Recent reviews by Jho

This is an early-access review, as of 12/27/2024. At this moment I have 198 hours in the game.

TL;DR
The campaign is fun and challenging for now, even though they haven't implemented the second half of it. (You repeat the first half twice).
Endgame (mapping) has a fresh take on how to conquer the Atlas, but loses it's appeal very quickly for some very specific reasons.

General:
The game GGG has always wanted to produce uses a "ruthless" system where players are resource starved for their entire playthrough. Most players did not like that in PoE1, but there was a ruthless mode you could select nonetheless.

In PoE2, GGG has created a compromise of sorts, but all players will be playing more ruthless than they probably want. PoE2 has far fewer item drops than PoE1, and the currency to create your own gear is also very scarce.

The good:
* Combat feels good.
* Dodge roll feels good (see below).
* The graphics are great.
* The boss mechanics are great.

Needs work:
Currency:
GGG needs to dramatically increase the amount of currency (specifically exalted orbs). Maybe 5x the current amount. This could be accomplished by increasing the drop rate, or by adding some new features that let you target farm this type of currency. It is very punishing to try new things, because it requires investing a lot of currency you probably don't have. The only way I was able to try anything new was to sell the 2 lucky divine orbs i got for exalted orbs.

Mapping:
Mapping needs a lot of changes, but the fixes should be relatively simple. All of these need a complete 180:
1. Mapping limits you to a single attempt. If you die in a map, you can not use a second portal to go back in and try again.
2. If you attempt a map with a friend, you can not revive them when they die.
3. Once you complete a map node, you can not repeat it with a new waystone. This is most important for nodes that contain boss fights.
4. If you fail an attempt at a node, it loses all it's modifiers. If it used to contain a ritual altar, or an expedition, your second attempt will not.

Item Descriptions:
All non-equipment items (currency, waystones, tablets, etc) need better descriptions, in game. Players should not have to leave the game to figure out what something does, i would think GGG wants more players to focus on their game instead of maxroll or some wiki. Maybe make a research table (for your hideout) that you can put ANY item into and it will give you a full run-down on what it can do. Bonus if you can put your gloves in one slot and a vaal orb in a second slot and it tells you what the combination might do.

Dodge Roll:
Dodge roll needs some invulnerability frames to make it great. We should also have more ways to modify how dodge roll works, such as rolling farther or faster, or gems that make dodge roll interact with the skill.
I should be able to leave behind a flame wall when I dodge.

Overall:
I do recommend this game, as much as I recommend PoE1. It's fun and challenging, but the reward system needs some work. Please make PoE2 awesome while it's still in early-access!

This game unlocks "phases" once per week, for 6 weeks, which is a "season". The issue is that each week's worth of content lasts 1-2 days before you run out of things to do.

For this reason, I recommend figuring out when your server started, and wait until phase 4 before playing, to avoid running out of stuff to do every single week.

Helldivers2 is a great game. Sony almost killed it with greed, but I'm glad they changed their mind.

Fun game. Light on the survival. Getting all the steam achievements requires a bit of grinding, but not too much.

This game is a weird mix of survival and a shopkeeping game; but it doesn't blend them very well. Getting ganked by random NPCs every night with no warning and no explanation gets old pretty quick. Also, sleeping in a bed doesn't sleep through the night; it just seems to sleep a fixed number of hours, often leaving you in the middle of the night to deal with the random ganks. Go sleep in the town because it's safer.

Bought game, set up dedicated server (needs more documentation). Server crashed twice during the first 2 hours of gameplay.

Seems like a fun game, but I can't recommend it yet. Wait for them to fix the dedicated server issues.

I was very hyped for this game after seeing Neebs play it a few weeks ago. So I bought it and tried it out.

The current state of the game is..... playable. Barely. It's fun except for the following two points:

1) Inventory management needs a huge overhaul.
Trying to craft things is a huge pain. Whatever crafting station you're using should automatically pull resources from your inventory to make the craft happen. This includes fuel. It should grab however much fuel (of the last kind you used) needed for the craft, and just do it. All the clicking around is horrible.

2) Combat (especially with the humanoid npcs) needs an overhaul as well.
The humanoid NPCs at the various train stations all seem copy/paste of each other. They slide around sideways and always seem to know where you are. You can't sneak around the wall and snipe them from behind. It takes WAY too many shots to take each one down. These guys should go down in 2 shots, or 1 if you get a headshot.

Teach yourself Javascript! Learn a new career!

Enjoyed this enough to buy it for my kid.

Only advice for developers is to do something to enhance the replay value.

My idea is: after beating the game, give us the ability to pick one of the artifacts to permanently keep on our character for subsequent playthroughs. Several playthroughs would allow several permanent artifact effects.

Finished the entire game in 38 minutes. Minimal tactics required. No replay value. Save your $0.99.