Recent reviews by Dratch

I am recommending this game for the game itself. I've played a fair bit on the PS4 and you'd be hard pressed to find a better Gundam game out there.

However, right now, the servers are in an atrocious state, and you can land temporary bans due to the servers disconnecting you, even in custom games potentially. You can install, play the tutorial, the offline vs. bots Battle Simulator, and the training missions to see if the game is for you. But for now, it's a bit risky to play online.

Edit: A few months on and it's still broken. Stay away.

This game couldn't be more ass if it was enshrined in a proctologist's office as an example of their finest colonoscopy. With gameplay that feels directly ripped out of 2012, the guns have no feeling of impact, the enemies do not react to being hit, and tacked on looter-shooter mechanics had me rolling my eyes right out the gate. And that's before you even get into the fact you're supposed to be in a mech. These machines are a joke, smaller than some earthmovers we have in the modern world, and the environments feel like they were made for a human and not a walking war machine, with bar signs and streetlights made to scale for your overgrown forklift. Mouse Sensitivity is way out of wack, and you can turn on a dime, sprint, dash, and what have you when your machine looks like it can barely stand. Plus, Regenerating Health. Really? Bringing that back from 2012 as well?

I didn't even get to the looter-shooter mechanics. I got to the second mission where I was holding 'interact' with a computer that started another stupid horde event with humans shooting small arms at my mech, accompanied with voice acting that sounded so disinterested and generic it felt like I was playing a Call of Duty title. I quit right there.

Stay away. Stay far away. Save your time and money for Armoured Core 6. This ain't it.

A fantastic entry in the retro shooter genre with heavy inspiration from Blood. Up there as one of the best I've played. From the crunchy visual style, fluid gameplay, secrets galore, and enemies that will make you jump out of your seat, you can hardly do better than Cultic. Not to mention, at time of writing, only Chapter One is available, so more crunchy goodness is coming. I implore you, dear reader, take the plunge. You won't regret it.

Before the game was even over I was begging for DLC or a sequel. If you're a fan of shooters and metal, the rhythm part of it will come naturally to you. You'll shoot and headbang simultaneously. There is no way to put it other than 'This game rocks from end to end.'

Even on normal, this game is a masochistic DM who is out to ruin your day more than anything. Completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and unfair mechanics (throwing your party of level 4s against level 7s that can one shot you on a crit, and they *will* crit), resulting in this being a quicksave and quickload simulator more than anything pathfinder. I really tried to like this game. The writing is great, characters are interesting, the simulation of pathfinder is superb; But I cannot and will not spend another 2 hours trying to fight one pack of enemies because they keep killing several party members in each encounter.

Take-Two Interactive not only sent private investigators to a modder's home, but sent a Cease + Desist on the backbone script extender mod that was used to be able to mod both GTA IV and V, because people used it to play singleplayer (where there has been no new content since the game released) instead of multiplayer. They actively want to push you onto the ♥♥♥♥♥♥, boring MP so that they can force more microtransactions and heists down your throat and pull your wallet out of your esophagus.

For the longest time, Take Two has been anti consumer. From actively preventing mods, to overpricing games (and extra so for Australia!), to withholding key features that make a game whole and complete to then sell you back at $40 a pop (looking at you Civilization...). Even if they withdraw this Cease and desist, I will NEVER buy another 2K game so long as I live.

And to Take Two; Maybe you should take a second look at yourselves.

Edit on July 8th: It came to my attention that they lifted the Cease + Desist on OpenIV, due to community outcry. Which is good. But there was something my mother always used to say; "A tiger can't change it's stripes." I still do not trust Take Two one bit.

The random elements will almost always be what kills you, causing you to curse, swear, and forsake any god you may have previously worshipped. You will never get what you need, and the enemy will always have exactly what counters what you have bought. You will swear that you will never, ever, ever touch such a random, poorly designed piece of ♥♥♥♥ ever again so long as you live. Uninstalling it to just have that horrid filth off of your HDD.

An hour later, you'll start downloading it again because you can't stay away.

If you have somehow magically managed to avoid any and all spoilers and information on this game, PLAY IT. Don't let the subpar RPG mechanics and graphics lead you astray. Do not let the seemingly shallow surface deter you. It is only a thin layer of ice over a lake so deep that no man-made vehicle can reach the bottom. Play it, love it, embrace it.

And for ♥♥♥♥'s sake, give him a hug when you meet him.

TL;DR "Where's the DLC I can purchase to get a stable framerate?"

I want to recommend this game. I really, really do. The game itself at its core is just as fun, if not more fun, than JC2. When the game works, it is a very satisfying experience, and definitely screams I AM A VIDEO GAME AND I AM PROUD LOOK AT ALL THE FUN I'M GIVING YOU. But development priorities have been put on their Season Pass content instead of trying to optimize the game and plugging the memory leaks that have been plaguing the community for almost a year now. We can only hope that with the last DLC coming out just around the corner, the devs will try their best to help fix performance issues. Avalanche is not an incompetent Dev. But they're certainly trying to change my opinion at this point.

An incredibly charming and beautiful game absolutely marred by the final boss. I went through the game twice, and 2 hours of my game time is that stupid boss. I love dragons, I love the art, I love the way the story is told, the music.. Just the friggen last boss and the awkward jump/flight controls compound on each other into an infuriating ending.