Recent reviews by Alpha-methyl

I definitely still recommend this game - more now than ever, actually. The new player experience in Elite Dangerous is vastly improved. I know because I cleared my save to find out, haha... maybe I get back all my toys some day... but until then, I've actually been having a ton of fun with this game. It's still by far the most immersive "space sim" - it has plenty of problems, but you can read about those on any veteran player's posts and pages - I think most of those flaws are really not that relevant to new players.

If I had to list a negative aspect to the new player experience, it would be that for whatever reason, there are no protections in the starter systems for the people still learning to play - and most of those people are not aware they can go into "Solo" mode and it's the exact same character / game. I noticed there are a few veteran players with souped up ships going around trying to ruin the new player experience for everyone by interdicting and destroying them over and over. Saw more than one player complaining that they couldn't even leave the starter planet because a guy using the fastest ship in the game won't let them jump away. Of course, the game doesn't actually explain anything about avoiding veteran gankers, so most people who try this game are likely to quit unless they happened to notice they can just log in "Solo" or in a private group. Very few new players do - because the game can still be pretty overwhelming until you know what things are.

I'm pretty confident I saw at least 3 new players quit playing because of the ganker, in the hour or two I was hanging around yesterday. That's unfortunate, but you can't really blame them, they aren't really even able to jump away. I think it'd be a great idea for Frontier to put some sort of tooltip or tutorial panel emphasizing to newbies, that they can very easily avoid the gankers, and pick up where they left off when they want to get back ONLINE - online, away from ganker central ;)

It still isn't the easiest thing to get into - but it guides you a bit now. Before, when I played the first time, they pretty much just tossed you into space in a sidewinder, and said "have fun landing lol" and most people didn't actually manage to land on a landing pad even once. I still remember when I was learning it - not sure what motivated me, but I had a hell of a time landing. Now I land manually 100% of the time, because it's fun and I kinda like to just tear in there and be reckless - it's the flavor of Elite Dangerous. If you intend to haul illegal cargo, you'll probably get good at it fast enough...

I was against "space legs" the whole time - but I am forced to admit that they're ... a worthy addition to this game. The on foot portions, the FPS portions, are done competently enough that they manage to be pretty fun. Frustrating maybe - but you're gonna fail some missions, sometimes, and the reputation kick isn't all that bad. It's been a positive experience, and if I had friends who would play the game with me, it would be a pretty magical time.

I was messing around at first, seeing if traveling via taxi and just taking on-foot missions was viable - and it actually is. There are still plenty of things you need an actual ship for - but I was able to take plenty of assassination contracts (usually killing a competitor of some drug dealer) where I would basically get a taxi to the settlement - get dropped off - find them - look around for stuff I could swipe without making everyone go hostile, and then I'd just waltz over, blast them, and flee on foot! fortunately, you can call a taxi to pick you up just about anywhere ;)

FINDING frontline missions, (these are the bigger FPS battles, that you get paid per kill credit in) on the other hand, is not always easy. Ultimately that's why I decided to get my own ship - but it was an interesting experience, and still among the most immersive you can get.

I definitely still recommend this game - and it's still one of my absolute favorites, and the experience has only improved. If you've seen veterans tell you how horrible it is - try to keep in mind, they well and truly burned themselves out, grinding and grinding, doing the same tasks all at once... I get burned out in any game, when I do that - experts tend to be jaded. Their criticisms are valid - but most of them don't mean a thing to a new player anyway, and also being fair, a lot of those same criticisms are made of so many other online games, such as "repetition".

This game will always hold a special place in my heart, and in my game library.

It's a good idea to bring friends ;) but it's also not mandatory to have a great time. Definitely give this one a try if you've been on the fence, it could suck you in like a black hole.

It's every bit as trashy as you thought, but it's also a great game. It's gorgeous anime style is one of the best and definitely a step up from the Senran Kagura games, as are the animations. It's bright, flashy, fast, and while it's not particularly challenging, it's still pretty fun (at least on Hard) ...probably the only thing I DON'T think looks good is the boob physics - they're strange...

I don't really speak of the plot because it's just like a placeholder ... a cheap premise for the game to exist, but the characters are pretty lovable. Especially Momo. Probably doesn't seem that way at first, but you'll come around to her... they always do.

This game is unfathomably good. I am not normally a huge fan of zombie apocalypse games, or zombie survival games, or zombie games at all, but this is one of my favorite, if not my favorite game of all.

The gameplay is smooth as silk, the parkour is effortless (unlike say, Mirror's Edge, whose glitches can make it too infuriating to play) - they are fast and fluid, even before you invest points to improve them. The melee combat is near perfect, whether you're bashing a zombie's brains in with a nail hammer, or dismembering it with a katana or longsword, it feels great. The ways to fight or avoid the hordes are vast and varied, and the city is riddled with traps to utilize and other hazardous obstacles (to you and zombies) to use to get the job done. It all adds up to a very coherent and natural experience.

The zombies are not weak, either. Even later in the game, when you slice through mobs of them with sharp edged weapons, you will still come across some who just refuse to go down until they have no blood left in their walking corpse. There's good challenge to be had in this game - it gets just comfortable enough to make you complacent, and then you're jumped by Virals or Volatiles and -dead-. I've died a lot, I even die in New Game+ mode, which is unusual, especially for a game like this. That said, I definitely recommend playing on the hardest difficulty, because it gets too easy too fast once you level up on anything else (in my humble opinion). A game like this, is supposed to be dangerous. Harran is supposed to be a hellhole, not a crap shoot, after all.

The graphics are gorgeous - the city may not be, but it still has a haunting beauty. It's common to stumble out of a pile of trash bags and onto a concrete ledge overlooking some shanties and thinking "wow, that's the most beautiful slum I've ever seen" (no, the game doesn't all take place in a slum, just the first part) The amount of detail in the environment is staggering, with a polish you'll find in very few games since the beginning of video gaming. Nothing is half-assed, everything appears to be a labor of love.

The sound design is beautiful as well - it can be "peaceful" (as peaceful as being trapped in a city full of zombies can be) and downright terrifying a short while later. The contrast between these moments create the perfect tension at all times. Those moments of quiet, where the only sounds you hear are distant screams and wails and moans and groans of the undead, the wind in the grass and the occasional sound of a chain link fence or falling rocks and pebbles will have you looking over your shoulder over and over... and finally when you hear the obvious threats, when you know a viral sees you or night falls and the sounds change to crickets and the heavy breathing of monstrous volatiles (and several other monstrosities..) ends up making you long for that "tension" from earlier in the day. The sound manages to convey all of this expertly.

The voice acting is fantastic as well. Most of the characters, even the less believable ones, manage to give their lines without making you pass out from cringe. The main character is very believable and many of his lines are entertaining.

And the plot / writing. Great. There are some very unique and entertaining side quests, all fully voiced and varied in their objectives, they are very fun. The main plot is releatively short, and I suggest not rushing through all of it first - that would disrupt the otherwise near perfect flow of the game. Play it organically. Take a break when things aren't urgent and help some survivors - I found myself going back and forth between main quest and side quests constantly. Every time there was a reasonable place to stop, I would end up doing a handful of side quests. I've seen people call Kyle Crane, the player character, generic - but I don't think he is. He's got some great and unconventional lines, often saying what I'm thinking about the situations he's in. I think a lot of the people I've read saying that just don't like that he's a "white guy" in a presumably middle eastern country - but that is all in the plot. I for one am sickend by the amount of offense people take at things like this. I can't help but think anything but "maybe gaming ... or life, just isn't for you" ...but that is a rant for some other place.

Harran is a pleasure to navigate, a terrifying one, and remains entertaining even after you've navigated it for hours and hours, and been through an area several times. Anything can happen, and you can die anywhere. When you play it, wear headphones and have the lights off - that's my advice. You don't want to miss a detail of this game. Go buy it, now; as an added bonus, Techland has consitently released new and updated content for this game since release, some of these content expansions are very recent. I don't utilize all of them, but it's nice that they're there and the developer loves their game so much to do things like that for free.

...just go buy the game.

An excellent game. It's been well worth playing for a while now - in early access it was still a more competant game than most early access games - not without flaws - but enough content and gameplay to keep you occupied for dozens of hours, or more, if you're like me. VASTLY superior to the first SPAZ, don't pay those reviews that complain about it not being a carbon-copy of the first game any mind. They likely have not given it a chance, or they're "those" people. You know, weirdos, or people who would rather play the games from 2 decades ago than today's, at all costs. (Not saying there's anything wrong with older games, by the way, some excellent ones out there - but it's still hard to argue the state of gaming circa 2D sprite-based games was better than today. Graphics definitely aren't everything, but they help.

Graphics: Good. The backgrounds could use some work, though. They're interesting, a bit nonsensical, but for some reason they're low-resolution compared to the rest of the game. The ships, weapons, explosions, damage effects - all these are wonderful. Bright, full of saturation and bloom. Very colorful and they look sharp. Go through a heavy battle and almost die? even if you don't lose parts, your ship will look like it just went through a heavy battle. Parts of it will be flickering, fading, burnt, broken - well done in this aspect. If only they'd upgrade the backgrounds I'd have zero complaints.

Sound: it's pretty good. The voice acting isn't the best, but it's also far from the worst. It's supposed to be goofy - and you do have the option to switch between voice acting and computerized voices for individual characters - a nice touch. Some people like the old computerized voices this game had pre-release, but I think the voice acting is pretty well done. It's full of personality and makes for a hilarious experience, at least once. There is "voice acting" for some of the other 200 captains, but much of it is re-used on several of them. It IS funny, though. They say some absurd stuff like "my hands feel like 2 balloons!" ... look, you just have to hear it for yourself. I'm not making judgments here, but they may have been smoking various things during the recording and design process. It fits this game. All the other sounds are good - weapons sound good, explosions, I have no complaints.

Plot: It's nothing super special, there are a few twists, but it's not meant to be taken seriously. The twists are just icing, the real draw of this game, plot-wise, is the humor. I found almost everything the wacky crew had to say to be hysterically funny. It's very, very sarcastic and it thinks very little of human life, which I also find hilarious. That may not sound like a good thing, but trust me, in the context of this game it really is. All that said - it does have some fairly interesting lore. I thoroughly enjoyed going around the map and listening to all the game's lore as I discovered the nodes. They have some good background information and the game's premise is good. I'll let you discover it for yourself. It's not plot-heavy, but that definitely doesn't mean it isn't thoughtful.

Characters: they're funny. They're the source of most of the humor in the game. The crew of your ship are not what I'd call "good people" ...some are worse than others. Carl for instance, well, I'll give you an example. At the start of the game, to play a video game on-board the ship, he re-routes power from life support to his game, which kills half the crew. It's like that. The rest of the "characters" are random captains, not fully voice acted, but each with enough of their own quirks to make it entertaining, as well as interesting.

Gameplay: The meat and potatoes of this game. I'll spare you the specifics of the controls since it walks you through them anyway. At the core of the game is the ability to swap out parts on your ship with parts you bought (any parts. ALL parts) found, or blew off of other ships. You can do this in the heat of battle, though it does require a little finesse (and camera manipulation), it can and probably will save your ass at some point. Re-attaching that engine will likely mean the difference between victory and defeat. There are a ton of parts, with a ton of different weapons on each. At first the ship-building is haphazard and you'll have a monstrosity of a mothership. Later-game you'll have the ability to pick and choose, always keeping your eye out for parts, making the ship look how you want it to look, while having the weapons you want to use. You can also special order parts, though this I have not done yet, so I can't elaborate on how it works. It's more expensive, as it would be in reality, but you get what you want. Convenience!

The play style varies quite a bit depending on the type of weapons you have outfitted. The balance isn't perfect, but from what I've read a lot of people are blowing the imbalance out of proportion. There are still various ways to make your ship, and it all matters. Layout, whether you have more wings or more engines, where on the ship each weapon is. You'll likely be altering your ship every other battle, just to tweak it to perfection.

Almost all "imbalance" at this point is due to a player not utilizing the weapons / parts the right way. Some weapons are most definitely better than others, but you can get a dominating ship using just about any weapon or combination of weapons in the game. Now, if you're talking about how "imbalanced" it is to use fighter craft / missiles / torpedos, maybe I'll agree with you - but that's down to the nature of the weapons, yet again. They're long distance, and as long as you're willing to wait and run, you can take out your enemies from miles away using them - before the majority of them can get into fighting range. That is again, by design, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It'd defeat the purpose of outfitting a ship with almost no guns and all missiles, if that play-style wasn't valid. THAT would constitute an imbalance - because it would render those weapons largely useless.

The overworld map is also fairly good. There are something like 200 other AI captains out there, doing the same things you're doing. Gathering Rez, Goons (crew), and Scrap, modifying their ship, building and upgrading their starbases, killing pirates and each other - and each one of those captains, as I said before, also has their own combination of personality traits such as "cowardly" or "sociopath" or "opportunist" ... there's a lot of them, and if you trust the wrong one to go into battle with you, well, probably your fault for taking that cowardly sociopath in to battle. Time moves when you do, so you have an infinite amount of time to think, and the other captains won't sneak up on you, unless you're moving around and not paying attention. That might sound strange, but in practice it works quite well.

There's more to it, but you'll figure it out. This game is well worth every cent - one of the best games in my library. Also worth noting is that once you beat the campaign mode (which I higly recommend due to how entertaining it is, and that it gets you acclimated to the game) you can start over in a sandbox mode, tweaking various features of the map.

Buy this game, you won't regret it. Well, maybe if you're one of "those" people... I hope not!

Graphics may not be cutting edge, but you won't even notice. Everything looks fantastic, especially with a certain mod installed that rebalances the entire game and adds a ton of stuff.

The sound is ... well, it's spacey. The ships make cool ship sounds, the weapons sound good.. kinda like weapons. The music I really love, ambient and beautiful, usually. But action packed when you stir things up.

The gameplay is great - but do yourself a favor and install the mod I mention below, it adds a great deal of content and forces you to strategize a bit.. it makes the universe a lot more dangerous, too.

I can't recommend this game enough. It's not nearly as hard to get into as people make it sound. They're just being complainy and have that disorder that is the reason why commercials and movies have to flash to a different scene every 5 seconds and use bright colors to keep the viewers from wandering aimlessly away from the TV and off a cliff or something stupid like that without realizing what they're doing..

You know, that's goldfish level attention span.... just saying. I guess what I mean is, they're only the big HALO and COD fans. And they suck, right? (relax, itr's a joke! sort of. I KNOW you know the people I'm referring to)

I installed the XRM mod... adds a whole lot more to an already massive game. Very good. Makes a lot more random and dangerous encounters with different factions. - I worked my way up till I had like 9 trade ships and I did a few taxi missions and then i started buying fighters... then I bought a couple of these little military transports (like a small carrier.. holds 4 ships and has a couple turrets... im no superpower ...yet) and I had the most awesome battle.

I jumped into some sector because I wanted to buy a bunch of missiles for my fighters and I ran into 2 of these Xenon corvettes and a few fighter's with them. It turned into a big flashy battle and I completely mopped the floor with the bastages. Even though I didn't have anything as big as a corvette myself, I deployed all my fighters and got into my Eclipse prototype ship and shot them all down. In the end, the fighter I was flying was the only one that got really badly damaged and I didn't even lose one ship... a little repairing to do, but hey... that was one of the most badass video game moments I've had in a very long time.

Maybe it's worth pointing out, because you'll find this out anyway - that the result of one of my first battles in was not exactly typical. You will lose ships - you will likely re-load to try and not lose ships. Ships are expensive. You will likely get shot to pieces over and over - it's not a forgiving game. In fact, this is one of the few games I actually recommend cheating in - because the biggest flaw by far is how difficult it can be to outfit your ships legitimately - if the economy doesn't want you to have missiles, you probably aren't going to find a significant cache of missiles any time soon. If you install the XRM mod (and likely any other mods) the game will be flagged as "modified" - meaning you will not earn achievements anymore. A drag - but achievements aren't really why I play games, so... I can live with it. At that point, you can use the console to design scripts to give you the weapons / equipment you want without having to scour the galaxy for parts (or have your own weapons complex) for every last fighter you buy.

Even the early stages of my character where I was trading and playing the taxi driver (you can do anything you want... though) I was having a lot of fun. I was looking for new sectors to trade in and new goods and I came across a sector called The Vault, and there was a Khaak destroyer and two frigates and they destroyed pretty much everything in the sector.. ultimately I had to run but I watched them take down wave after wave of defenses but they pretty much destroyed every station in that entire sector... that = sweet.

Buy this game... play this game... it's so good I actually ♥♥♥♥ my pants, really. And that's just when I think about playing it.. when I actually play... wow. Do yourself a favor and download the amazing XRM mod, it adds so much depth and replayability, not that the game didn't already have this... but who doesn't like even more weapons, ships, customization, strategy and battles? Pansies, that's who. Are you a pansy? Play the damn game.

My review for this game is pending a re-write, as I've been playing it a bit over the past few weeks (not as much as my game-timer would indicate, as I play PC in bed, and fall asleep when it gets late, heh) I've been enjoying myself a lot more than I initially did, though there are still issues for me - I feel that the work they've done on this game, what I've seen of it so far, deserves to be pointed out. For now, I'm going to recommend the game and leave it at that - because it's my day off and I need to chill out right now, and play some games, not write. It may be time for people to give this game another chance - Mods are essential, though, for certain tweaks like adjusting certain aspects of the game and adding general functionality and gameplay depth. ... stay tuned for an update I guess. It shouldn't be too long... ;-)

THE BELOW REVIEW IS MY ORIGINAL REVIEW, WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER RELEASE - IT IS NO LONGER MY OPINION OF THIS GAME.

My review has little to do with the bugs in the game - I don't believe bugs should influence the rating of any game in this current generation as they all have them to varying degress and to be honest, I have not experienced the poor performance and all the other bugs people are pointing out - bugs get frixed. However.......... here's my story and why I rated this game what I did.

I was waiting for this game for what seemed like an eternity, and I was so psyched on the release date... eagerly waiting for the end of my work day so I could jump headfirst back into X. despite the poor design choices I had heard about - I was still eager to throw myself back into the X universe and exerperience the next evolution of this wonderful series. I pre-ordered it - this was the first time I truly felt like an idiot for pre-ordering a game that didn't meet my expectations. Let me explain -

I loved the previous X games, I love the universe and I love the complexity of the enormous sandbox wolrd filled with racial tension, econimic struggles between major corporations, and yes, I even loved the plot. X3 is a true masterpiece, a work of art, and despite what the critics say, I did not find the releases past X3: Reunion to be all that hard to navigate. The Menu's were not that confusing - I find that people today lack the patience and attention span to pay attention and scan what is in front of them a little before becoming intimidated - the only reason it was intimidating is the sheer number of things you could do and the massive amount of data placed before you. These are, once you give the games a little while, what you come to love about it. This is what X was all about.

The boasts that Rebirth would improve upon what you loved about the previous games and streamline it, making it accessable to everyone turned out to be game crippling design choices and do not achieve that which they set out to do. The menu navigation is more convoluted and time consuming than in any of the previous games, and the information provided to you about "your empire" is far too simplistic to actually allow you to do the things you play an X game to do - that being, whatever you want. Even simple tasks like trade are a huge chore and it feels more like a job than a game. Games should not feel like work, I play games to escape from my daily life and live in a universe where I don't HAVE to work. Rebirth robs hardcore X fans of what they wanted the most and alienates them, while offering the newcomers a sub-par experience at best. I honestly cannot fathom how the current methodry makes this game more accessible than the previous - I have had a hard time doing ANYTHING in this game and that's a huge let-down bgecause the universe looks simply amazing and I would love to get to the point where I have a fleet of capital ships and fighters going to war with (insert faction/corporation here) - but I honestly do not see myself getting to that point - ever.

I cannot stress enough how much of a disappointment this is - because the game boasts such an impressive uinverse and such depth - it waves it in front of your face, teasing you like a dog with a treat - and then retracts its hands, not giving you that treat you oh-so desire, due to your own inability in-game to get the game to function on such basic levels as to be able to complete a simple, early-game trade mission. I'm not going to get into the specifics here as you can just go vsiit the forums and read all about these shortcomings and no-doubt the mission I'm referring to in numerous posts.

I can only hope Egosoft does some very serious re-thinking in terms of the design of this game - because as it is, it is quite literally impossible to form a great trade empire and change this seemingly great universe, and bend it to your will, as I have done and thoroughly enjoyed in the previous games in the series. But the real question in my mind is, can they even patch such fundamental design flaws? ... as well known as egosoft is for listening to fans and fixing their mistakes, the core of this game seems broken and if you add to that, that you are limited to piloting one single ship as opposed to the massive amount of choices you had in the previous games, I can't help but view it as a step, or perhaps a lot of steps back from their previous installments.

The entire design from the resource management to the gameplay leads me to the assumption that Egosoft were trying to reach out to the console crowd, becuase this game seems highly tailored for console game play and every single function within is based around using a gamepad to play - sorry, maybe I'm stubborn but a control pad will never be as precise as a mouse and keyboard, nor will it ever offer the customization and flexibility. I play PC games for a reason - and only a select few games are truly better with a gamepad. Simulations are not one of these. I can honestly say I unfortunately never get to experience this seemingly wonderful universe becuase I will never be able to get past the clunky, hard to manage core features of this game.

I'm honestly insulted by this title and I feel betrayed by one of the few gaming companies I stood behind. They not only alienated their fanbase, they did a mediocre job attracting their new target crowd. I wish I could say something better about this because I've wanted it for a very long time, but I can't detect a redeeming factor in sight. Graphics are not enough, guys.... and a sandbox should offer freedom, not just let you know it's there and deny access to it.

I do not recommend paying for this game until egosoft does some SERIOUS patching, if it's even possible at this point - I could get into more and more negatives and make this review pages long, but it's nothing you can't find spending 4 minutes in some forum and repeating it is almost as tedious as the game itself. At most, I'll keep my eye out for any real improvements but until that fateful day I guess I'll just keep playing Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude.

Egosoft will never get a pre-order from me again, even if they manage to live this one down and remain a game developer. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what a huge bummer, I didn't expect such a drastic failure.... enjoy my $50, hopefully you do something constructive with it, Egosoft. This review is liable to change, if down the road I load up this game and I find they really did do something to make it as playable as the previous installments.... but for now -

My Ratings?


Graphics: 9/10

Sound: 5/10 - (this would be higher, but the god-awful voice acting and station music are unbearable)

Gameplay: 8/10 (flight, physics, feel)

Playability: 2/10 (ability of player to use the games "features")

Plot: ?/? (Hell if I know, I couldn't stomach playing more than 4 or so hours.......)

Overall: 3.5/10 (I feel cheated, and honestly, I feel downright pissed off that they got my $$$)

This game is so good, I piss my pants every single time I play it. Get it, it's free anyway, so just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ get it and play. The more players, the better the combat. Drop your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ call of duty games and whatever other crap multiplayer you're into and get on PS2. There is no comparison, from gameplay to the variety of tactics you perform to the number of vehicles to the sheer number of players on a map (i.e. thousands).

Not only is the scale superior to pretty much every other FPS game, the feel is top notch as well. The 3 factions feel unique (unless you're using the weapons all factions can use), and this goes for the faction specific vehicles as well.

Look, just shut up and play this game. I'm Vanu (AMTMerchant) on the server Mattherson, and NC (ChocolateDog) and TR (CommunistSwine) on the server Connery. - why the hell are you reading this and not playing planetside 2? Jesus.

Just an aside, Call of Duty multiplayer has always sucked, just a bunch of run and gun ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that anyone with a ton of time to waste can master. Just hold your crosshair in the same place and learn the speed to tap the trigger with a given gun, and bam, you're a pro. That's boring and repetitive.

I'm serious, just quit reading this and play Planetside 2! I have far more hours into this game than Steam says, because I load it from the client and not steam.