SpartyAnimal

I'm going to give this game an eight overall, though I came in thinking 7.5 For a TLDR, there's not much to do outside of the missions and the missions are just okay. Ship building is fun for an hour or two, apartments are a waste, outposts don't have much value other than helping with skill building. "Courting" can be fun too (I like Andreja best, but Sarah has a better storyline). New game plus is cool but your hero suit and ship are underpowered. ------------------------------------------------- I went with eight for this game because I put a lot of hours into it. got up to about 135 skill level (lots of outpost grinding), new game plus level five, built a couple ships from scraps, bought apartments, traveled a lot of space and built several outposts. I admit I also had fun doing it. I think I enjoyed the main storyline more than most did. The factions were hit or miss. I really enjoyed the vanguard and the freestar rangers missions (especially vanguard). Crimson Fleet wasn't bad and Ryujin is the one I enjoyed the least. Side missions weren't bad either (again, hit or miss). Building my first ship was also fun. Buying new ones and upgrading those was also cool. I think ship building was one of the few things the internet community actually had good things to say and I agree. I never built much of an outpost because I didn't see the value. I did build one to farm XP to get my skills high, but that's it. I won't spoil New Game Plus, but I will say I liked the idea of it. A lot of people didn't, but I think it's better than the way every other game does it (just start over). One thing I'll say is that you do get a new suit and ship as a reward. The ship is awesome in my opinion, but too underpowered. The suit are cool, but both you can't modify which I think would improve them significantly. End of the day, there's just not much to do outside of missions and very little to collect. They could've done more to "gamify" it like add collectibles which leads to a cool gun or things like that. Once you get through the main story and the factions story and the side stories it's a pretty dead universe.

I'll start this off by saying that I will play Episodes 1 and 2 over again, but not 3. It was a good episode, but also very different from the first two episodes, which I loved. The first two episodes were very focused on the Chloe and Rachel relationship, which was what I enjoyed. The third episode put Chloe on a chase to find Rachel's Mom and didn't have enough Rachel. It was a thoughtful and solid ending to the three episodes, but I would've much preferred more Rachel and Chloe. This episode was a lot darker and went off the rails a bit in Rachel's Dad's office and not just with Elliot (who I honestly didn't even know who he was at first when I ran into him in the hospital). But ultimately while it ended dark and perhaps even needed to go there in some ways, I would've like it to be a bit lighter with more of Chloe and Rachel's relationship, which I think has been the highlight of both seasons so far. Also I still don't know if I made the right decision at the end.

I'm giving this a nine because I think it's an 8.5 and the game is getting slaughtered in the user scores so I went with a nine instead of an eight. I'll start with the new addition, which is the campaign. It reminds me of a Call of Duty campaign; it's short, it's got a "just okay" story and it's fun gameplay. Multiplayer is where this game shines, largely because there's so many cool and different modes to play. There's HUGE maps and numbers of players, not you can play as small as 8 vs 8, 10 vs 10, or even just 4v4 with the best characters in the game. There's also epic space battles with vehicles. Since the Day 1 change to loot you can buy heroes and villains at decently affordable prices now. Just playing and completing challenges will get you the most expensive character after just a few hours of multiplayer. However, getting all the perks of each character is luck of the loot crate draw. The only thing I don't like about this system is that you can't upgrade your cards using crafting parts until you get a ton of cards for that particular character. This will take a while and it makes you choose between opening crates and unlocking heroes or villains for the first dozen hours or so, which stinks. Overall though the multiplayer modes are a lot of fun, which is where the bread and butter is for this game. Arcade is also great and I LOVE that there's split screen capabilities. Just having a lightsaber battle with your buddy sitting on the couch next to you is worth trying this game. It hard to argue against the gameplay and the diversity of multiplayer modes.

When I realized my only qualms with this game is that the missions are too long (which isn't a bad thing) and the machines are very complicated to kill, I realized there's nothing wrong with this game at all. Add that the weapons are cool and unique, the RPG is simple and it's not just the best looking game I've played, but you can look at the horizon and actually get there on foot in about 30 minutes (you can also ride a machine or fast travel). I think the only negative reviews are negative because this game is hard. But it's hard because it's so smartly designed. Once you figure out how to defeat machines that make you feel like an ant it's incredibly rewarding as you run roughshod on the whole (enormous) world.

Great gameplay, really puts you in the race and I love the environments. The graphics are sub-par for this generation. With a PS4 Pro, Xbox One s and a 4k TV I'm going to have trouble going to this game when Forza Horizon 3 blows this game out of the water in terms of sheer beauty, but Dirt 4 is worth picking up for the rally racing.