Recent reviews by Ivy

Updated Review: This review has been changed to a positive one, and I would highly encourage people to buy and play the game to support the developer, Arrowhead Game Studios. The game no longer requires a PSN account to play after Sony back-tracked on their requirement.

Old Review: The developers have announced that they will restrict game access unless users sign up for -and use- a third-party account service (PlayStation Network). This requirement did not exist at release, and was waived for three months, before it was announced as mandatory to play the game.

Remove 'Rift' from the Competitive playlist.

Verdict: Do not buy until FatShark improves this terrible, half-baked, cash-grab dumpster fire.

While the game is excellent as far as combat and visual art direction are concerned, it has multiple core flaws that fundamentally break it once the endgame is reached, mostly because the game's developer/publisher FatShark has completely neglected to implement any sort of meaningful or worthwhile gameplay content beyond random map/event rotations.

Namely:

1) The endgame doesn't exist beyond a pointless time-gated RNG grindfest that you cannot control and cannot correct for. There are no meaningful RNG protection elements because FatShark still has not implemented core crafting features months after the game's official "launch," which leads in the next point.
2) Crafting features promised at/by launch still are not in the game, and the promised-by-launch 70+ weapons are not in the game yet
3) The game's cosmetic "shop" is entirely microtransactions, which require "paid" currency you cannot earn.
4) The game has persistent performance issues, such as incessant an unavoidable load times, crashing, and low framerates (i.e. sub-100) even on a 30-series GPU.
5) The game has literally no story apart from fragmented and sparse cutscenes that mean -and reveal- nothing story-wise.

The game has potential, but it's not worth it for you to waste your time or your money in the hopes that that potential may eventually become a reality.

Do not buy this game.

Fun game with beautiful graphics + soundtrack.

Game does possess a good amount of graphical hitching, screen tearing, and frame drops throughout gameplay and scene transitions. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable game.

Given how relatively quick the "story" is (it took me less than four hours to complete it), I would not recommend buying this unless it is under $10.

This game is objectively terrible. DO NOT BUY IT.

It lacks the overwhelming majority of features that past titles in the franchise had (see Erik Kain's article for Forbes, titled "‘Battlefield 2042’ Is A Total Disaster And Gamers Are Not Happy" for a full list). The game has basically no modes, basically no weapons, terrible map design, functionally zero map destruction, terrible gunplay, terrible vehicle and gadget implementation, terrible vehicle and gadget mechanics, schizophrenic tone between stated lore and character (called "specialists) behavior ingame, no scoreboard, no server browser, no VoIP, no "all" chat, moronic "Fortnite"-esque character design with "quips" and "specialists" to presumably sell skins, and the list goes on and on and on.

To repeat: DO NOT BUY THIS.

Would not recommend. Invalidating player time investment via extreme nerfs while simultaneously requiring player time investment to play endgame content is incredibly idiotic.

To explain: You are gated from completing endgame content unless you pursue maximum DPS due to enemy health and damage scaling steeply in a timed environment. However, any amount of successful DPS maximization results in the developers nerfing your character's skills/gear/weapons and obviating you and your build.

No buffs have accompanied any nerfs to date. It's terrible for a company to punish their players (nerfing classes, gear, and skills, and thus nullifying player effort/investment) for doing the sole thing (DPS maximization) that the game requires.

Would highly recommend if you enjoy puzzle games in such as the Portal series.

In light of Bethesda/Id Software's decision to remove Denuvo Anti-Cheat after overwhelming community backlash, I am changing this review to a 'Yes' recommendation. The game is an excellent one that does justice to the series. Below is my original review's content:

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Absolutely do not buy this dumpster fire of a release until Bathesda removes Denuvo's Rootkit from the install. Bathesda has pulled a blatant bait-and-switch with Doom Eternal by back-dooring malware into it after release.

It's an excellent game, with an excellent soundtrack, an engaging story, and interesting mechanics. I would highly recommend the game by itself, but I absolutely cannot recommend the game with malware running in Ring 0 that results in significant performance issues (laggy gameplay, system slowdown, and ingame framerate drops) and that opens up a significant security hole in your system if you have this installed.

Lightmatter is a charming "the floor is lava" puzzle game loosely tied to the Portal/Half Life universe (and set in an Aperture-esque environment) that uses line-of-sight and platforming puzzle mechanics to take the player through an engaging and well-acted story.

The puzzle are relatively straightforward, albeit enjoyable to feel and and work through. It seems that the majority of them ultimately boil down to daisy-chain fetch quests (e.g. use Item 1 to get Item 2, use them both together to get Item 3, use all three to reach the end of the level) that are simple to understand but complex to execute. Also -unlike the Portal series- there's really only one way to complete each puzzle, which really stifles any replay value the game would have.

The environments, sound design, voice acting, and story progression are very well done.

The few issues with the game are intermittent crashes of the Unity engine, selfsame puzzle mechanics, and a relatively short playtime, but these are negligible for what I'm sure is a game that will see more content in the future and that is so well made with the content that it has.

Overall, it's a very enjoyable and well-made game that's sure to be a challenge.

Would highly recommend