Recent reviews by fox

This is a great game, and it’s awesome to see it get a new lease on life with rollback, crossplay, and fresh gameplay mechanics. For me personally, these are development efforts worth paying for, but your mileage will vary based on your region’s pricing and personal taste.

It would’ve been a really nice gesture to give discounts to original GBVS players, particularly if they invested in DLC.

The main reason I wanted to write this review, however, is RPG Mode and co-op - or rather, the removal of these.

Co-op is straight up gone - online and local - which sucks, as any cooperative modes are extremely rare in fighting games. Why not occasionally put all these awesome combat mechanics to use with your friends instead of against them? Switch things up after a few rounds of sparring before calling it a night?

As for the rest of RPG Mode, it has been paired down to the story segments, cool boss fights, and a select few “beat ‘em up” common enemy segments. I actually don’t mind this, as IMO it puts a better emphasis on the highlights of the original RPG Mode. Level-based stats and weapon grids also bite the dust, which I don’t mind either - the bosses now feel much more balanced and enjoyable to fight with fixed stats, especially on Hard Mode. The more interesting abilities remain, allowing you to choose between various heals, buffs, and debuffs as before, which is great.

Honestly, I feel like most of the contentious changes to RPG Mode could’ve been mitigated if they improved - or even just kept - the 100-floor Tower of Babyl from GBVS. Imagine how difficult that would get without your level-up stats and weapon grids? What if it was improved to be a randomized climb - with denser enemy groups, frequent character bosses, and sharply increasing difficulty - just to see how far you could get for fun? For high scores shown on your in-game profile? What if you could do that co-op with a friend after beating the snot out of each other in lobby matches?? If someone from Cygames or Arksys is for some reason reading English reviews on Steam, please try this in a dev jam or something!

Another critique that comes to mind is that the menus and overall presentation feel less unique than the original. Gone are the beautiful main screens (and RPG Mode interface), replaced instead by a tabbed interface much closer to Strive. I’m all for function over fashion, it’s just a bummer some of the original’s flair is gone.

Overall, I still give Rising a thumbs up, because at the end of the day it’s a fun, richly featured fighter that deserves some time in the spotlight. I just wish it capitalized on the strengths of the original’s unique co-op mode. That could really set it apart!

Thanks for reading.

This game is niche multiplayer done right.

• Fantastic lobby browser with join in progress
  
• Public cross-lobby text chat, with join/leave messages - easy to connect with players
  
• Live maps of any session in progress (public or private), allowing you to give overwatch assistance to even private lobbies (knowing what's going on around the map is extremely useful!)
  
• The ability to ask those folks in private lobbies if anyone's up for a pub round
  
• Friendly community that just likes bug blasting, because who doesn't

I think these features are great because it avoids having to join a Discord server just to play a match or two. Don't get me wrong - it's great to build up a community around a game - but it's equally great to have that community feel within the game itself. I think this is something like Gunfire's greatest fallacy in what is otherwise an excellent co-op game.

SBTF is a great game and worth your time if you enjoy tactical shooters that require good planning and reactive thinking in equal measure.

If per chance, way back in the 360 days, you played Too Human and thought "hey I'm having fun, what's with the reviews?"

Then you'll probably like this game too.

Simple, to-the-point loot and skill tree that is meaningful without getting lost in the weeds. Some of the stats can be surprising and creative, like a stun when consuming a heal or a summon when executing a certain type of finisher on an enemy. With no live service in sight, this feels like a "comfort food" game you can return to when you just want to bash some enemies for drops.

Three difficulty levels you can choose at any time; Hard mode feels like what the game was designed around and is a satisfying challenge without feeling unfair. Mob groups are fun, requiring attention to positioning and often fielding support enemies that heal or buff from the rear. Bosses make tasteful use of adds.

No matchmaking until max level, but interestingly you can create a max-level endgame character (or boost an existing character) at any time from the Character Select menu. I haven't tried this and am personally enjoying the leveling experience, but props to them for including the option. You can otherwise co-op through the entire game with a private party of 3. Parties are scaled, so no worries about being too far ahead of a friend.

I think my main critisism would be the clunky equipment UI - swapping and sorting gear feels more sluggish than it should, with slow menu transitions and one too many button presses. I personally got used to it but it's strange considering the rest of the game feels tight.

On the heels of classic Descent (and Freespace), the strong design pedigree immediately shines through - the glowing eyes of the robots, the punchy sound, the (optional) 90* auto-leveling, the subtle bob of the ship when stationary, getting lost looking for the exit door after blowing the reactor - it's all here. Overload feels fantastic and I would encourage anyone reading this to try it out.

The teaser will likely run you about 30-45 minutes, with a nice training section, sample mission, and endless(?) survival challenge mode. Unity 5, looks and runs fantastic. Feels great on both Keyboard + Mouse and 360 Gamepad, and looks as though it should support a HOTAS setup (update: doesn't seem to support an X52 quite yet). Very technically impressive for a pre-alpha.

As of this writing, Overload currently has 3 days remaining on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revivalprod/overload-the-ultimate-six-degree-of-freedom-shoote
I only came across it the other day, but it has been picking up Steam and making notable funding progress while I've been watching it - it looks like it could very well pull off an 11th hour finish (and I hope it does), so if you're interested, please give the folks at Revival some support!

Thanks for reading!

This game is awesome. Solid visuals with rock steady framerate, tight controls, excellent tracks and great difficulty curve. Split-screen play in all modes including online. A deceptively deep and challenging racer that is difficult to put down.

Update: Strong post-launch support and an active online racing community have consistently kept this game worth playing since its early 2013 launch. Highly recommended.