Recent reviews by AussieGrammarGuy

I'm not someone who usually leaves a review. I occasionally leave a meme one or a short one to fulfill a Steam Badge requirement, but otherwise I never really leave a review, let alone a negative one.

Dying Light 2 is an exception.

Dying Light as a franchise means a lot to me, both as a gamer and content creator. I've been able to play, have fun, participate in competitions, make many new friends online, and even be lucky enough to make an online career out of making content for both games. My recent life has been shaped a lot by these games and I'm thankful for the great stuff that has happened because of it.

When DL2 first came out, I was overhyped to play it, but ever since my first playthrough my opinion of it mellowed. There are many reasons to point out why, whether it being the awful story, barely any meaningful choices, failing to live up to promises, or the numerous unplayable bugs, or missing features that made its predecessor great. And don't forget the numerous delays. Still, I had good faith in Techland despite all this and stuck through with them based on their history with DL1 and listening to community feedback.

But then it started to get even worse. Game breaking or softlocking bugs not getting patched until months later, or even new bugs being introduced with each patch! There were even numerous balancing changes, like the grappling hook nerf, Korek Charm nerf (that even Franchise Director Tymon Smektala didn't even know about!) or the "Return To Mission Area" feature that basically killed all kinds of out of bounds exploration. There were ways to get the Kadoom Shotgun or Broomstick Easter Egg items into free roam, but Techland also patched those out. There were even numerous speedrun exploits, routes or tricks that were pretty much all patched out, which had zero effect on regular players, which felt slightly malicious at first because it felt like Techland were targeting speedrunners! You would think that in a game all about player choice and freedom, that LIMITING their freedom and forcing them to play more how you WANT them to play is a bad thing.

But even after all of that, I thought to myself "it's going to get better." A few missteps can be corrected, and with 5 years of support, we can get a gem of a game just like the first. I've even participated greatly in community feedback, filling out forms, responding to social media posts and polls, and even talking to members of Techland during my visit to their headquarters last year alongside other creators. I felt that maybe if myself and others stick with Techland and persist through this, that there may be something great at the end.

Despite Bloody Ties being a disaster, the core game got some really nice and very needed changes from the Gut Feeling / Good Night Good Luck updates. This was the first time I started really seeing hope for the future. However, cracks were starting to show in that hope as well, as both updates included more "balancing" by nerfing Boosters and removing other features! It's like Techland was taking two steps forward, and one step back every update. But STILL, I stuck with Techland.

And then I found out about DL Points.

The predatory DL Points system that basically squeezes more money out of its playerbase is something that I think I'd only see in games from EA or other companies with bad rep. But the fact that this is happening with DL2 is heartbreaking, especially since it was Techland's idea to implement this, completely unrelated to Tencent. Before they released, there was a thought in my head that maybe they wouldn't mark the prices in a scummy way like other games have, I was too naive. There's honestly so much to unpack from DL Points but literally none of it is good, not even the damn UI design for the store page. Them phasing out buying DLC normally hurts even more.

And to think it would only get worse as the Summertime Update itself has very few meaningful changes, and most of them BAD. A knife animation? Cool, except for the fact that it came a month late after it was advertised, and it's only available for two DLC weapons as there are still no knives in the base game! There were also MORE BALANCING CHANGES where Techland nerfed Boosters again, as well as the Military Gear and numerous Legendary Weapon blueprints! 1.5 years later and they're still trying to balance a PvE game with no competitive leaderboards of any kind! And to think the best thing to come out of this update is simply the removal of the 20k night bonus xp cap, which funnily enough is something they added IN to the game post launch. So yeah, the best thing is reverting a BAD change they made.

This was the final straw, even for me. I'm tired of being strung up for over a year and a half now, with many negative changes that keep on coming to the game, enough to outweigh the positives at times. And with the predatory DL Points system, that's pretty much it. I'll only stick around for DLC2 to see how much of a potential mess that will be. After that? Who knows.

Techland pride themselves on listening to community feedback. So if they really want to prove that statement, they need to remove DL Points and pull the game back from the edge of the cliff it's on right now, because otherwise, I'm never going back to this game.

I'd never thought my first negative review would be for Dying Light 2, but here we are.

Never in my life have I ever set my eyes upon such a beauty of a game as this.

The rocks
The smooth-skinned fat guys in their underwear
The amazing sound when their fatty limbs slap each other.

Total masterpiece.

Good for Natteee to get achievements. Would recommend 11/10 for him, 0/10 for everyone else.

PROS:

- Amazing, fast-paced and varying combat system
- Top of the line parkour mechanics that tie-in well with the combat
- Easy to learn crafting and inventory
- Great variance of difficulty
- Decent character progession
- Pretty good graphics
- Not very high in resource demand
- Large map(s) for game variety

CONS:

- Solid yet very cliche story with cardboard cut-out characters
- Most of the time the voice acting is sub-par, minus a few of the main cast
- A LOT of meaningless fetch quests
- (Perhaps the biggest issue I have) Almost zero support to stop hackers and modders in multiplayer coop and PvP

Overall, I love this game. Yes, there are some issues with the way the story is presented and shown with the voice acting. However, the gameplay absolutely holds this game's quality up so high for me. Having that perfect combination of the parkour and combat makes the game feel so fluid, and the player feel so much in control. Most missions take you to places of the map where you would have normally not explored on your own, which enables the player to discover new places and items. Multiplayer is great to play with friends BUT; Techland has enabled VAC secure multiplayer, which does not do anything at all when it comes to hackers editing in items and overpowered gear. This also falls into the game's PvP system, where hackers can cheat their way through matches and ruin other people's experience.

With all of this into account, I'd still recommend this game to anyone, as the singleplayer experience alone sells it for me. Just make sure to be careful when in public lobbies or just play with your friends when going online.