Recent reviews by Knee

For those worried about the system requirements for this game, here is the game's impact on my system so far. As a disclaimer, I have not done much running around, I merely wanted to see what the impact of launching the game is like so I can get a ballpark estimate of how much resources the game will use:

• CPU: i7-9700F
  
• GPU: RTX 2060
  
• RAM: 16 GB

Game Settings: High (High texture resolution, high draw distance, high shadow details)

• Main Menu: 1 GB
  
• In Game: 4 GB
  
• In Game after exploring the map: ~8 GB

FPS (Unlimited FPS with V-sync ON (on a 144hz monitor):

• Minimum: 77 (looking towards the center of the map
  
• Average: 87 (just playing)
  
• Maximum: 144 (looking away from the center of the map)

Game took a minute or two to get to the main menu but loaded fairly quickly after that. Minor stutters here and there but did not persist.

Many years post release, I waited for it to go on sale and it's a fairly solid battlefield title. I would not get a special edition nor get the game at full price.

This game hardly crashes with my setup but there are three annoying bugs that keep popping up:

1. Game requires multiple attempts to start, sometimes you hear main menu music but the screen is black so you have to restart the game once or twice for it to work.
   
2. Sometimes switching attachments to your weapons while you are alive screw up how the weapon assets are loaded from disk. What does this mean? Well, your weapon disappears and you are now shooting at people with your fingers. It's funny, but when you're trying to snipe it becomes pretty difficult to shoot without sights.
   
3. Latency issues going up elevators causes you to teleport back and forth all the way up the elevator. Never had a smooth ride up those things in any battlefield game though.

Some things I did not expect getting this:

1. Bot support! Usually I don't get always online games but this helped me make my decision. Also I sometimes get a bit too competitive playing PvP so going up against bots is a much more relaxing experience.
   
2. Old BF4, BF3, BF1942 maps and weapons are included in this game but are hidden behind the Portal (you set up a custom server (can include bots). It's a big pain to set up, if they just gave you the option to select these maps and weapons from the PvE screen then it would be a fantastic addition.

Game gets updated with new maps and weapons on a somewhat seasonal basis.
I ain't spending $30 for a battlepass though. The weapons are unlockable otherwise.

Is it like the other battlefields?

• There are the classic 4 player archetypes (assault, engineer, support, recon) but 3 to 4 "specialists" to choose from in each category. These "specialists" are a point of contention, I don't particularly have a problem with them.
  
• Buildings aren't as destructible as past titles (like BF3 or BF4)
  
• There's a variety of maps with different sizes.

Really cool extension of portal puzzles involving moving portals, moving platforms through portals, and using portals as a means of transforming objects thru rotation to alter orientation of objects. Some of the rotation puzzles are hard to wrap my head around and simply solved them with brute force. But I'm patient with difficult games and this has been pretty fun so far.
I really hope there might be a chance for a level designer in the future.
The game promises you a cookie and you actually get a cookie.

Also the answer to the portal paradox is option B.

Love this game (I enjoy PvE zombie shooters more than their PvP equivalents, so keep this in mind when reading this review),

8/10 from me
You can tell it's rushed, but it feels complete, everything I would expect out of a zombie co-op game.
The only thing new player should be aware of is higher difficulties are REALLY hard if you don't know what you're doing. It takes awhile to understand the card system, how to deal with special infected (much less tell them apart), but it becomes really fun when you get used to the game.

After playing nightmare mode a lot, veteran mode is really easy.

Game loop is essentially the same as L4D
1. Safe room
2. Travel the map • much lengthier
3. Shoot infected • few different variations than in L4D
4. Shoot special infected • different variations than in L4D
5. Activate map hazard that causes hordes to show up
6. Get into next safe room
7. Repeat

I think a lot of the negativity towards this game is a bit unfair.
Things I like about the game:
1 of 6. The difficulty
Each difficulty changes the way you play. I used to be infuriated not knowing how the cards work, deciphering which special infected was which, figuring out how to avoid sleepers, getting used to sprint stamina. The learning curve for a PvE in is surprisingly hard and it's really satisfying knowing how everything works and mastering it.

2 of 6. The card system
I thought I'd have a terrible time figuring out the card system. Turns out I'm getting along just fine and have found decks I prefer even to the 'highly recommended' ones players create in their B4B guides. I have 8 different decks of cards I selected to decide how I want to play a campaign which I think is pretty neat. Sometimes I wish I had the option to switch decks based on the players that go in and out of the game.

3 of 6. Characters and Lore
I hate how the characters use 'gamer-speak' (holly is the biggest offender) to try to sound badass but come off sounded really cringey. I don't like hating this, but some of the characters I do like (Hoffman, Jim, Doc) and the story backing up the environment you're fighting through really improves the experience for me. I wish L4D did this.

4 of 6. Weapon and upgrades
Upgrades and items you buy in the saferoom store can change how you play the rest of the levels (if you get enough copper to stack upgrades per level).

5 of 6. Lack of player management system
I haven't seen any griefers in this game. Maybe some uncooperative / bad players, but these were manageable and certainly don't ruin a game as badly as a griefer could. This game currently has no vote kick, though sadly is planned to have it. No one

Things that annoy me:
1 of 4. No mods
This would really extend the life of the game and be free content for the players and relieve pressure from the developers to release new content.

2 of 4. Buggy interactive objects/animations (doors, items/weapons)
Special infected projectiles freeze in the air, make it difficult to see where it's going. Laggy infected make it

3 of 4. Annoying special infected
Some of the special infected could use some nerfing, Too short is the cooldown of a hocker (spitter + hunter) constantly pinning teammates (plus the buggy projectile makes it sometimes impossible to see where it came from). Chargers that grab you move too fast and are difficult to dodge if you don't have high speed/stamina cards.

4 of 4. Corruption Card RNG (cards you pick give you buffs, corruption cards the game picks do the opposite)
Too often do I get unforgiving corruption cards that will put a boss right outside the safe room, or riddle the map with horde-calling traps. These make nightmare mode especially difficult. I know it's supposed to be a ridiculously hard mode, but it should be hard because your timing needs to be better, positioning better, resource usage better. If the only way the players are beating nightmare is by breaking the game (or being stupid fast), then there's likely something wrong with the nightmare mode. Nightmare mode is beatable, but devs can you ease off the hockers/crushers please :c? (and fog while you're at it)

kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map
kings canyon best map

over 100 hours of playing *ribbit* noises to other players

:)

I only ever play PvE.
Frenzy (PvE zombie mode) is fun.
When I saw Insurgency 2, I mean the previous game, Insurgency for the source engine.

Fun stuff:
• I like the ability to toss instead of store your magazine by double tapping the reload button.
• Has similarities to how the previous game moved (the little jumping+crouching).
• Saved loadouts are really handy (don't know why this wasn't already implemented in Insurgency 2)
• Commander class makes an appearance and you can call in air support. (killed lots of teammates this way, but I didn't get punished for it ;) )

Not so fun stuff:
• Why do I holster my weapon when an enemy gets too close to me? Why wouldn't I just keep it pointed? Makes it difficult when too many enemies rush you are you make a wrong turn in a building.
• Where the cars? :(
• Ledge/window climbing is very slow and useless if you need to get somewhere quickly.
• Would prefer workshop mod integration instead of a thirdparty website

Warning: Requires you to have Origin installed.

Coming from PVZ: GW2
This game adapts team-based class shooter concepts like TFC/TF2 except all characters have 3 toggleable abilities.
(I'll label these as Ability 1, 2, and 3)

I only ever played GW2 with vanilla characters and don't care much for skins so sub-class variants don't mean anything to me nor DLC.
Overall, gameplay seems a little more balanced than GW2 at the cost of it becoming more generic. Wish there were maps from GW2, those were awesome. They seemed to have made loading times a lot worse. Even the victory screen has to load...
Servers don't try to fill a game with players leaving 50% of each game filled with computer players (and these computer players have aimbot on the entire time).
I don't like that all the projectiles are a lot faster. A lot of characters become more dangerous at long-ranges when they shouldn't be.

Engineer (tf2 demoman + engineer equivalent):
Nerfed him more than they should have. I miss his impact detonating explosives, those were much more useful than the current bouncing ones. His fast-movement ability has been reappropriated to his sprint. Instead of manning a gun he places an automated sentry gun. Something I still need to get used to.

Pirate and Cactus (tf2 sniper equivalent):
They basically made the snipers more like TFC/TF2 (damage increases during zoom) instead of constant damage in the previous game. Cactus got an extra potato mine slot though.
Pirate's non-zoom shot is a shotgun which they nerfed pretty badly.
Their drones are the same.

Zombie All-star (tf2 heavy equivalent):
Finally gave him some proper protection abilities (instead of 2 football dummies) and replaced it with a dome he can shoot through.

Peashooter (tf2 scout + soldier equivalent):
They gave him a reasonable nerf by buffing everyone's speed and reducing his primary fire damage.

Chomp:
Not going to describe this class. If you mained this character in the previous game, please unfriend me.

A lot of the character redesigns were unnecessary.
Why does the peashooter and everyone else have irises? That looks really unsettling.
Kernel corn basically has googly eyes now.

Game still holds up to today. Always loved the color scheme of the maps. Definitely worth the $2 (on sale) if you don't have it already, even if you've already played it.

Seems like an endless cycle of digging, crafting, exploring different landscapes that all look like each other only to get equipment for the sake of more digging, crafting, and exploring. Not completely certain what all the fuss is about, but if there's a sandbox mode I may tinker with the water physics.