Recent reviews by pegritz

I've gone back and forth on this review a few times, but at this point, I simply cannot recommend this game. There are inexplicable difficulty spikes that mean that you're either steamrolling mobs like they're made of wet tissue or a tiny minion will kill you in a single hit. Melee combat is complete ♥♥♥♥, and ranged is not much better since targeting seems to be EXTREMELY inconsistent. Some skills--like Unearth--just fire off wherever they like regardless of where you're aiming them. The loot situation *has* been improved a bit, but I still feel drastically underpowered in many instances.

All in all, this game just isn't worth it at present. When it's finally fully released as free-to-play, maybe, but as it now stands, this is an insult to the original PoE and clearly needs a LOT more work before it's really worth my time.

EDIT: I've uninstalled it and probably won't reinstall it until it's MUCH further along in development, because as of now it's just an criminally unbalanced, tedious, boring slog. If I wanted to hit dodge-roll every 1.2 seconds in order to avoid being one-shotted by a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minion I'd play some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FromSoft crap.

I've only played about three hours so far, but based on those hours I can unequivocally recommend this if you're looking for an oldskool tab-targeting MMO with contemporary graphics and tonnes of progression options. When I first heard about this game coming out and all the issues with combat and autoplay, I figured it would be dead in the water--but I've got to give the developers credit: they took that criticism seriously and really put in some work to improve it. I dig it a lot.

Crashes constantly.
TERRIBLY optimized.
Broken AI.
Multiplayer doesn't work AT ALL.
Looks like ♥♥♥♥, plays like ♥♥♥♥.

Early-access, my ass. This is barely a pre-pre-pre-alpha demo. It wouldn't even be worth purchasing if it were $2.60.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I didn't even get through the tutorial missions because the control scheme is one of THE worst I have ever seen. This game is CLEARLY meant to be played with a controller...but I DESPISE controllers. I spent nearly an hour trying to complete retool the keymapping to make it less awkward, but then I realized all the time I was spending was wasting on trying to fix the keymapping was eating into my refund window, at which point I abandoned it and just tried to work with what I had.

But the gameplay itself is just incredibly annoying. There's just too much ♥♥♥♥ on the screen at any one time--the visual clutter is horrendous. All but impossible to keep track of what's going on most of the time. What's the point of having a dodge mechanic when you are swarmed at all times by so many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tyrannids you can't ever move? And why bother implementing melee combos when you are consistently knocked out of combos before you can get them off?

The *original* Space Marine is one of my favorite games of all time. But whereas everything worked well in the first game, THIS one is nothing but an exercise in frustration. ♥♥♥♥ it.

Good ol' no-frills twin-stick bullet-hell fun. I don't really know what it is about these games that I like so much, but this one sure as hell scratches that particularly itch. Actually, maybe I *can* put it into words: this game makes me feel like I'm in the arcade at Century III Mall in 1982 playing Robotron 2084.

This game is a LOT of fun to play. It's just good, mindless fun...until you hit the point where you need to start farming materials and blueprints to unlock other characters, weapon pieces, etc. At that point, it completely ♥♥♥♥♥ the bed.

First of all, it is NEVER explained in game how to find many of these objects. Certain "amorphous materials" only drop from boss battles, others from various missions, dungeons, etc.--but NOWHERE is it explained what to do with most of the ♥♥♥♥. There are SO MANY competing materials, currencies, and so forth that it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ impossible to keep them straight or properly track them.

Of course, you can skip right over that step by just buying stuff from the cash shop, but I NEVER put money into cash shops. Ever. So, basically, by making the game a massive pain in the balls in order to encourage cash shop purchases, it completely loses me. ♥♥♥♥ this game.

Good, dumb, arcade-style fun. Reminds me of Berzerk, only with a bit more depth. Highly recommended if you just like nonstop shooting.

Overly fragile units. Extremely simple, uninspiring "strategy" that boils down to essentially just managing one-to-one counters. Don't bother.

VERY fun game. Graphically pleasing, reasonably stable performance for an early-access product, great community. The upcoming revisions to the game's class systems look great and I can't wait to try them out!

And the best part of Extermination? Unlike Helldivers, you actually get to *play* this game instead of waiting in server queues for six ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hours.

EDIT: I absolutely will not sign up for a Sony account just to play this. Uninstalled.

After FINALLY getting to play this game after the two-week-long fiasco of a launch, I can now give it a proper review. Meh.

That's it. Meh.

The gameplay loop is fun for a few hours, until you realize you're just doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And then it just becomes a senseless grind.

It's not *bad* by any means, but it sure as hell ain't worth the hype.