DiccDastardly

Easily the worst game in the series.. or equal to re6. Game is just flat, no boss fights to talk off, no interesting characters to meet. In short, as is the game, 7hrs, it just feels lifeless. Grace's 1st section is best part of game. Not a game that I will ever find myself playing again, unfortunately.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Let me start by saying that when not in a loading screen the game to me is the sort of thing I like. Fallout Vegas I loved and this is very similar, even graphically. I like the old school design to it. The storylines, side quests, ability skill trees all there and are great. There are little imperfections such as the objective markers which are set on the entry points of areas rather then where you actually need to be but, this is something you get used to and can work round. I have also come accross various clipping issues and the odd missing NPC but these in themselves are infrequent and do nothing to detract from the game itself. Melee feels pretty clean and you do feel you are making a connection onto an enemy rather than swinging wildly. Gunplay is excellent with the variety of weapons and the ability to be able to modify each weapon with add-ons and also to increase the level of each weapon by tinkering. All in all pretty solid so far. I have managed to complete the game but have given up doing the side quests due to the biggest issue of the game, as mentioned, Loading times. If your a completionist you will find this more of a chore than enjoyable. When so many of the quests are of the basic go, fetch and collect variety you need to travel back and forth a great deal. Therein lies the almost gamebreaking issue. Each loading screen lasts for 45 seconds on the Xbox 1x in 4k and then a further 20 seconds. or so, once it has loaded for the map to actually appear or NPC's to to talk to you. Without giving any spoilers away, one simple mission involved me having to travel to an area, fast travel to an area within that area, collect an item (which took 5 seconds) and then return to the ship and then return to the quest giver..thats in excess of 3 minutes waiting for a 5 second job. You will be travelling hundreds of times during the games length so minutes will become hours fairly rapidly. For a game which is not particularly graphically challenged, and in 2019, is this the best we can expect ? Travelling to new areas is common most games. A long loading time for a complete area is fine if it means no fast travelling loading times within each area and for a game like this would surely have been not the best option but the only option. If they had thought and fixed this major flaw then this would have been an excellent must have game but for me, completing it was almost a relief due to this one issue and not a game I would return to again unlike Fallout New Vegas.

Gameplay has been hampered a little by how dark the game is in certain areas but otherwise enjoyable. By far the biggest issue is the lame storyline. The Calypso twins are incredibly annoying. I was hoping for a Borderlands 2 expansion pack style game but I understand the need to modernise but it's not worked, for me, and for that reason I give it a lowly 5 stars. Let's hope they get a decent set of writers in for the DLC.