nervengas

People where hoping this would be an alternative to COTW without the **** and it has kinda delivered on parts of that. Mostly on the alternative part. You buy (I don't actually recommend buying it, multiplayer is dysfunctional anyways) this because it's like 1 of 2 serious hunting games in existence. Not because it's all that great. Or like, still in active development.This is a weird game. The one thing they got right, partially at least, is the animal behavior. Longer spawn distances - not by that much of course since they can't handle their engine well enough for that, e.g. if you're glassing mountains from a distance they'll still be empty, just like in COTW - better flight behavior. The animals look better, so do the weapons. Okay, that's it for the positive part.Most of the weapons are redundant. Most of them are also not included in the base game. If you want good stuff, you have to buy DLCs, lots of them. Graphics are generally better, but optimization is very poor. The devs are not all that great at their job, game has been out for >3 years, while most of the bugs - most, not all - are fixed by now, it's still not running well on older hardware. Damage system is primitive. No spinal or bone damage. Insta-kill, fast or slow bleedout or survival. It's simple, not realistic.Story ... if you hated all the cringe in COTW and were hoping for a more 'adult' writing style here, you'll be disappointed. Some of drivel this game passes for a story wouldn't be fit for 12 year olds, much less any adult.

rather scummy game model. basic functions like tents and vehicle travel are paywalled, as are most good weapons. mods are mostly disabled so nobody but the devs can add new content (for cash that is). some quality-of-life mods are broken with the modern weapons pack - probably intentional. game is unstable, crashes often, which is very frustrating during missions where large distances are traveled. movement speed is locked to fps so don't play this with an older computer. the maps are great and the hunting is enjoyable sometimes, if you ignore the idiotic weapon physics and the fact that nothing is actually simulated, it's just animals randomly spawned in if you're near tracks long enough. don't buy this game.

backtracking, insta-death traps, clunky unresponsive combat.... I'm not sure what ppl are smoking when they compare this game to dark souls, this is a 'metroidvania' type game, a genre that should have died a decade or so ago, since the only thing it excells at is wasting a lot of time. also the art is gorgeous, story is weird and interesting, music isn't bad either. If you like to play games that feel like jobs, or if you're simply a demented masochist, then I can highly recommend playing this game to you. Otherwise, stay away. Watch a let's play, read the lore on the wiki (idk if there's one). It's just not worth the effort.

Synthetik is a 2D rougelike shooter. If you're new to the term rougelike, it means content is heavily randomized and progress isn't safed after death, allowing devs to limit level design (there are four although lvl 3 is so basic it's more like 3 1/2) in favor of weapons, mechanics and other content. Since starter weapons are not customizable - there's only 1 good pistol per class anyways - this means you begin every run with the same weak starter pistol again and again. Weapons gained from crates are largely (you can adjust drop rates in a limited fashion) random, ineffective weapons usually guarantee a short run, many of the stronger ones have ammo issues, requiring you to fall back to the starter pistol. This is the game's biggest shortfal. You can unlock a mission option with random gear later in game, but it can only be accessed once per day. Progress driven by collecting data points is rather slow in general and additionally limited by data being only saved after defeating bosses. You need data to unlock starter weapons, to unlock some beneficial modifiers and to unlock mission options, which themselves also cost data. You can't collect more than 1000 data, anything beyond that is not stored for some reason. Regarding class progression, perks are unlocked every five levels, exp gain, while not limited by death, of course scales nonlinear, so this too is a bit ****. Remember that this is a singleplayer / cooperative game, although it seems it has drawn a bit too much inspiration from it's online counterparts. Class modules centered around shield regeneration make or break classes. There are lots of these modules but just as with starter items very few are strong enough to be viable. Most of it is just random brainstormed clutter, stuff that could have been usable had more thought gone into making it. Enemies are well designed and adequate to the number of missions available. AI improves with your own playing skill, making for deadlier and faster moving opponents. Bosses are somewhat randomized. All in all this is a well made game by a small developer group. But it relies on cheap tricks to slow down progress and distract from lack of content, also there's basically no story. Not worth $20, maybe buy while on discount.

S&S is pretty much advertised as '2D Dark Souls', but it falls short of it's 3D inspiration on many accounts. The graphics are mediocre mid to upper flash game tier. Forget about feeling something like immersion in this game. The general theme of the background music, if present at all, alternates between repetitive and repetitive & annoying. Weapon and armor balance is probably S&S's weakest part. Items are tiered from 1 to 5. High tier weapons are awkwardly placed and mostly useless filler - by the time you get to craft tier 3/4 stuff you can already access tier 5, making the former pointless. Lower tier weapons are simply not worth upgrading, unlike in dark souls. Lore consists of RPG boilerplate mediocrity sprinkled with the expected DS references - same for level design. It's not bad, but nothing really stands out as innovative or memorable either. Combat.... sigh. It quickly becomes cheap and unrewarding - there is only so much you can do in this regard in a 2D engine. Total opposite to the original. There are enemies that pounce you or have some other lockdown (in some cases instant kill) mechanic if you get close, enemies that have long range melee which you need to evade between attacks ( rinse and repeat) and various projectile attacks. The parrying system is a bit easier than in DS. High HP pools on the mob side combined with limited HP and few opportunities to attack on your side feel like something in between an attempt between a ramped up version of Dark Souls difficulty. Bosses basically require learning of patterns as well as their faster alternates which trigger once the 50% HP mark is reached, making for very drawn out fights. If that's your thing, or if you enjoy spending hours just getting through one boss pretty much every single time, this might be the one thing that will give you some enjoyment in this game. But if you think ornstein and smough or manus type fights felt least rewarding about DS, chances are you wont enjoy the boss fights in S&S because 'fast and aggressive' is the common theme here. Blending out the copious boss fights there's actually pretty little content in the game. Excusable because there are only two devs from what I've heard but it's another thing that makes the game feel a bit too much like something that evolved from a cheap flash game hobby project. Which makes you wonder why you had to pay to play it.

This game is 99% grind. That wouldn't be a problem if there was some sort of endgame to grind towards, some kind of goal. But no, the grind happens IN the endgame and there's honestly not much of it. Grind hieracon for credits. Grind the same 4 void missions for prime parts. Grind the most tedious mission types to get mods nowhere else available (or buy them with platinum/real money *wink*). Gimp your frame with a lame game mechanic to grind mods you need (to grind some more) in orokin voids. There's three enemy factions, they're all **** and boring. AI is nonexistant, enemy scaling requires exploits to farm effectively. Several frames and most of the weapons are underpowered. "The devs play the game" but they don't care half as much as their marketing department wants you to believe.