Recent reviews by (J)

If you are a Battletech fan and have played the previous MechWarrior titles you will most likely enjoy this game. In my opinion it follows the format closely of the older MW2 and MW2 Merc titles. Here is what I mean by that.

MW2 Mercs mirrors MW5 Mercs. Both of these are about being a Merc in the Inner Sphere. They lean heavily on both mech piloting and your ability to manage your unit. The single players section of these games are good, but ultimately I think people play them for the open-ended career modes that you have access to. Where you are handling all the little details of your unit and can actually bankrupt yourself if you are not careful.

MW2 mirrors MW5 Clans. These two titles are linear, campaign driven and heavy on the story mode. There is less variety, but more time spent on custom built missions. Making the missions more diverse, even though you have no real control on where you are going in the universe. Both of these titles are Clan based.

I've personally not encountered any bugs so far that have prevented my progress. Bugs do exist though and you can read about them over on the Discord page. There is also a section to report them that the devs are monitoring.

If you are a novice to this universe, you are probably going to be asking some questions about the lore and not understanding some of the slang. If you really want to know about something though, hit up a wiki, chatgpt or google and you will find an answer. The characters and story present in this title are based off of established lore. Some of it going back 30 to 40 years.

Update.

I have now completed the game. It appears to have two endings, so it may offer some limited replay value. Steam says I clocked in at just over 35 hours, but it was likely a bit shorter than that. Due to me sitting around in menus idle a times. The ending is ho-hum imo. Basically without spoilers they are following existing lore, with little to no variation. I hope going forward with DLC that the player will have more options to impact the overall war. It will be less satisfying if they just copy the outcome of the war from the lore verbatim. The DLC will need to offer some alternative timelimes/outcomes in order to make the conclusion satisfying. We shall see what happens.

This is the MMORPG that I play when I just want to relax. It is a rather pretty game for its age and the community is mostly older and laid back. It continues to see regular updates and occasionally they release progression servers or servers with limited time function/features.

It is old school and fully tab target. Has a good assortment of classes, including a few that are rather unique for the genre. There is addon support, though here they are called "plugins". World/Global chat stays busy on just about any server and generally speaking you can typically find answers to any question you may have.

I was told by some videos that this was kinda like an MMO. Then I quickly discovered that it has character wipes. So it had a very short stay on my computer.

Let me explain the review bombs and what is going on with this title.

Only a few years after Amazon launched New World, it's launching again in the form of New World: Aeternum. This new version of the game is being billed as a "spiritual successor" to the original MMO, but it's also a mix of console port (that will also be available on PC), remaster and big update.

Aeternum is separate from the original New World but also contains everything from New World and its Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, rejigged for consoles, and featuring a slew of changes and additions that go beyond what you'd expect in just an update.

One very notable change is how much focus is being put on solo play. In the press release, the word "MMO" was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Amazon describes it as an "action RPG". The whole thing can be played on your own, and you'll be able to experience all the story beats without needing to team up. This means that things like expeditions (New World's dungeons) are entirely optional, and the big moments that were once exclusively contained within them can be experienced by solo players outside of these group instances.

It's a bit strange that Amazon's really pushing this angle. Most MMOs are largely solo-friendly these days anyway, and I count vanilla New World among them—despite the expeditions—but all of New World's strengths lie in the multiplayer side of things. If you fancy a solo RPG, there are so many better alternatives (which won't set you back 60 bucks). And while I did quite enjoy gathering and crafting, New World comes up short when you compare it to the multitude of dedicated survival games available.

This is still, however, absolutely an MMO. In a presentation ahead of today's reveal, the developers emphasised that it's still a shared experience, if you want it to be, and you'll still be able to group up for expeditions and embark on faction-based PvP wars. Indeed, there's more group activities coming, including the first 10-player raid and a PvP zone.

Here's the list of what you'll be able to expect at launch:

New, more cinematic introductory experience
Upgraded player onboarding experience
Improved quest flow from 1-65
In-game cinematics and pre-rendered scenes
Revamped story dialogue experience
Character archetypes
First 10-player raid
First PvP zone
Endgame solo trials
Gear score increase
Swimming
Bear mount
Cross-play (but not cross-progression)

After I finished my New World review, I never went back. For my sins, I spent 250 hours playing, and while I enjoyed the faction conflict, PvP and crafting, the world itself and the PvE left a lot to be desired. It was particularly weak when it came to storytelling, so the dialogue revamp sounds like a good call, but I confess that there's not much here that's tempting me to return. It's nice to see players can finally swim, though, after years of unintentional hilarity.

New World: Aeternum will be launching on Steam and consoles on October 15, and if you already own New World and the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion you'll be able to get it for free. If you log into regular New World between June 7 and October 14, you'll also unlock a wolf mount.

02/20/24: Good so far. I was able to play about two hours this evening. Full keybinding is in place, which is something that I require because I use ESDF movement keys. So kudos for having that ready for early access. The game is beautiful beyond words, but I do have above average hardware. That allowed me to crank everything to the highest possible setting. So this currently sits at the top of the list for prettiest survival game I have played.

Currently I am fumbling around a bit when trying to build. I'm not sure if that is a me problem and there are faster ways of doing it or if this is simply me needing time to adjust to a different way of doing things.

I've seen others complain about server stability issues. I seem to have dodged this, so maybe things improved as the day went on? My play session went uninterrupted and load times were all satisfactory.

At this time I see no reason to not recommend the title. It is below average price for this sort of game, but it checks all of the boxes that I require. It is also in an interesting setting with lore that sets it apart from similar titles.

Will see how things go on day two and will make every attempt to update this review a few more times. So consider this a WIP.

I've tried this game several times over the years. While everyone says it has improved, I never make it more than a couple of hours before I am bored to tears. Maybe it changes later, but everything I encounter in the early game can be defeated by holding down the attack button. Feels like I am mowing down mobs in Diablo. I just can't get behind it and the narrative is boring with bad voice acting.

It is pretty though, but that just isn't enough.

This is an "OK game but it has much in common with a lot of current shooters. So very little innovation. I enjoy the three vs three format, since it is easy to assemble a team of that size. The match length is in a good spot and not super long like some of these battle royale titles tend to be. Getting kills is a nice satisfying pop of coins flying everywhere.

The character customization, which is the only revenue stream for this game is kinda laughable at this point. The base models are uninspired, ugly and all of the customization with them feels like junk you would pick up at the pawn shop. I see no reason to buy the battlepass. You would have to rework all of the baseline models and start coming up with some clothing/gear that is much better than what is currently being offered.

I kinda wish I could rate this in the middle. Neither a thumbs up or thumbs down. Just neutral.

Sadly I have to kill off my original review and join everyone else in protest. This game has been abandoned before it was complete. It had the bones required to become a decent title, but it was nothing more than a cash grab. I will be extremely hesitant to give these companies money in the future.

Please note, that this is an incomplete title. So expect lots of problems if you purchase it and do not expect it to ever be addressed. It is officially abandoned.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/star-trek-infinite-dev-log-13-what-you-leave-behind.1629503/

No ultrawide support in 2023. What is wrong with some of these companies? CS, Overwatch, Apex, COD and more have support for these monitors. Is the developer lazy, cheap or both?

Beyond that I enjoy the title, but come on. Are you not making enough money? There are thousands of players on this every hour. Millions every month. Do us a solid and let us take advantage of our hardware.

PC players can not disable crossplay. So you are stuck with open mic console players with aim assist turned on. This alone is enough to dismiss this game. I am still going to play it with some friends, but it deserves none of your money as a PC player unless this option is added back in.

Beyond that I feel like this title lacks an identity or features that other titles don't do better. The ultimate abilities are obviously inspired by Overwatch. Some of them are exact copies, while others are modifications on their ideas. None of these abilities have the match defining impact that they do in Overwatch. They are often infrequently used or not used at all. I've gone entire matches without seeing any of them triggered. To make matters worse (lol), many of the ultimate abilities are not locked to your team. So, for example a player can place a portal and both enemies and friendlies can utilize it. What logic is there in that?

Next is tactical abilities. These are slightly more impactful, but still lack pop. I can fire off an entire swarm of rockets with a tactical ability only for my enemy to come out with maybe 25% HP loss. Less damage than a few bullets would have done.

The guns are right out of any other FPS like COD. They are mostly generic and sometimes I think there are to many variations of the same weapon types. Everyone gravitates toward the same few meta guns. So picking up anything lesser just leaves you at a disadvantage. No hero here has truly unique weapons.

Finally is the cheats. Part of which I blame on the developers. Since they forced PC and Console players together. PC players have discovered how to get aim assist working with mouse and keyboard. In addition to this jittering aiming is highly prevalent in this title to cut down on recoil. Either manually (legit) or script/macro based (cheating). Either way, your aim matters less than your ability to control the hellish recoil on the guns in this game.

Overwatch even in its downgraded Overwatch 2 formula is still a better title than this for hijinks, good ultimates and fun weapons. Titles like COD are still better straight up run and gun shooters. Apex is lost somewhere in the middle. Unable to decide what it is and not doing a very good job copying these other titles.