VoidWinter

According to Steam, I have an obscene amount of time put into this game. An absolutely bonkers 20k hours over the course of it's early access and post-release. I consider this an engineering game as the fun part is that you have to figure out how to solve all your problems mostly on your own. I will freely admit that mods build on the game greatly, making it an even better experience. But the best part is Klei itself. They listen. They incorporate good suggestions from users. They put the best of the best mods into the game. It's something I find both rare and refreshing. There's simply no other game quite like it, and I do not regret a second of those 20,000 hours.

I would like to preface this review by making clear one thing: I despise rogue-likes, period. Roboquest broke that hate hard. The art style is great, the music is outstanding, the gameplay loop is solid and a load of fun, the difficulty is just right, the majority of weapons are fun to shoot, the gunplay is tight and smooth, and the story, while somewhat brief, was compelling. This is an outstanding little game that has wormed it's way into my heart, and I find myself starting it up anytime I need some good first-person shooter action. It simply ticks all the boxes, and is good enough to the point that I can ignore the fact that it ticks a box that I by and large don't like.

(Note: This is all story mode, I do not do PvP.) It's not a bad game. However, it isn't really all that great either. I've played all the other Halo games and this is the first where the story was too weak to hold my interest. Gameplay in general feels inferior to Halo 5. Various game mechanics are simply given to you and their use is not explained. This made the first boss fight (the elite that could cloak himself) after I reached the open world part far more difficult than it should have been. Halo 5 got the weapons perfect, but Infinite feels like a few steps backward in their handling, ADS behavior and general balance. The very first squad I tried to rescue wasn't anywhere near where it was indicated on the map and it was a real pain to get to where they actually were. The grappling mechanic was clunky to say the least, and only seemed to work when it wanted to. Co-op not being included at release was a major oversight, and I may try it again when I can tag team it with a friend or two. Overall, like I said, it's not a bad game, but it doesn't really feel right and is having a hard time keeping my interest. It just is what it is, and what it is is below what I expect from Halo.

Ok, ok. The actual combat is fun, but really, that's where the good stuff stops. WHERE IS THE MOST ICONIC OMNIMECH IN THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE? You SERIOUSLY made a friggin mechwarrior game without the Mad Cat / Timber Wolf? WHAT THE EFF WERE YOU THINKING??? INEXCUSABLE! Really, looking at the lineup of mechs in the game just makes me grumble. Almost all my favorites didn't make the cut. There are a few good ones here and there but by and large, the list is dominated by weaker, less fun-to-play mechs. There are parts that just boggle my mind, like being unable to both repair and refit a mech at the same time. It just feels like extra, unnecessary steps to slow you down and pad things out. Even how the mechs are organized gets on my nerves. You sort them by mass, not alphabetically. The tutorials also left a lot to be desired. FAR too much was left out, leaving me frustrated trying to figure out how to hire pilots, organize my mechs, and even put weapons on them. The mechs are far less flexible than in previous games and the execution of playing with your loadouts (what little you can do) was overcomplicated and difficult to understand initially. But when it comes down to it, it IS a mechwarrior game, even if only just barely. A game with good meat, sandwiched in terrible bread and strange, inappropriate condiments.

This game has just one very big problem: the difficulty. I got further in Dark Souls than I did this game before I ragequit on the lowest difficulty level. What I hate is that it started out so good, the story is interesting, combat is fun for the most part, and it's the first game that hooked me quickly in a long time What it really needs is a narrative difficulty level, for those of us that want the story instead of the challenge. It didn't start out too hard either, but once you hit the first dungeon it gets absurd and outright unfair. Smoke or spore clouds cause your character to stop to cough, which is odd because my character was wearing a gas mask, and always seem to show up when it's least convenient. They also cause a status effect, that, while curable, quickly becomes incurable, as when you resume from dying, you don't go back to your last save, you go onward, minus the used curative. So you die and die and die in a cycle that is hard to break. Oh, and large enemies can sneak up on you from behind with zero warning or indication they're present and one-shot you The icing on the cake is that the game seems to have a fetish for it's difficulty, as you can buy equitable items to make the game even harder So as much as I was looking forward to playing through this game, I won't be. If you don't mind a serious challenge, go for it, otherwise, avoid.

After the masterpiece that was Doom 2016, I've been positively rabid to get my hands on this game. My disappointment knows few bounds. When I play Doom, I want to, you know, kill tons of demons. Imagine my surprise when I'm spending my time in jumping puzzle after jumping puzzle with controls and traction ill-suited for the task. So I find myself slowly slogging through the game for the story. That is, I would be had I not been utterly defeated by one of the jumping puzzles. A game with the name "Doom" shouldn't have the story as it's main feature, nor should a frustrating jumping puzzle be the end of the game for a (former) fan of the series. Sorry, Id, I'm just not impressed.