mission by just mirroring doors and throwing grenades inside, you're forced to resort to lethal tactics because less-lethals are so hilariously ineffective.

On top of that, there's just... way too many enemies in some of the levels, and it feels less like "realistic police simulator" and more like "Iraqi anti-insurgency door-kicker shooter". Okay, maybe I can buy that a streamer has a crypto farm running, and maybe I can buy that he's got some local gangsters with guns on the take to help protect it... but why does he have 8+ goons with submachine guns ready to ride-or-die kill some cops to protect him, including in his own apartment? It should be like, four guys with pistols and maybe some auto-conversion Glocks at best, and they absolutely should not be fighting like they're hell bent on killing you at any cost, including their own lives. The difficulty curve should ramp up and enemies should get more hardcore as you get into the later levels, but it seemingly starts at 100% and then stays there all the way through.

The best part of it all, though? There's already a mod out there that addresses all of the above... but it shouldn't need to exist as a mod at all.

TL;DR - AI is way too aggressive and doesn't care about their own lives at all, and less lethals are only very marginally effective. Serious dissonance between the message of "try to save lives, not take them" and the gameplay of "if you don't kill them first with twitch-shooter reaction speeds you're dead on the spot". The AI turns this game from an 8/10 to a 3/10, easily; I'll happily update the review if they get patched up.

i'm only reviewing this game for the badge