Recent reviews by tetra-byte

TL;DR: Optimization is awful. Game runs like ♥♥♥♥ but it's super fun. Buy if your computer is from NASA and you want to play at 60FPS no AI-FG or 90 with AI-FG, are willing to put up with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ frames/frametimes, or REALLY enjoy Borderlands. I fall into the last two categories.

40 FPS (sometimes dipping to 20 FPS) on a 3070 RTX, 5800X3D system. FSR gets me to 60 but makes my game look smeared. DLSS-FG unsupported on 30-series cards now for some reason (Nvidia's fault!).

It sucks, because I truly LOVE this game. Great buildcrafting, fun guns, amazing movement, and best of all a GOOD STORY. Coming from the heels of BL3 this game breathed great, fresh air into the franchise.

But... I can't consciously recommend a game that people cannot play on their systems at a reasonable framerate. Using Lumen and Nanite the way they did only harmed the games performance. UE5's "future software for future hardware (that doesn't exist yet)" has proven to be awful in every game beforehand, why make it default and un-toggleable?

Tangent: And to people saying "lol, just buy new parts to make the game run at 60 fps without frame gen", what if I want to, oh, I don't know, not use frame-gen and get 165+ fps to match my monitors refresh rate? I can do that with UE4 games and they look better than this. When an older engine gets better frames and looks better, then maybe the new engine systems ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suck. I've developed in UE5 and our studio heads directly told us to *NOT USE* Lumen and Nanite.

Regardless, in the current state of the US economy (Gearbox is a US company, which is why this is relevant) upgrading your PC is practically throwing money in a dumpster fire. Saying that I should not only pay an extra 10 dollars for my triple A game (hi Randy!), but to have to upgrade my system in order to play it is a slap in the face. I'm not paying for a tech-demo. I'm paying for a game. Let me play it at PC framerates.

Additionally, for some reason, they delayed the Switch 2 launch. Who would've thought the game that runs like ♥♥♥♥ on PCs with good hardware outpacing the Switch 2 might not run good on the Switch 2 either?

39 hours in, and I'm still not done with my first playthrough. I've only barely scratched the surface of some of the systems. There's so much to do, a great story, amazing lore, and awesome gameplay. Would definitely recommend to any fans of Half Life, Open World Survival Crafting games, co-op games, SCP, etc.

The penultimate OWSC game. Amazing QOL and systems that are themed so well within the game, it really makes you feel like you *are* a cool scientist. Especially with the laser stuff! I love shooting and charging my stupid little death beam and mulching people.

Price changed from $10 USD -> $30 USD for no reason, instead of making a new thing to sell they're just increasing the price of the old skins...

a game so good i figured out how to make mods for it

my wife left me

Queued inputs, uncancelable actions, laggy framerate, constant aggro'd FARM ANIMALS and hunts from goblins (including at your base!), and if you lower you bow too fast you'll shoot your arrow into the floor, because god forbid you release the arrow when you let go of your mouse button instead of like a full half second afterwards.

Gear scaling feels absolutely brutal, spells take so long to cast inside of combat that you might as well just buff up before you turn a corner. Want to isolate an enemy? Sorry, no stealth mechanics. Can't shoot a bow without everybody in the vicinity knowing-- including the fact that you can't crouch while charging your bow at the same time (you know, you can just have an additive layer for crouching instead of making it it's whole own animation right?).

As for video settings? We have no video settings. Just 'low, medium, high, epic'. By the way, it set me to High on my 3070 and 5800X3D but I had to switch to low with DLSS and ultra performance to squeeze out a framerate that wasn't making my eyes bleed. The fact that I needed to have DLSS on at all is a slap to the face. Please, please, just let me tweak my settings instead of using your weird ass presets. I'm begging you.

Now, for the building. The building is amazing. If there's one thing they nailed in this game, it's the building. Eye of Oculus being a starting spell for only a 5 rune cost makes my life SUPER easy, but I actually found myself... not needing to use it like I thought I would? The snapping can be a little frustrating but overall it's actually relatively nice. I would like to see a 'straight snap' feature where I click a keybind and it straightens the piece based on my view (or current object it's snapping to) so I don't have to rotate pieces back and forth 180 degrees to get the angles I want.

Maybe even just let me change my scrollwheel snap-rate.

Inventory is a struggle. Opening any Goblin Pack is a bad idea, because despite it's measly 10 stack size you actually save space with it. Inside of each bag is 1-3 items that weigh... 1.5lb each? My 1lb pack contains 4.5lb of items. I was full before one Vault trip was even finished, because each of the cores weigh 50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ POUNDS? At least runes weigh nothing!

That, and chest loot is just laughably bad. You'll get the same 5 plans for "barrel" that you have to dismantle, a couple of runes and essence and if you're lucky? A xp buff potion. No chest has loot inside of it that you actually WANT to get, and just leaves chests as more of a "if I have room" instead of a "I need to see what's in that" which is what I'd want it to be. Not even like, an upgraded shield, armor piece, melee weapon, or anything you can craft. No getting lucky for an upgrade, you have to make it all yourself. I might just be too early in the game to find good loot in chests, but it's not a good outlook if I'm this jaded from the 10 chests I've found already.

Overall, for a game that apparently already had an alpha, this feels like an early alpha build. I can't recommend it in it's current state unless you're either a HUGE Runescape fan or enjoyed Enshrouded or Valheim enough to want something new in the same category.

Crashing consistently, black screen when trying to launch and play that has to be fixed (which apparently happens to everybody their first go), terrible optimization, and worst of all... open mic by default with no indication that you're talking at all, so you'll broadcast your entire side of a discord chat without knowing your first game because the mic settings are hidden down at the bottom of the audio. :)

Oh. My. God.
The mechanics, the screen splitting, the boss fights? Everything about this game is amazing.
If you have time, sit down and play this with literally anybody, it's peak game design.

Insanely fun gameplay without dice-based RNG damage. Combat feels great, lots to toy around with, upgrades are amazing. Unlocking monsters to start with letting you set yourself up with a pretty damn good dream team off rip incentivises build diversity, letting you hone in on a very specific style of run type which could lead to fun challenges. Letting you stockpile rerolls is a neat touch as well.

Essentially, a no-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rogue-lite that lets you use what you want, when you want, with very minimal restrictions.

I've crashed not once, twice, but three times in about ~10 matches.
A crash rate of 30%, leaving my team without a healer for for like 3-5 minutes while the game restarts.

Until the game has fixed it's insane crashing problem, I cannot in good faith recommend this despite how the MTX system works in a very positive way.