Recent reviews by Gage™

Feel like crashing cuz you jumped .001 inches too far? Yeah didn't think so.
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Beautiful game, great to see the franchise return and more people getting into flight simulators.
Amazing technology used to render the entire world in stunning detail. As with any game Its not without flaws.

The flight modeling feels off at times. The sim feels very twitchy and and on rails. Default planes are pretty basic with lots of clickable buttons non functional which was fairly disappointing. (I'm sure 3rd party planes will fix this but out of the box could be better) ATC voice AF with one monotone voice for every airport in the world. A step back from previous installations. As amazing as the world looks at altitude, when you get below 3k feet or so, it looks post apocalyptic...I'm not even joking. Buildings look as though they've been through nuclear war.

Flight model, audio and visual issues aside, MFS is not for everyone, if you're not heavily into flight sims this may not be for you and once the shiny of the visuals wear off, it can get boring fast. Unlike combat flight sims most of the experience comes down from going from Point A - B with much less systems / tactics to manage.

Recommend? Yes and no.

Got MEXS4 after seeing now nice the 1st person cam was. One of the better first person cams out there for mx racing games. As usual milestone has done a great job with the visuals and sounds. Bike control with manual shifting and independent brakes always feels nice. That said the game is not without its flaws.

- The AI is faster, but just still terrible. Same goat trail, locked on their line, run you high, land on you and ride on like nothing happened bullsh1t I've experienced in all milestone games I've played. At times it doesn't seem like they play by the same physics.

- The physics are questionable at times. Does the game even have a working gas gyro? Or a clutch? The whipping and scrubs still aren't there and often look quite awkward. Getting even a hair off rhythm will most likely have you ending up singling half a straight. Then there is the wheelie glitch...why is this a thing?

-Is it just me or is rider lean is largely not animated?

The UI could use some work. Things like the exit button and rider customization button are buried and not immediately easy to find. Then there are the odd glitches I've personally experienced so far like your riders hands disappearing and reappearing mid race when in 1st person view. Crossing the line in 1st - being in 1st on the track but having your position tumble down the race order to last cuz the game thought you cut the track somewhere but didn't bother to reset you.

All in all I'm neutral on my position to recommend this game. Fun game despite it's flaws. I'm sure new comers to the series will enjoy the game-play and immersion. However, ff you have all of milestones other games, I'm not sure this brings enough to the table to pay full price. It looks and feels great in 1st person...which was what I got the game for but the physics engine and animations especially could still use some tweaks to improve the feel of the bike.

https://youtu.be/Fuly2xG_b1k

Honestly one of the best Tomb raider titles I've played. The top down view works surprisingly well for this style of game. Controls and animation are super smooth, missions are fun and engaging with tweeked challenges for when you are playing Co-op. You'd be hard pressed to find a better place to spend 10 bucks.

I'm going to attempt to give this game a fair unbiased review of my expereience in it so far. I've given it about 60 hours so far so that I could get familiar with it's quirks, its yays and its nays...while i'm still having lots of fun, there are many issues that need to be resolved if the game is to be successful. I'll try to update this review as patches, hopefully, come out.

https://youtu.be/_TtkodH8dwE

Update 4/15/18
- Spinning green please wait circle seems to have been fixed.
- Many of the bugs involving client crashes and stuck lobbies seems to have been fixed.
- Disconects are still a thing but they don't seem to happen as often as before.
-Tuff blocks are still an issue, but they reset much faster now. Would be best if they were much harder to topple over.

The good
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- Amazing visuals - Tracks are beautifully rendered and the scaling is a lot closer to normal levels, bike and rider look crisp and detailed.

- Milestone did a great job capturing the statium enviroment, with lots of animated trackworkers and camera crews about. A very nice touch and adds a great deal of immersion!

- Sounds - I actually really like the sounds here - the bike sounds very relavent to engine load. My only complaint in this dept is that I wish the crowd reacted more to the racing and that some of the announcer sounds were louder even if it is gibberish.

- Those corners! Love the way cornering and ground controls work with all the assists off. The way the bike slides and hooks up are very engaging. Milestone has a strong ground game.

- Performance - Playing on a 6700k and GTX 1070, this game performs flawlessly. Quick loadtimes, no hiccups. Solid FPS.

- Having Qualifying and heats with friends is surprisingly fun - trying to push the pace and fight through the drama of having a bad qualifying session or heat race. Then there are the little details like getting the red plate on your bike if you are the points leader / are the most consistant in a lobby which is a really touch.

- Different times of day - Time attack, Qualifying, Heats and the Main all take place on different parts of the day. Its quite nice seeing the track at different times of day.

- Selectable weather conditions for Outdoor stadiums ads quite a bit of replay valute to those tracks that offer it..


The bad
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- The clutch does absolutly nothing. The bike in general could feel a bit more explosive when accelerating from a stand-still.

- The scrub mechanic feels quite akward. I don't really even bother with it as more often than not it leads to a crash. That said you can keep the bike pretty low without using the actual scrub mechanic, something which I wasn't expecting and is nice to have. Would be much better if they were free as in Mx vs ATV though!

- For the $50 price tag, I would have expected more tracks....the 2016 tracks would certinaly have been nice to have. But for the price the game seems a bit light on content. Yes there are lots of gear choices and parts, but in the end, someone like me just goes for my favorite gear and thats the end of that.

- The track editor, while nice, results in tracks that aren't nearly as amazing in the visual department. There are some really fun user created tracks but off track detail and track textures takes a major hit here on the custom tracks.

- Many tracks have pre defined rythms where its impossible to do anything else. That defeats the whole point of supercross rythms! Fortunatly I'd say most of the tracks don't have them, but there are some terrible cuplrits of this such as San Diego.

- Whoops are way too small and offer no challenge at all. They need to be trecherous! I wanna drop the front wheel, wreck, taking half the field down with me!

- Jumping is also fairly easy, Most times you just pin it and you'll make the jump. Steeper jumps and tigher rythms on some tracks go a long way to improving this though.

- AI is just terribly slow, especially so in the 250 class.. Why even bother with the single player career mode and championship...every race is going to be a stomp. 450's put up more of a fight depending on the track, but in general the AI could use some improvments.

- You can get away with far too much. I really would like to crash more (granted the game WILL make you crash alot if you're in a public lobby with collissions and tuffblocks) But I would like to crash because I cased a jump I had no buisness going for, or I went off a jump with the front wheel in the air, or because I dropped the front wheel in the whoops etc. While there is a clear advantage to being smooth and not clipping, I wish the game was more punishing.

Before we get into the ugly, lets take a lap around Daytona in the rain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-3bGbv5AAw

The ugly!
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- Outdated lobby system where if the host leaves the whole lobby is destoyed.

- Voice chat, but why the hell no in game text chat?

- TUFF BLOCKS! - These things get kicked around so much on track they are the 2nd most determining factor as to how a race goes when racing online - They seriously get all over the track and the race becomes more about dodging them 99% of the time if you don't get the holeshot.

- COLLISION! - Games with international players I've found to always be incredibly laggy. Understandable...but with collission on it just turns into a nightmare. There is lots of desync as riders arent where the appear to be on screen. (throw back to reflex here I guess) Could be impossible to get around laggy riders. Next to the tuff block mayhem, this is the single most determining factor of your race in public games - as for some reason most hosts do not turn collission off. The tuffblock collision combo isn't as much about racing as it is about survival, and it will make you want to smash your controller!

- Track cutting gives waay too much breathing room. You should not beable to run half a rythm lane on the flat and jump back on within the extermely leniant timer - and get credited for the lap and not get any penalty. Many players abuse this and it's certiainly not something most players would appreciate.

All that said...
When playing with friends that are at least on the same continent and in private games - A lot of these the multiplayer issues improve and the game is a lot of fun. Turning off player collision is really a nice option to have, as the tracks are pretty narrow, and it's not always easy to avoid a collision when latency issues arrise. The tuffblocks really need to be dealt with though as there are too little restraints on how they fly all over the track.

TLDR
Is it worth $50? I'm not really sure about that. There are many features I feel the game nailed, but it also really needs some quality of life improvments and bug fixes. And as mentioned above 17 official tracks really is not a lot when you consider the length of a supercross track, and the custom tracks certainly are not the same quality. Single player and championship modes are nice, but in the end it's a complete drag as the AI is just no real challenge. I'd recommended it for the expereience of playing it with friends in a controlled lobby. But for the single player and public lobby carnage and bugs? - I'd wait for a sale or at least for a patch or two that addresses these issues..

Short Answer - I'm pretty neutral on this one. There are lots of things the game did right, but there are a lot of things that put me off. So instead of straight out recommending it, I'd say wait for it to go on sale before getting it.

Pros:

- Beautifully rendered open world, complete with day and night transitions and lots of other visuals.
- The world feels alive with lots of ambient sounds and lighting.
- Lots of diverse gear and customizations to choose from.
- I really like the devotion tree as an addition to the normal skill tree.
- Large sprawing open maps waiting to be explored.
- I have to say the musical score is pretty nice and works well with the world.
- Many impovments have been made over its predicessor, Titan Quest, including upgraded graphics and combat mechanics.

Cons: Most of my gripes come with how the skills behave, look and feel. Lets face it skils are a huge part of any ARPG.

- Combat feels pretty stiff and clunky for an ARPG. Animations range from meh to eh. Many casting animations are clipped when using a weapon. Very distracting seeing your weapon blinking in and out everytime you attack. Once you see it, it cannot be unseen.

- Combat sound effects don't really feel punchy enough to convey a sense of power. Most seem pretty low key and bland, and don't really draw me into the experience of slaying hoards of monsters. For me this a very important aspect of the game.

- As far as active offensive skills go, there really arent that many to choose from when you get down to it - Most of the skill tree is composed of passive skills and modifiers. Many feel like they do the same thing - And many don't particulary feel interesting.

- Too many skills look very weak and uninspiring in the visual department. Combined with the sounds, I don't really get this sense that I'm kicking ass and really taking it to the enemy. But don't take my word alone for it -- youtube demonstrations of the available skills for various classes and come to your own conclusion.

- Male / female characters pretty much look the same - Big and bulky. I'd even argue all classes look the same. Honestly I forgot what gender character I chose after I got all my gear slots filled.

To me in the end it seems like Titan Quest in a different time period with some improvments...and as a fan of norse mythology, while I do appreciate the improvments, I much prefer the setting of Titan Quest. Its not a bad game but for me the lack of hard hitting combat sounds, the shortage of active skills and the somewhat clunky combat system made for very repetitive and almost tiresome gameplay.

Fun gamplay, pixel art, cheesy voice acting and a catchy old school synth rock sountrack. Whats not to like here? Game play is easy to learn and difficult to master. Recommended to anyone that is a fan of retro arcade games, arcade games in general, or anyone just looking to have a fun, simple yet challenging game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru7Wke3QDgk

You can't talk about combat flight sims without talking about DCS world. Eagle Dynamics is really making dreams come true for a lot of us old school flight sim fans. Aircraft are nicely modeled inside and out, they sound thunderous and the flight physics feel pretty amazing to me. Mind you, I've never had the chance to fly an F-18 or an F-16 but aircraft feel responsive to a host of factors in the air from cross winds, to the weight of your loadout, temperature, altitude etc. Honestly a lot of the time I have a great time just flying around enjoying the sensation of flight.

This sim does have a pretty steep learning curve and will take some time to learn each aircraft and it's systems. Modules can be expensive but its best you chose an aircraft you want to learn and master it as each aircraft functions very differently. Having played around in the Hornet a lot, I would not expect to know what was going on if I tried out the A-10 without doing some homework. Each full price module has it's own simulator as they are highly detailed with fully interactive 3D Cockpits, flight and weapon systems. There are cheaper "lite" modules available that start at $9 which aren't as detailed that will still give you a pretty awesome flying experience for a fraction of the price. More aircraft and maps are actively in development, to add to the collection of free mods available by the community.

I will certainly say that this is not a casual game. I see lots of reviews from people saying how hard the game is and how people cant even make it off the ground etc. RTFM, Tutorials are highly recommended. I would also recommend some form of HOTAS setup for the best experience. Its so rewarding to learn what to do, practice and execute when under pressure, that's a lot of the true beauty of DCS...From startup to flight, combat and landing. 5/5 stars!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A95nhdEvlpc

If there is one DLC I would recommend for Mx vs ATV supercross, it will be this pack. Tracks are a lot more realistic as they are based on the real thing, and they provide a different set of challenges when compared to the stock tracks. In fact so far I think they play better than the stock tracks. Every race weekend another track is released, which gives us something more to look forward too every week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjNYOatrA0s
Minneapolis

+ Shorter length supercross tracks that are easy to learn but difficult to master.
+ Turns are a bit more challenging as it's easeir to blow them if you attempt to rail with no technique.
+ Actually a reason to work the gearbox!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asfioeb0Awo
Oakland

So far we're 7 rounds in and the tracks have been pretty awesome, and it's great learning the tracks and battling with friends and enemies alike.

1st 2/3 of the game was fun. Open world, you chose how to fight. Lush, living world that is inviting you to explore it. I really did like this part of the game as it was very engaging. Graphics still look pretty awesome despite the fact the game was released so long ago. Combat system felt very fluid as you can use anything as a weapon basically - You can use enemy soldiers as bowling balls, drown them, toss them off a cliff, club them, get into a fist fight, hit them with trucks or boats and more.

The world itself is very interactive as you can pick up and throw chickens, local wildlife, rock, branches, pots, fruits, barrels and much more to slam the enemy with. Entire trees will topple over in heavy gun / grenade fire. Soft targets such as huts can be completly destroyed by gunfire / grenades, ramming, or tossing enemy soldiers though the walls.

Desite all the good this game has to offer, I do have a couple gripes though that really detracted from my overall experience.

1 - Enemies shrug of rediculous amount of damage. I can shoot a guy in the knee - He still manages to sprint as if nothing happened. I can shoot a guy in the head...oh wait he's wearing a basebal cap that allows him to tank 3-4 hits from an assault rifle. What? Enemies really should be more responsive to damage, especially when shot in unprotected areas....like the face...or the balls. Not moving at either 100% or dead.

2 - Enemies movement can be unrealisicaly rediculous. Dancing side to side in the open to dodge bullets, tanking and strafing. I'm not a fan of this in any shooter. With a game that looks as realistic as crysis, I expected different.

3 - The last 1/3 of the game - Punishment. What happened? This here was the real turnoff for me - The game turned into a generic, boring rail shooter with extremely, useless, needy, comrade AI that curses you out left and right for not moving fast enough. Your character turns into a yes man that just runs around, taking orders from everyone to do every single thing. Story also falls apart and generally by this point in the campain I really found it increasingly difficult to care...I just wanted it to end as it just got so boring. The alien AI requires no tactics to fight as their combat manuvers are pretty much limited to strafing you from range, or charge in and slash you. With the earlier part of the game playing so well, I'm not sure why they would go this route - by the end the game is nothing like how it started, it feels very cramped and controlled.

TLDR - The 1st 2/3's of the game is fun and well done. The Last acts, not worth my time - The game devolved into a heavily scripted, cramped railshooter. At the end....I'm kind of neutral on this one. Now if only we had a button that wasn't thumbs up or thumbs down....