Recent reviews by RobinV

EDIT AS OF 07/05/2024:
Sony has walked back their decision to force PSN onto the PC playerbase. While I'm glad they actually listened, I'm also apprehensive about this happening again. I have no doubt Sony will try and do this again at some point, and I hope Arrowhead aptly warns the playerbase in-advance should that be the case. This whole situation has been a mess, and I've lost what little faith I had in Arrowhead or Sony to ensure this game continues to iterate and improve.

I still don't recommend it in its current state, for the reasons originally documented in this review.

EDIT AS OF 03/05/2024:
While everything I pointed out below still rings true, the game is now retroactively requiring players to register for a PSN account to play it. This was disabled on launch, for technical reasons, but was never actually hinted at being enabled again after the fact by neither Arrowhead or Sony. As such, this has alienated many players from playing the game, and (as if pissing away your privacy with the AC wasn't bad enough) now forces you to piss your data away further directly to Sony.

Even if the game wasn't still a buggy mess, I would tell you to stay away from it due to this.


Incredibly fun and engaging co-op hoarde shooter, disappointingly marred by a slew of technical issues such as:

- Pickups being un-pickupable when pressing E too quickly (same goes for dropped samples from teammates)
- Random props floating around
- Getting stuck inside terrain, sometimes requiring death to escape
(This one can even happen on the drop ship, where I've been stuck BEHIND the pod area... requiring a reboot.)
-
Armour values.. not working at all (light armour is as defensive as heavy armour) - This one was patched, however as a result the heavier armour is functionally useless, as it provides maybe 1 or 2 extra hits in exchange for a lot of mobility.
- Random crashes
- Random disconnects
- Freezing when tabbing out
- Freezing when opening the battle pass
- Inputs being delayed, or sometimes not registering at all (reloads hanging, getting up from prone being delayed despite button inputs)
- Being stuck in first person, and being unable to exit ADS until either getting knocked over or killed
- Having random out of body experiences where the camera zooms out and goes haywire, requiring death to fix
- Exiting an assisted reload with a teammate sometimes glues the player's hands to them, causing their arms to stretch and point in said teammate's direction, breaking all player animations
- Charger animations breaking, making them slide along the floor faster than they can run
- Mission critical drops (like the SSD) clipping through the world and being unobtainable
- Infinite loading screens
- Long load times leading to being kicked for network issues

To name a few. All of those are bugs I've personally experienced in my somewhat-short time playing this game. It's a genuine shame the game is as much of a technical mess as it is, because beneath all the muck is a really special experience that I'd otherwise be more than happy recommending to people. As it stands though? The fight for Super Earth can wait, at least until the Helldivers have been patched up a little bit first.

And preferably when Arrowhead drop nProtect Gameguard too, as good lord is that a TERRIBLE anti-cheat. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if that's the main culprit for the majority of the game's stability issues. Steer well clear of that while it remains in the game. Gameguard is every bit as terrible as people are saying it is.

Oh, and apparently AMD GPU (and maybe CPU) users have a random, low chance of experiencing a Gameguard related crash so catastrophic it requires an entire Windows re-installation? I've also seen reports of people losing all of their personal data as a result, insane. Definitely look into that before buying if you're on AMD, as reporting is spotty. Can never be too safe, though.

Edit:
Great resource for better understanding the destructive power of nProtect Gameguard: https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/2/4206994023681304166/

bald gate

Unpolished, unfinished, shadow of what Payday 2 achieved.

It astounds me that, in 2023 on the Unreal engine, this game can still have problems with detection lag in multiplayer for stealth. Not only that, but the general systems in the game are a complete joke. It feels bad to not make any progress in leveling up after a difficult stealth on a Very Hard / Overkill, knowing I could just sit in a bathroom on Hard farming weapon challenges instead for progression. Skill progression is illogical at best, and forces you into using skills you don't care for at worst.

There's no Crime Net, no lobby chat, no pre-planning, the menus are blocky and generally just... clunky to navigate - information is never presented in a clear and concise way (bars for weapon stats, yet again, and the skill menu being a collage of boxes with icons - think the perks menu in PD2). Queueing for a heist is akin to just matchmaking for a map in [insert FPS game here], there's zero personality to it. Dime a dozen matchmaking system that, until now, didn't even work.

Speaking of doesn't work: having to constantly restart the game so that weapon / Infamy level progression unlocks actually register. This happens almost every time, why?

Oh yeah, and Crew AI is somehow even dumber than PD2. You can't customize their weapons, their equipment, or command them to hold places. On the bright side they have infinite armour / ammo / medic bags... but they only place them AFTER an assault wave. Just.. Why?

It's a mess. Which is a shame, because deep down there's a fun game here but it just isn't worth all the headaches. Do not buy. Maybe check back in a year or two.

wait... this isn't starbound

If you have friends to stream this to in Discord (who will read all the lines in dumb voices) this game is an instant GOTY.

Opened and played the game, thought I understood how it played and what to expect.. then I beat it, and the whole game changed while keeping the same mechanics. I'd say more, but I really don't want to spoil what happens.

I haven't finished it yet, but from what I've experienced so far it's one of the most unique and mind-bending experiences I've had in video games. Ever. A must have for sure, check out the demo (it's free!) if you're interested. It took me around an hour to beat that, and it had me hooked after about 20 minutes.

Genuine 10/10. Probably my GOTY so far and I haven't even finished it yet!


EDIT:
Finished it twice now, game lives up to everything I'd been excited about and got excited for. The story is deep and goes even deeper the further in you go, to the point where there's a whole discord dedicated to figuring everything out and what it all means. It's a very compelling story held up by fun gameplay that never overstays its welcome at any point, instead choosing to switch things up and break the mold it made while staying true to what made it fun to begin with.

Still a 10/10. Unmissable experience.