Recent reviews by Roland

Player First Games I hope you lose your jobs for lying; you do not know how to make a single player experience and you deserve to be fired for what you have done here.

You are working for the publishers of Mortal Kombat and you think balancing ai means giving them input reading and triple the player's attack and defense?
It was NEVER okay in fighting games to give your opponents double or triple your attack & defense; outside of special stages. And games in general, well the good ones anyway, have moved away from the artificial difficulty of just making enemies 2-3 times stronger than the player; this isn't 1992 anymore so why tf do you think this is okay???

And how about how you have entire tracks of the single player experience locked behind skins that were "given out for free" but since the ones you got were random, the only Shark Week character I own is Iron Giant. Do you have any #@%$ing idea how hard it is to fight Shaggy and Velma with only IG on Insanity? (not even Looney mind you)

No, of course you don't because you don't test a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing! You've put out 2 patches since you added the Agent Smith boss fight and it still glitches out and randomly becomes uncompletable. Also me and my friends all have different controllers, and have all experienced the game just stopping reading inputs from it, both wired and wireless; for the last 4 patches with the only fix being to restart the game. And why do you think it is a good idea to UNPAUSE THE GAME WHEN THE CONTROLLER IS DISCONNECTED!?

Looney isn't even close to fair and needs tuned terribly; how the #@$% am I going to have a 10 defense gem, a 9 attack gem, and a 10 mixed gem and still only do 1-2 damage per hit while the enemy is averaging 19 damage per hit with perfect input reading?
Good luck beating Superman when he has super armor on half his attacks and uses it perfectly to stop you from knocking him away while he's edge guarding.

And just because you removed Reflect doesn't mean we are going to forget you put it in there in the first place. That alone proves you guys haven't been testing ♥♥♥♥ before releasing it. I truly hope WB fires the lot of you and gets some competent people in that have experience balancing fighting games ; for both the single and multiplayer experiences.

To players reading this: this was more of a feedback for the devs. If you're here for the single player, be warned you are not going to get into the hardest difficulties without a friend, and you both better have boatloads of patience because this game be on some bull--.

If you're here for the PvP, you should know that about 70% of this game is the single player because WB is using it as a venue to push properties. The PvP is solid and balancing is ever ongoing, but not in a bad spot at time of writing. If you're not intending to ever play the single player stuff, know that you will be unlocking characters slower since you'll be getting less fighter currency and completing less dailies and weeklies.

I intend to keep playing the game, partially because I'm a bit of a masochist, partially because I genuinely love several of these characters, and partially because the PvP is pretty fun, but I'm certainly not going to be spending money on it unless the devs suddenly become competent.

Oh and to be clear, I'm not bothered by the input reading, if it was just that. It's when it's combined with unfair stats that it's not fun anymore. I know some would decry it, but a degree of it is needed in fighting games imho

You could have the Recommended system requirements and still not be able to put all the graphics settings on High and reach 60fps consistently.

This game runs like hot garbage on hardware that came out several years after it did; do not buy unless you are comfortable with 30fps gaming.

I don't have enough space to explain how much this breaks my heart.
(I've owned it for 6 years and kept getting better hardware hoping it would finally be playable; and am a longtime fan of the franchise.)

It's Ark Survival Evolved but less buggy and if the Dinosaurs had powers and were actually useful.
(The similarities to a certain franchise end at the monster aesthetic; this is NOT that series with guns, the games are vastly different.)

I just wish it had first person view as an option.

Bustin' makes me feel good!

In all seriousness, this genuinely puts other Asymmetrical games like DBD to shame. The bots aren't perfect, but they only frustrated me when facing the final boss; for the rest of the game and well into my post game I have played with nothing but them and it's been a fun experience.

If you're facing them as a Ghost they are rarely a challenge. depending on the Ghost you play, but I can't say I didn't lose a couple matches to them.

If there was one thing I could change about the game: I'd like difficulty options for the Buster bots like we have for the Ghost bots

Otherwise, no notes really. The game is very wholesome, and while you might see some say it lacks content, I disagree. The store page SAYS there's 10 ghosts, but in reality it's like 30, just some aren't too varied.

This is because each ghost has 2 variants to unlock, and while all variants have the same Ultimate Ability, and usually the same stats, they each have their own Unique ability which can change how you might play them, and some do even vary slightly in stats.

And there's 100 levels of customization items to unlock for busters (50 for ghosts) on top of being able to level your gear and unlock new parts and customization. Also you can reset every 100 levels for bonus cosmetics and a fresh start, similar to the prestige system from CoD (called Tenure here). Cosmetics and story stuff stay unlocked, but all gear levels, and obviously the player levels, reset.

Oh yea, the story. I won't spoil it but it's plenty wholesome, albeit a bit short (roughly 9.5 hours, not counting lore from hidden collectibles). It is exactly what you'd expect from a GB movie with all the tropes and trappings. And the bestest part? Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson voice their characters; I damn near wept when Ernie Hudson said he was proud of me.

All in all, I adore this game. So much so that when I get paid next month I'm buying a bunch of friends copies while I can still get them for $15. You should try it.

It's Smash+Grab in a post-Apex and Fortnite world.

The entire time I was playing Dead Island I kept wishing I could climb things. The game had a lot of environment pieces and set dressing that looked like they should be climbable but weren't.

Then Dying Light came along and I was mostly happy. The story was weaksauce but the gameplay was special; kinda like MIrror's Edge but with danger. I loved it. (though I still need to play The Following)

Now DL2 comes along, and it's like Dying Light but like if you hadn't seen it for awhile and it comes back and you're like "daaaammnnn you've been working out!"

So yea it's more Dying Light. The grappling hook changed. At first it was difficult and I missed the Spider-Man one of the first one, but once you get good with it, you can literally climb sky scrapers; something that could not be said of the previous incarnation.

Apparently people are up in arms at the moment about some cosmetic store nonsense. "DL Points" or some such. I just spent 2 days revisiting the game and not once did the game mention or push these points. I'm pretty sure you have to actually click on the word "Store" in the Main Menu to even know these things exist if you didn't see all the tears in the Discussions.

If you never click on "Store" you never even know they are there.

That's another reason to recommend the game:
If you want microtransactions, you actually have to go looking for them. You could play for days, maybe even weeks and not know they exist.

But let me not get bogged down on that stuff, let's talk story (no spoilers of course).
The first one was like if a really attractive person was lame in the bedroom. You're just left laying there going "well... this was fun I guess... maybe I'll call you sometime or somethin?"

The second one gives you choices and ya know it's fine, everything's fine. It gets you comfortable and then in the end smacks you with an ultimatum because it got tired of your ♥♥♥♥. I could write a short story on why I didn't like the final choice, but my reasons are entirely personal and they would not prevent me from recommending the experience.

Oh and before I go I'd be remiss to not add that performance has always been amazing, even on my mid tier hardware. There's lots of options to increase framerates without giving up too much visually.

The robot from FLCL has an existential crisis and instead of going to therapy he pretends he's in Jet Set Radio.
10/10

As a fan, it pains me to write this but this must be said:
I can't recommend this game based entirely on how poorly optimized it is.

If you only glanced at the minimum system requirements like I did when I bought the game you might miss it. You might do like me and see a "10 series" and RX 580 and go "yea I can keep up with that, no prob" and overlook the huge slap in the face of EIGHT FRICKIN GIGS OF VRAM.

For teh wealthier of you, that don't do the budget gaming thing, you might not think anything of this, but to put it plainly: the RTX 2060 can not play this game and hope to get a stable 60fps at 1080p; even with ray tracing off.
A card from just 2 generations ago.

No game what so ever should need 8GB of VRAM for 1080p, and even more than 4GB is abnormal but can make sense in games with lots of models loaded in at once like a RDR2 or Watch_Dogs.

Now I did manage to play through the entire game once on my GTX 1660 but I did so with the framerate locked at 75% of my refresh rate, a trick I highly recommend for anyone if you can't keep a stable framerate at your refresh rate and need a smooth image.

And that was on Low-Medium settings, with no improvement on all Low. To put that to scale again: Watch_Dogs: Legion I can run on mostly medium with a dash of High settings and hold a higher framerate, which for those unfamiliar is a much MUCH more detailed game in terms of the numbers of models loaded that have their own individual textures and environmental details, and all while it does terribly with transparencies.
Like, WD:L isn't known for it's optimization either but looks like the smartest student in the class sitting next to this one.

And all of this isn't to mention any of the issues the owners of cards that should be able to handle it have.
I can't speak on those, as I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me; he's just a poor boy from a poor family so spare him this life from this monstrosity.

Sorry, I can't help but think of sad songs like Bohemian Rhapsody when I think about how far Respawn has fallen from grace.

Respawn, if any of you guys see this, are you okay bud?
You guys gave us Titanfall, and Star Wars Jedi, and for better or worse, Apex Legends and we revered you for a time. Now; now though, not so much. You guys let Titanfall 2 just straight up crumble, Apex fans are moving away, and now this trainwreck of a game.... Kinda feels like we can't trust you anymore, for real for real.

Which is sad, because this isn't a bad game. It's not quite as engaging as the first one, but story and gameplay-wise it wasn't bad. It just runs like hot dog crap for no reason; and even if that changed I wouldn't recommend a game that requires 8GB of VRAM for 1080p without RT, ever.

As many other players have said: if you liked Assassin's Creed's Multiplayer, you'll love this.

If you know what I'm talking about, this is just AC MP in first person and with guns.

For those that don't:
Deceive Inc's whole thing is you are disguised as a civilian, guard, or staff worker and you are tasked with completing objectives while remaining unnoticed by other players; collecting intel and keycards along the way.

You start out by finding 3 terminals that can be in 5 possible locations in each map, and once players have hacked those 3, the gates to the vault containing the real prize open up. You are then tasked with either grabbing the package and getting to an extraction point, or killing the player that has the package, taking it and going to extraction.

This can be done Solo or via teams of 3. Solo has 10 players in a match, teams have 12.

The game is not without it's share of bugs, but the devs have been very on top of things and active in Steam Discussions so I won't bother listing any as they will likely be fixed soon.

My only real complaint is about the spatial audio. I play in 7.1 surround and sometimes it can be hard to tell if something is on the same floor you're on or above/below you. (namely keycards, since they make a jingle letting you know they are nearby). Lots of games have this issue though, so I can't dock it too hard for that. I only bring it up because I'd like to see better surround sound in all games.