Recent reviews by WeaponizedPeach

game so good we got a major order irl, democracy wins again, gl next lads

While the game had a somewhat shaky launch and several multiplayer infrastructure issues in the past, nowadays Siege is a well-maintained competetive shooter, that is always being polished and built upon by new seasons and updates. The learning curve is extremely steep, but there's nothing quite like it out there either.

Somewhat ironically, it would be fair to say that the game "inherits" a slightly rigid and wonky combat system from the first Deus Ex games. Dex leans heavily on the traditional RPG elements like skill trees and character progression, leaving a new player just starting the game feeling fragile and vulnerable. As the player has not unlocked any of the more advanced melee skills, the best he/she can do is to punch, block and roll repeatedly, which can be bothersome and might stain the player's expectations for what's to come and might dissuade him from continuing to play.

But after getting over the combat system, the player will be greeted with an inviting and charming world, drawing the player in. The artistic style leans on retro, somewhat reminding of 2000's arcade and console games, with clean sprites, animated backgrounds and blinking lights, meshing together the retro style and cyberpunk elements to create a small but colourful and bustling world.

The game does a perfect job at incorporating many of the main themes and ideas from the cyberpunk genre. Everything, from the dichotomy of the social structure and oppression to transhumanism. The poor hide beneath blinking neon lights or partially demolished urban landscapes, while the rich and powerful can afford luxurious and sterile apartments from which to watch. Hacking into various computers and reading tablets with lore bits hints to the player about various shady company deals, ethically questionable military contracts and a shadowy machevellian organization, controlling society from behind the scenes. The game doesn't try too hard to subvert any of the common tropes, so the game can seem cliched at times, but for an indie game, the atmosphere and feel is just fantastic.

Dex presents the player with a fair variety of ways to customize their heroine. The player won't likely be able to maximize all of the possible skills, but 3/4 can certainly be obtainable if one does everything they can. Some skills, like Lockpicking and Charisma feel...cheap, because even though they are inexpensive to get, a player without them sometimes can miss out on several important opportunities, so they often feel like a must-have, not as a purely free choice. Other skills feel far more equal. The cybernetics system has similar pros and cons, with the rebreather and jump-mod being one of the most useful ones the player can acquire and without them, the player is not only locked out from certain areas, but from a sidequest or two as well. As the player can have only a limited number of them (and increasing the number requires popping skill points into endurance), it can once again feel slightly restrictive. On the up side, the available augmentations allow a player to prioritize what they feel is most important for their type of play.

I personally felt that the grand finale was lackluster, that the developers could have executed the game's endings better. Although the grand plot of the game is fairly linear and railroaded, the side missions often have various ways to go about completing them and often force you to pick sides and make choices. Sometimes it doesn't even tell you anything, leaving you with only one obvious choice, when there's often at least one other up to you to find by yourself. Several side missions are closely linked to one another, with a few being locked out forever if the player doesn't proactively talk to NPCs. Some can be in essence done in advance, with you already having the necessary items by the time you find the NPC that requests them. And others can be mildly annoying, with scripted interactive objects functioning and appearing only after you receive the quest that requests you to interact with them, even though logically, nothing should prevent you from entering that doorway or opening this safe...

The voice acting dives head deep into technobabble territory for my taste, but overall it's still quite well done.

Don't do ponies kids

gg ez