Recent reviews by Zeurel

Big silly fun, lots of character. How long this one will last though is anyone's guess.

We b Fishing

Edit - First major patch came out and fixed a lot of issues with the game so far, though some still remain; parrying still feels inconsistent, Assault still feels weak in PvE but there's some progress towards making the class viable.

The Good;

- Visuals are fantastic
- Campaign IS short but it's a good riot.
- Lore is pretty much 100% spot on
- Runs buttery smooth on a half decent pc setup
- Co-op operations feels like this is where the heart of the game is. A lot more fun when you have a full squad of human folks with you.
- Boss fights are actually pretty fun, much improved over the weird QTE mess that they were back in SM1

The Bad (Mostly for PvP and PvE Ops;

- The Matchmaker, especially for Ops, is the worst thing I've ever experienced in a game. Most days you'll have to quit and come back in several times to wake the MM up.
- Joining server bug is getting to the point of putting this game down for a while. Nothing like spending 30-40 mins in a mission for the servers to crap out and crash upon completion, rendering all that effort for naught. This has happened at least 8 times.
- Game refuses to allow same classes so finding a game where you can level your main takes a good while.
- Melta rifle and Multi Melta feel like they are the ONLY viable guns at high difficulty due to how they clear mobs of enemies and deal a ton of damage, they outclass everything except the grenade launcher Bolt rifle.
- Hit boxes are pretty bad, especially when fighting bosses like the Carnifex.
- Inputs feel laggy half the time and the game easily gets confused putting in too many at once; you do an attack chain and then press the parry button to counter a blue and... nothing happens?
- No explanation in game as to what Block / Balance / Fence melee modifiers mean. (Tiny parry window, average parry window, HUGE parry window. Fencing makes block weapons utterly useless.)
- Fencing weapons are ment for parries but for some bizarre reason are tied to very slow weapons. Good luck parrying mid attack when it's so damn slow.
- Healing feels wrong; in the OG you go into melee and rip & tear to get your health back with executions, in this one you get your health back via the Bloodborne rally system and armour via executions; on higher difficulties you'll be fighting over who gets to execute to try and get their health back and most times you'll get smacked right back down. Fighting chaos on higher difficulties is a nightmare because of this.
- Horrendously spongy enemies at higher difficulties; it should not take 15 relic chainsword swings to down ONE rubric marine.
- Assault class at low difficulties is great, becomes useless at high tier difficulties due to how poorly balanced melee gameplay is and how gimped it's jump pack is.
- Perk system is bizarre; some perks are essential, others are utterly pointless; Assault for example has a perk that increases damage of your ground slam but takes much longer to charge exposing you to more damage? Vanguard has one where they take LESS damage in melee but MORE from ranged. Ranged is THE killer in the game, why would you even design this??? Tactical has one where you recharge your skill faster when you scan 20+ enemies but as one following it where you do more damage to bigger enemies but cannot scan the smaller ones. What??? Who thought this out??? Very poor game design.
- Powerfist and Thunderhammer are terrible, Chainsword reigns supreme.
- Ai team mates are useless in the campaign but weirdly more competent in the operations if you happen to have an empty slot.
- Solo play feels miserable; a.i. will focus on you only and ignore your a.i. team mates. If you have other humans with you it does split the aggro which is really weird.
- Actions are tied to animations and must finish before you can do anything else. Good luck dodging if you're in the middle of a combo with a slow weapon.

After playing a good chunk with the game i can safely say it's in a very rough spot. Fixes I hope to see in future;

- Completely reduce the spongyness of enemies at higher difficulties.
- Rework the perks so they're actually synergize with each other and not conflict in bizarre ways.
- Fix the matchmaker so it only matches you with games that AREN'T playing the class you're joining as.
- Completely rework the assault class so it's actually viable to take in Ops
- Redo the health and healing system to fit like the first game.
- Fix hitboxes
- Fix the bizarre input lag

Game can still be fun, but expect to feel some frustration at some bizarre gameplay design choices.

A quick brief summary after playing for a good bit;

The Good;

- Retains the feeling of the original game and expansions
- Massive graphical upgrade, looks real nice in motion.
- Gameplay this time around is deeper and more complex; new planet upgrade system, new cap ship upgrades and enhancements, new planet types and a much more massive tech tree
- Planetary orbits and the new way subfactions work make maps more tactical.

The 'Eh'
- New resource system in terms of the exotics will take a while to get used to. Seems to really have to focus on getting refineries up and running asap to start churning out stuff like special upgrades, Cap ships and certain research items.
- Diplomacy is really basic, back to the very original games.
- Culture is very different; no longer do you lose planets from dominant culture unless you get some specific very late game upgrades.

The Bad
- Ai art for the most part is bad and cheap looking. The tech icons especially are weird; they're hard to read at a glance unlike the original.
- Missile spam is a massive issue. They do far too much damage and there is not much to negate them. Flak frigates and PD guns seem to struggle a lot.
- TTK is really low, fleet fights don't last long. Cap ships can't seem to take much damage before going down, either.

:)

It's dead, Jim.

Bl2 > Bl3

A veritable buffet of horrendous bugs

Just one more run...
Just one more run...
Just one more run...
Just one more run...
Just one more run...

Over priced for such little value. Does nothing to fix the blaring issues with the core game.