Recent reviews by LOHR

As the game has just launched, it has it's share of jankiness in need of optimization. However I don't understand some of the complaints others are making. I only have an NVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER with AMD Ryzen 7 3700x cpu, and while yes, the framerate in town dropped a bit, it was far from game breaking.

Also, everything available in the microtransactions some people are sore about is also available in game as you play, so if you don't want the microtransactions, you really don't need them, it's just a matter of convenience.

All that aside though, I am enjoying the game. It captures the feeling of the first game, plus the pawns seem a bit smarter and a bit more interactive. All-in-all it's a plus I'd say, and with a bit of optimization this should run fine for most people, seriously.

I want change this review. The game looks great, but I've been waiting for 2 hours to be let in to play it. It's always either "login limit reached" or "lobby failed to form".

Update: Was finally able to get in. The game is very good. Play with friends for an awesome time.

EARLY RELEASE REVIEW

The spirit of the source material is there, and I really appreciate it. Of course it is early release, and I encourage everyone to be cautious about early release games. This one needs more content and balancing of the classes. But if you enjoyed the movie and want to get the feel of being a trooper, boots on the ground fighting the arachnids, this is pretty good. I had one round were it seemed like half the players were actually role-playing. At first I thought it was built in voice lines from the devs, but the microphone feeds were there, my section was literally RPing as troopers...it was kind of awesome.

Good story, fun gameplay, a refreshing take on post-apocalyptic settings. An action game, but one that also rewards careful planning and smart play. Would recommend to almost anyone.

Written in Pre-Order Beta: Updated in December after release.

Changed my overall evaluation of the game. The review below was written during the preorder beta with the assumption that major fixes and improvement to the game would be coming. They may still be, and I hope they are, but the baffling decisions the devs are making have soured my outlook on the direction of the game. I'm no longer confident the game will be built up into the thoroughly satisfying adaptation I was hoping for, when previously I was. I've changed my rating to a thumbs down to indicate that those considering playing this game may wish to wait a few months, or even a year, to see if the game really comes into it's best form, or if this is all going to be a disappointment.

The Good

The visuals are good, if a little demanding. Even if your rig is not top-notch though, you can have a decent experience if you do some tweaking. Highly recommend reading the dev-blog or other knowledgeable sources of information on how to make these adjustments. I only have an RTX 2080 graphics card and it runs well for me. If you are a fan of the Warhammer 40K franchise, this game offers a wonderful look into the grime and grit of a Hive City at war, it feels right.

The soundtrack, amazing. Jesper Kyd is one of my favorite soundtrack composers, I've loved his work since Freedom Fighters in 2002ish, and he produced a marvelous soundtrack for this game. The music seems to resonate a combination of both religious reverence and awe for the Emperor, but also a set a menacing and wrathful tone that just fits 40K perfectly. Even if you don't want the game, get the soundtrack if you want to hear some dark, yet moving tracks.

(FYI, as of this writing Freedom Fighters is just a couple dollars on steam, pick it up if you like squad based shooters and don't mind older games, you may hear a stylistic similarity in the soundtracks of these two games and I like it.)

Gameplay is pretty good in most respects, the gunplay and melee mostly feel pretty good. The enemy behavior is a little off. Enemies actually feel a little overpowered sometimes, not individually, but as a group they are vicious. Some of the rules seem a little unfair, like enemies being able to retreat through their own spawn points and come back later. There are also perhaps some issues with balance concerning ranged units and their behavior, but since this is a game in its very early stages we will see how they eventually end up. All-in-all the gameplay experience is pretty good, and I have only encountered one or two crashed in my 25 hours of play so far.

The Not-So-Good

As of now, the narrative is non-existent. It just entails short cut scenes were people treat you like trash and tell you to do better. It really fits at first, but it seems like it's all they ever do. Hopefully this is improved later.

In the preorder beta, the gameplay cycle feels a little limited. Fight mission, check shop, fight mission, check shop. The side missions aren't even worth doing. The grimoires are both difficult to find and add significant difficulty, but offer little in return, and if you are incapacitated while holding a grimoire it vanishes, so you can't even complete the objective. In short, side objectives are pointless and I actively avoid them.

The dialogue...it's okay at best. Our convicts aren't very interesting, or witty. Vermintide had much more charming dialogue even if I got sick of hearing the word "mayflies" so often. Darktide just doesn't have that appeal, but maybe they'll add some more character to it later? I've heard the devs are conflicted about having emotes or cheer keys in the game, something to do with toxic/sarcastic players, but we already have ingame chat, which offers anyone the ability to be as toxic as their imagination can get, so I think it's worth reconsidering.

Penances, these are little in-game challenges. Firstly, some of them seem quite difficult. Difficult is not inherently bad, but it has to be measured well. More troubling, they sometimes encourage anti-cooperative gameplay. I think they should be retweaked just for that, to make sure that getting them doesn't entail harming your team.

Gear...playing with it feels good, but understanding it. For some reason fatshark decided we would all understand heiroglyphics and arbitrary yellow bars that DO NOT compare the weapons. If you have a Fun-Gun Mk 1, and a Fungun Mk 2, the yellow bars DO NOT show you how they compare to eachother. The bars only show you how a gun compares to IDENTICAL models of the same gun. How does that make sense? It doesn't really. Please fix.

Overall:

Game is good, even in its preorder beta state, if a bit limited. I'm optimistic that with time the devs will turn this into an awesome game, but if you can't wait, it is enjoyable right now too.

Up front: I do like this game.

Pros: Wonderful art, atmosphere. Competent gameplay, plus couch coop is a great feature.

Cons: Minor bugs, lack of content. Fixed cam was a little annoying, but not awful. Map could use some work.

By the time I was really getting into it, the story was over. Game does set up loose ends which I hope turn into more content. Overall, for a game to leave me wanting more is a good sign. Do recommend, and definitely hope the devs make more, MAJOR expansions.

Furi offers tight, mixed melee-shooter action, a captivating visual design, and an amazing soundtrack. Definite recommend.

Started playing on release day. Brings back memories. Remember that while it has been touched up, it's still fundamentally the game it was when it was released. Has a few minor bugs, remember to save often. The removal of sniper sway in ME1 makes playing infiltrator or other sniping characters so much easier than it used to be.

If you loved Mass Effect, you will love this...because it is Mass Effect. If you didn't play the original and want to jump in here, this is also a good place to start. Have fun!

So I've been playing this game for a while and here's my rundown.

Pros:
Big, beautiful maps, fun to explore.
Exciting encounters with dangerous beasts.
Plenty of progression to help you deal with the world.

Cons:
Buggy AF, unoptimized too.
Too grindy and punishes you if you're not playing all the time.
Super toxic community.

I've had really fun times, and really bad times on this game. Some offers for how to improve it: Make dino ranching and raising way easier. Seriously, if you're trying to raise a dino yourself, the little bugger will literally keel over and die if you're not constantly attending to him for HOURS! That's not really what I'm here to do, and the littlge guy has parents! Why should he die if I'm not constnatly supervising him? Don't they care for him at all? Also, the kibble system is way too overdone. Kibble is super-good dino food you use to help you tame dinos. Problem, to make kibble you need specific dino eggs for EVERY species! Why the hell do I need so many different kinds? Can't there just be a few different sorts of kibble that I can make with a broad variety of eggs? Why should I spend so long ranching up every species of dino just so I can get the eggs and make every kibble? Combined with how incredibly buggy it is, like how your dinos keep escaping by snapping through your fences, or their precious eggs just fall through the planet denying you the entire reason you herded the damn things, why even bother with this entire part of the game? Oh....because you NEED high level bred dinos to fight the bosses, or even just survive the incredibly toxic community. Seriously, when you log on to a public server, you'll probably find the entire start zone built over so heavily, that your computer begins to lag. So what can you do? You could start in a higher level zone, if you don't mind getting killed over and over by the more dangerous creatures. Oh, but you'll place a harmless hermit living in a shack in a worthless area where nobody could possible want to harm you? Nope. You'll log on to find that even your humble thatch hut hidden among the trees near nothing of value has been burned to the ground by a guy riding a gigasaur in tek armor.

Seriously, for best experience, just get your own server and only play with your friends, if you don't mind the horrendously glitchy, unoptimized, and poorly designed elements of the game. I now I sound negative, and rightly so. But it's also true that this game feels good in ways. It can be a thrill to trek the jungles with your friends, hunting for resources or certain dinos, not knowing where danger may come from at any moment. I really enjoyed going on expeditions and working with my tribesmen. But for all there is to enjoy, there's things to frustrate you, and not good challenge based frustration, just crumby badly designed buggy frustrating.

And sadly, at this point in development, I think it's unlikely that these things will get fixed. More bugs might be fixed, some more optimizations may occur, but the basic design flaws are here to stay. End of the day, I would not pay full price for this title. I picked it up when the whole package with Scorched Earth DLC was $20. That I'm fine with. But the combined $80 that they ask now...not worth it, and I doubt it will be. Maybe grab if you see it the game with Scorched Earth DLC for around $30 if you're interested.

Plays wonderfully, only saw a couple little bugs that didn't bother me really. A solid evolution of the original Endless Space. May need a few balance tweeks, but it is still in alpha anyway. Can't wait for the full release.