Recent reviews by Drae

A touching, thought provoking title that is more than worth the time.

Longing, screw ups, hatred and love.

Life.

Regarding the soundtrack: The notes play slightly too fast, overstepping each other like awkward feet. They come almost as you’d predict, but stumble in their delivery every so often. I find this fitting to the piece as a whole.

Even with increased FOV, motion blur and head bobbing off, the game makes me too sick to play for more than a match at a time. The psychosis effect is especially nauseating, narrowing down your FOV, adding distortion to the edges and altering the colours and sounds.

I do not normally have motion sickness problems, and strangely Outlast 1 and 2 did not have this affect on me. I will have to wait until they tone down the effects or add toggles to try to play again.

I've spent hundreds of dollars on this game over the years, from costumes to heroes, inventory space and other items. I don't regret the time I have played, and choose now to remember it fondly as the game it once was, and not what it has turned into. The developers that cared have either left, or have no say in what goes on anymore. Please, avoid Marvel heroes Omega (or whatever they try to rebrand it into next year.).

The game was once a shining example of the evolution of the ARPG genre, and I think the end truly started when David Brevik left (The man behind Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3). To have played the 2014-2015 version of Marvel Heroes was a great pleasure, and an experience I will never forget. It is that time period of this game that I will hold fondly in memory, and not the sad state the game is in as of this review.

Talent trees? Gone. Interesting alternate advancement system? Gone, and replaced with a shoddy copy of Diablo 3’s Paragon system. Mobility of heroes was severely hampered. No longer can you teleport with wild abandon as Deadpool or Doctor Doom, nor really feel like The Juggernaut. Fun and interesting choices were replaced with safe and streamlined systems, clearly made to try to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, while slapping old players in the face.

More recently, price disparity between console/pc, and the -removal- of the purchase of the Fantastic 4 + Silver Surfer have only hammered the point home. Licensing and money have dragged this game through the mud, and I truly don’t believe it can recover even a glimmer of it’s former glory.

Don’t be roped in. Don’t be fooled by any rebranding or marketing. Marvel Heroes is another sad chapter in a long line of games ruined by greed and bad decisions. Stay away.

Complete and utter bollocks, removing access to console commands and then charging for them. I was mildly interested in the upcoming content, but this has effectively killed any notion of returning to the game, or the series, for that matter.

It takes a special kind of greed, and a special kind of idiocy to try something like this.

Quite frankly one of the best single player RPGs I've ever encountered, ranking right next to likes of the original Deus Ex and System Shock 2.

The Missing Link is a decent chunk of content that was cut and released as optional DLC because they were afraid it was too stealth focused compared to the rest of the game's “choose your approach” style, but personally I found it fit right along side the rest of the story. Also included is the previously pre-order only “Tong's Rescue” mission, and the weapon packs that were available for individual purchase. Instead of breaking the pacing and balance of the game by dumping them in your inventory along with a large sum of credits with little canon reasoning, however, they are now placed as mission rewards and pickups in hard to reach areas, further down the line.

The most important change, in my opinion, is that of the tweaked boss fights. Previously, even if you were to choose stealthy and non-lethal approach throughout most of the game, it dropped you in one on one to-the-death combat with a powerful foe. Not exactly the most pleasant thing when all you have on you is a stun gun and some knockout gas grenades. Now, you can truly go back to choosing your own approach to taking out your enemies, as every boss now has a completely new way of being defeated besides going all in with weapons blazing. Also worth mentioning are some updated lighting effects and model tweaks, though to be fair they aren't entirely noticeable unless you're coming straight from the original release.

Overall, if you're like me and played it on release without any DLC, are an original Deus Ex fan on the fence, or just a new player in general, I'd highly recommend this purchase.