Recent reviews by FeedTheCreature

This is the longest review I've ever written. Considering I don't typically write reviews for games at ALL, you can attribute this one to the amount of hype for Squadrons that I fell prey to, and the disappointment of what we ultimately got...

Squadrons is a pretty 'Meh' title. It checks some critical boxes and misses plenty of others.

For starters, controlling your starfighter is easy as pie, as long as you're using a controller or mouse and keyboard. If you're looking to play this like a traditional flight sim using HOTAS and pedals (which is what it seems to want to be at first) you'll be a bit disappointed. The bindings and axis controls don't seem to want to recognize multiple devices at once, making manually mapping controls a chore. Rather than tell me exactly what device a keybind was mapped to, it just labeled them Device 1, Device 2, and decided that Device 3 (my rudder pedals) wasn't even worth the effort of listing/binding. For the throttle, it wouldn't recognize the full range of the axis. I was forced to only be able to map it to Throttle Up, which somehow told it that zero throttle on the controller meant 50% throttle in the game. I had to use a separate keybind to throttle down further, which would end up getting canceled out and instantly bumping me back up to 50% throttle if literally ANY other button on any other device was pressed. This caused my fighter to jump forward at times I really didn't want it to...

And that's just when the throttle wanted to work "properly" at ALL. Multiple times, I had my throttle not respond while actively moving the stick. This was somewhat alleviated when I scrapped the throttle entirely and switched to keyboard/stick combo, but even then there were times where certain controls felt delayed when they really shouldn't have been. In all honesty, this could simply be due to the type of setup I'm using, and maybe support hasn't been fully implemented for ALL brands of HOTAS/pedals, but this is supposedly a AAA title of a MASSIVE IP with backing of one of the largest publishing companies in the world, so I'm still holding a grudge about it. Rather than use the stick to pitch and roll (as it should be), I ended up settling for pitch and yaw, using the keyboard for throttle and roll. This felt very alien to me but was the most efficient way to control the fighter in a timely manner in order to be able to react to whatever you're chasing/being chased by.

Which brings me to the AI. Overall, the AI is kind of serviceable but very questionable. I've seen player-bots boost in a straight line directly into an asteroid or station. Sometimes they'd fly normally, doing whatever the objective was, while not reacting to you shooting them in the ass at all. Other times they'd pull impossible maneuvers and end up on your tail, shooting incessantly and never missing regardless of whatever evasive maneuvers you attempted to use. The non-player-bots (generic starfighters in Fleet Battles) had zero depth whatsoever. They'd fly around EXTREMELY SLOWLY in a neat-looking formation, only shooting at you when you were directly in front of them, and that's basically it. No reaction to you lighting them up whatsoever, no change of direction when most of their formation is getting blasted and blown up. Honestly, I'm pretty sure they're on rails or something. They even seem to just immediately snap to a different heading when they pass whatever waypoint they happen to be heading towards, even flipping a whopping 180 degrees in a millisecond with no penalty to their already-grandma-esque speed...

*Sigh*

Moving on.

The cockpit of each fighter is an obvious labor of love. Lights flash, shadows move across the dash, and the instrument panel does a near-perfect job of telling you everything you need to know. I say near-perfect because the radar is super rudimentary. The icons do a good job of telling you what's in front of you but it can get very cluttered at times, and you'll never know if anything is actually behind you until you're being shot at. Seriously, why not use a system like Elite Dangerous has? Closed circle if it's in front, open circle if it's behind. Simple and effective. Instead, when something is behind you, the blip just appears on the very edge of the radar, giving you no indication of WHERE anything behind you is exactly. It doesn't feel 3D, but rather like something you'd see if you were playing an on-rails flight/shooter game. Radar aside, the rest of the instruments are perfect. You can clearly see the status and distance of whatever you're targeting, the direction your target is heading in relation to you (very much like the original trilogy), your speed and power indicators, your shield and hull strength, remaining ammo for consumables/missiles, and remaining juice for your blasters. It was extremely satisfying to take a moment to look at everything in the cockpit and know exactly what it was for. Great job there, MOTIVE! You guys seriously nailed the aesthetic and atmosphere of being behind the stick/yoke of some of the most iconic starfighters in cinema history!

Explosions and laser blasts are a sight to behold and the sound design is spot on. Rather than go for the lengthy particle-heavy explosions we got in recent Star Wars games, Squadrons seems to opt for a more movie-like fireball when a fighter blows up, once again reminiscent of the explosions and effects of the original trilogy. I find this extremely pleasing, and easy on the eyes if you're prone to light-sensitivity like I am. Basically, the bright colors don't overstay their welcome. I've got SOME nitpicks with blaster fire, but won't go into detail or even really hold it against the devs because I know time and resources were somewhat limited for a game that's playable both in and out of VR. Overall, the game looks gorgeous even at lower graphics settings. It's extremely obvious that MOTIVE really wanted visual polish, and the animations of your pilot hitting buttons when activating certain systems adds a layer of immersion, which Squadrons does very well, especially in VR.

I found the story bland and I was unable to finish it. I just got bored with it. There's no real variance to objectives (Fly here, scan/shoot this, follow me, AMBUSH/SET PIECE!) I've heard that some of the missions have a FEW different things to do, but I just couldn't maintain enough interest to progress. The writing is 'meh' and the voice-acting is 'meh'. The difficulty settings are atrocious because the AI doesn't have any real response to it. The different settings seem only to affect how many enemies show up and how much damage their blasters do to you. It's far too easy to just get blown up on higher difficulties because the game decides you're in the wrong spot at the wrong time when the ambush starts.

All in all, there's just no real depth anywhere. The story isn't worth replaying if you can even finish it in the first place. In multiplayer, you only have two modes. Dog Fights get repetitive and boring when there's literally nothing else to do. Fleet Battles are marred by AI designed with fashion over function, balancing issues, and my snobbish refusal to use mouse and keyboard, which is definitely the multiplayer meta here. Think War Thunder and you'll understand. There just simply isn't enough content to justify $40, even though there are no MTX and $40 is below the standard. I think EA was really trying to regain some crowd sympathy with this title, but it misses the mark by a mile.

I have eight hours in this game. That's it. At least an hour and half of that was spent mucking with controls. I didn't even want to try any actual PvP because it just felt, well... Not worth it. I probably won't be putting any more time into it without some really heavy content updates.

I don't regret purchasing Squadrons. I just regret that I probably won't get my money's worth out of it. If you REALLY want it, get it on sale. There is still SOME enjoyment to be had here...

Nothing incites panic like seeing your Glock stovepipe after shooting yourself in the leg while trying to draw too quickly because a taser-drone is bearing down on you in a dark room and the two sleeping turrets you blindly passed by just a moment ago aren't sleeping anymore...

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game.

A throwback to what Alien games should all be. On the easier difficulties, the enemies are dumb, so this game shines on Hard mode and above.

Bought this game waaaaaaaaaaay back when it was first released into Early Access here on Steam.
The storyline has always intrigued me, but the lack of content in the game back then make sure my time in this game was short lived.

Now they're out of early access, and are on the full release.

Honestly, it ran much better for me when it was in early access, and I had ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hardware back then.
Now it struggles even to maintain 15 FPS for me.

It's a single player game, but the way the character speeds change and teleport around make it feel like a multiplayer game running on overseas servers. There's still spots where I get stuck in something while navigating or even just fall through the world.

It ran so much better two years ago, and while there's tons of new content, the performance of the game has just turned to absolute ♥♥♥♥. Definitely not worth $60, at least not right now...

I'm sorry, Compulsion Games, I really am.
I tried to like it. But you've failed so far.
I can't even make it through the first hour without multiple game-breaking issues.

I'll check back again next year or so.

While I would be reluctant to drop $30 on this game in its current state, it's still a lot of fun as is. The flight mechanics work well, the graphics are beautiful, and the combat is challenging without being impossible. Controls are intuitive and everything works fairly fluidly. Each death sends you back to the first sector, and each run is procedurally generated. You'll lose any weapons and items you found or crafted but keep the money you earn in order to buy new perks for your ship.

As of right now, it's a VERY short game. You can beat it within an hour without any perks if you're lucky and careful. That's why $30 might be a bit much to ask for right now.

Overall, it's very solid idea and I highly recommend following the development of this game.

This game isn't even worth writing a negative review about.

Dude. Man-sized ninja rabbits. It should be a crime not to buy this game.