Recent reviews by Kobold

Now that development has ended on Chiv 2, I thought it would be a good time to finally write a review. This is one of those games that is hard to encapsulate with a thumbs up/down or star rating, as what you get out of it is going to vary wildly from person to person. You could play nothing but Team Objective mode and have a really good time just hacking away in a huge amount of gorgeous maps while spamming funny emotes the whole time. If you're like me you might get mildly-extremely sweaty trying to master the mechanics of melee combat in duels. You could be a truly despicable human being and master ranged "combat". Either way you are going to get your moneys worth if any of that sounds good to you, though for just the casual experience, I'd say the price is borderline. I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in the genre, fantasy/medieval fans, and anyone who likes mastering PvP combat.

Personally I think melee first person games are the absolute best PvP experience, with the most chance for skill expression and hundreds of hours of mastering mechanics. FPS games definitely have their place, but at the end of the day, they all boil down to aim, dodge, and any novel mechanics a particular game might offer. Melee games by default involve timing, spacing, blocking, parry mechanics, counters, and that's just the basics. Every time one of these games comes out there's a lot of talk about esports etc. They tried with Mordhau but anyone with a passing knowledge of that game's playerbase and top players can imagine how that went (it was hilarious, recommend a YT search).

Aside from Chiv 2 right now, Mordhau is really the only other option in the genre (I guess maybe For Honor). Mordhau really is off the table unless you want to spend your first 1000 hours in brutal pain being dominated by some chain-smoker in an Ex-Soviet bloc 360 animation canceling you. I genuinely like Mordhau combat, but sinking that much time into a dead/dying game is just stupid. So Chiv 2 is really the only choice in the genre for now. There's a few promising first person melee games in the pipeline, either led or consulted by top players who have excellent insights into what the genre needs. Mobius has a playtest you can try, but its rare to find anyone online yet, though the mechanics are promising.

Some genre vets will ridicule Chiv 2's combat as simplistic or boring, but it really has depth they probably haven't reached in their gametime, or they just have a bias toward Mordhau. All you have to do is watch some good players duel. There's a lot going on. The held-parry system allows for longer, often more tedious fights at lower skill levels, but once you get past that skill-tier, you realize that holding block is extremely readable and you will be punished. At the higher level fights can often be drawn out just because both players are so good, but they are still really exciting to watch if you understand whats going on imo. Its almost like boxing or HEMA in that sense, as once I learned more about it, fights that seemed boring took on a whole different meaning.

The main W for Chiv 2, is that its combat looks insanely better than other/previous first person melee games. There are some fighting styles that look wonky, but nothing extreme. Some people debate whether drags should be a mechanic in melee combat games, as they were originally an unintended discovery in Chiv 1 mechanics, and now have become an expected feature. They argue nobody would "slow down" a swing in a melee fight, but this just isn't true, as changing up your timing in any kind of melee combat is reliable way to throw somebody off. Whether a 20 lbs macehead hits you at a bit lower of a speed isn't going to make it suck any less, and dragging is really the only way I can think to simulate this timing changeup.

Lastly, any history heads will get some enjoyment from nods to dark age/medieval/renaissance history. There's nothing authentic, or realistic here, but as someone with an interest in the era, I can appreciate the world they have created. There's some lore, but its threadbare, which is kind of cool in a minimalistic, get out there and pillage sort of way. I moreso just like the comedic tone, and material drawn from actual history. You will see a nice mix of fantasy and very real, well-researched weapons. You can tell the devs had a passion for the era, and the tone in general is a huge positive. Spamming VO's really is what makes this game endlessly playable.

There are plenty of negatives, but I don't really care to get into the bulk of them, as they are unlikely to affect you until you're 100s hours deep and have already gotten your moneys worth. One bit I would warn anyone about is the server performance as of late. Its not as terrible as some would say, but I have noticed more jank than in the past, but hopefully this gets resolved. End of development isn't too huge of a deal, as there's enough content and people playing to hopefully keep the game alive until the next entry in the genre (plz God do not make me play Mordhau). Another negative, Torn Banner in general. They don't behave as poorly as a AAA studio, but they are kind of mid at best. They refuse to allow modding, and they had an (imo) ignorant opinion toward ranked modes. I personally was dying for ranked, and think it would give the game a huge post-EOL playerbase, but they seem content to completely ignore that possibility. After 700+ hours I only come back every couple weeks, but I still really enjoy myself when I do. Beyond that I can't really invest too much more time improving without some sort of ranking/competitive system.

Overall, I still recommend this game, if only to get your foot in genre. I definitely am hooked, and felt I got my money's worth. FOR MALRIC!!!

So much incredible atmosphere. So many chill inducing suprises/triggers that blend seamlessly with the gameplay. Even dying is memorable. It nails the survival genre better than anything out there yet, if you're a fan of the genre its a must.

My angry review of this great, yet somehow awful game:

Let me start this review off by stating that I am a pretty picky gamer, and I tend to arrive at the conclusion that a game is flawed more often than concluding a game is good, and much less often, great. If that is a comment on the state of the gaming industry (AAA and unfortunately, now indie) or my general cynical bullsh*t is a question for another day.

Like so many other titles I've played recently I was floored by the initial impression I got from Elite: Dangerous. The graphics are beautiful on my freshly built, glowy gaming pc, the flight mechanics are out of this world (enough to buy the game for if that's your modus operondi) and tooling around with a joystick is incomparable, and the scale and beauty of the universe (1:1 scale of the Milky Way I've read) is breathtaking. That being said, it feels kind of like... an arcade game? I don't know something crucial is really missing here. There are obvious culprits, the missions are lackluster, even when compared to the considrably dreary missions of EVE Online, the carebear professions are horrifically one note and not satisfying, and there is just a wall of boredom and shallow gameplay you will run up against that is utterly game breaking for me.

I played my first week as a mission runner and then a bounty hunter when that got tiresome. At first bounty hunting, with my real life friend who also purchased the game, was a blast. We flew into nav points, resource extraction sites, and even interdicted a few wanted criminals and blasted our way to a small fortune. The fights are sometimes interesting, but 9 out of 10 times you will be assisted by security forces or other credit hungry players and the fight will be one sided, and like everything else about this game, decidedly one note and flat. I honestly can't bring myself to log on and its got me even thinking nostalgically about EVE, which is not healthy. I might keep playing every once in a while with my friend, because like i said I am a cynical a**hat and he thinks this game is great. I always feel like the odd man out when reading raving comments on so many games that just feel sh*tty or unfinished, like people are dancing around the problems to get what enjoyment they can out of a game until the community collectively decides it sucks. Elite: Dangerous feels like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ waltz around a gaping black hole in that regard, and a lot of waltzers will get aggressive and throw sh*t at you if you point out that black hole, but I think that sentiment might stem from a desire to see this game succeed because of the awesome flight mechanics and the scale of the universe. I get that, everytime I get into flying I want so badly for this game to be better, but it just plain isn't.

The developers have promised a heap of features, walking on planets, entering cities, more social and building aspects, but I don't buy anything devs sell in that vain without proof anymore because I've been burned and (/equip Tin Foil Hat) keeping customers playing with false or unrealistic content promises is a good model for making a quick buck by keeping a solid enough playerbase to attract more suckers - I mean customers. I could only honestly reccomend this game to space flight buffs and Oculus users curious to try something other than walking down a creepy hallway or looking around a classroom filled with dolphins, and only at a reduced price, in its current state. Personally I'm going to hold out hope that Star Citizen lives up to the hype, try to stay away from EVE until then, and kick myself repeatedly when this title goes on sale for half price before likely going belly up when the Devs can't deliver the moon, or at least the ability to land on one.

3/10