Recent reviews by Nirvy

Battlefront II still has an active community, new players can hop into co-op mode to learn the ropes and level up their abilities if MP is too rough at first (the sweat is strong with the Jedi). Same goes for Starfighter battles, fun gameplay, high skill ceiling.

It's a shame that support for this game was discontinued, I think we all would've loved to see a Mandalorian update but the game's reputation took irreparable damage at launch with the whole microtransaction thing. On the flip side, not only have microtransactions been completely removed, but every single cosmetic in this edition is free and most of them are unlocked by default.

EA came to their senses too late, if the game continued to receive content updates I think it could have been a true successor to the original Battlefront II. Shady marketing practices aside, there's over a year's worth of balancing and bug fixes in here, so it's in a good state right now. Haven't seen a hacker yet.

Campaign was a nice surprise, its a little Star Wars redemption story with some familiar faces. Sure, we've all seen one of those before, but they never really get old. Disney will still be pumping them out long after we're all dead. Only caveat, it's a DICE length story so don't expect more than a few hours of gameplay.

Also, there's a triple xp multiplier active right now, (probably seasonal) you'll unlock the better weapons and cards in no time if you start during the holidays.

Typical style over substance Shinji Mikami stuff, you know what to expect here if you've played Resident Evil 4. That being said, it's nice to go back to a cheesy horror story after this recent influx of AAA horror titles that wanna make you miserable.

Combat

It's a slow burner, you'll start off without some very basic combat abilities such as corner takedowns / sprint takedowns. So, unless you spec into the stealth tree early, the first couple hours won't have you on the edge of your seat. Once you've filled a couple bathtubs with green gel and shoved a couple tonnes of weapon parts into your pants the combat gets fun. But keep an eye out, some of the better weapons in the game are missable.

Difficulty

I played on Nightmare, got a good 20 hours from one playthrough, it kept me alert and I had to scavenge like a magpie but it never felt unfair. Nightmare is probably the way to go.

Story

Evil men in suits have your daughter.

Visuals

It's a pretty game, environments get a bit lazy on the large maps sometimes, but the atmosphere, lighting and models make up for that. Some visually striking levels in here, but as with most things in this game, the best is saved for last.

Audio

Debussy and grindhouse movie screams.

Should I play the first one?

Not as necessary as people seem to think. I hadn't played the original in 5 years when I started this, just about all I remembered was that you play as a detective called Sebastian in some spooky matrix. If you're not sure, going with this one first is definitely a safe play. The story holds up by itself and there are plenty of callbacks to the first game that might refresh your memory if you've played the first, but if you haven't played the first they give you a good idea of what was going on. If you REALLY care about the story here and you aren't more interested in shooting an explosive crossbow bolt into a four-legged woman with a camera for a head (what's wrong with you?) go play the first one

click on heads

Faithful recreation of the original Half-Life. Has improved drastically on most fronts since the original beta version, the weapon and character models are notably better now compared to the ones you'll see in the trailer from the game's store page. The game will (hopefully) soon be complete, right now the devs are still "polishing" the long awaited Xen chapter that's supposed to be added in the next few months.

Even without Xen, this game is worth playing regardless of your familiarity with the Half-Life universe. It's a great place to start and a great place to revisit.

Use your feet to grab elbows in a world where black people have pink nipples.