Recent reviews by PerfectFifthNote

I dunno how many thousands of hours I put into Overwatch back when it was good, but Paladins is the first game that's really scratching the same itch for me. It does a lot of things a lot better than Overwatch, if that's where you're coming from like me. So that's what I'm focusing on here :D

For one thing, even the snipers cannot one-shot you. They can come VERY CLOSE, but if you die to a sniper solo-killing you, it's a lot more your fault for being stood in the wrong place than in OW.

Paladins is like 30% MOBA, which was an adjustment for me in terms of building loadouts and buying items and picking talents, but that's one of the most refreshing aspects of it - being able to really customize how your abilities work means there's multiple playstyles for pretty much every hero.

Well worth a shot, just be aware you'll be playing bot matches for your first 5 levels.

Clearly a mobile-first game, but that's fine. Has multiple modes, bu honestly the Punch Royale one is the only fun one. King of the Hill is okay. The Cupcake one isn't very well designed - once someone has a lead, that's GGs 'cause there's no way to knock them down - if you knock them out they keep all their points and respawn so it's fairly pointless.

All in all, though, this is a good bit of fun. If you're in the mood for a Fall Guys vibe but want to sock people, pick this up

Main quest breaks upon reaching The Northern Road, an NPC's dialogue goes repeatedly (without him being present) and you can't interact with the quest NPC. The first few levels were fun but I can't get past this point on any character, so I can't exactly recommend the game atm.

Update: Assuming the next update fixes the below issues, happy to give this a thumbs up.
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Review:

Core gameplay loop is simple enough: load in, loot some weapons and run around the map solving puzzles to figure out the code for the treasure vault, loot the artifact, get to the extraction point without dying. You'll fight plenty of lizard people along the way, and other players as well.

One fun mechanic is these artifacts aren't just meaningless macguffins - they're actually powerful equippable items, which makes for a much more fun incentive in my opinion.

Beware, though, this isn't pay-to-win so much as play-to-win. All your various unlockable abilities, from cloaking to homing firebats to a neat throwable floating coin that lets you bounce shots around corners, are upgradeable via in-game currency. A combination of gold/Hawks that you earn by playing, and Wonderium which is earned primarily by deconstructing loot you extract.

So the more you play, the more powerful all your abilities get. In addition, as you upgrade your rank and such you can spend money on increasingly powerful one-match bonuses that start you off with an advantage.

Artifacts can give you a range of bonuses, from highlighting enemy footprints to giving you bonus shields or damage, or (my current favourite) amplifying your next shot's damage after a second of aiming. Abilities are fun too, gotta love getting pushed only to whip out a guitar and kill them with a solo that does AoE damage. A++ fun ability.

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OG POST:
Great concept, lots of fun - when it works. Major bugs abound, the most annoying of which (for me at least) is that aiming/ADS will arbitrarily stop working mid-match, and only allow you to aim again after fully dying/resurrecting or just leaving the match.

Devs should have cooked this one a bit longer before calling it release-ready. There's plenty of promise here, it's a good premise, but yeah. Too much focus on weapon skins and microtransaction options, not enough focus on core coding mechanics like not having your aim state machine break randomly...

Initially had a perma-"you are offline" bug, but it seems this was due to server maintenance being done ahead of their Quest 3 launch, and is now resolved. Will update this space once I've gotten some games in and have useful feedback.

Okay, pros: toggle-able skill based matchmaking! We wish every dev did this, damn.

Cons: dear sweet Jesus it doesn't matter if you turn it on or off, if you don't go dump piles of money in the store then expect the grind to unlock anything useful to be VERY unfun. There are deck builds that are completely unhinged (I'm talking "goes invisible and one-shots you with akimbo shotguns and cards that give wallhacks" level crap).

Turned off SBMM and the very next dude I fought dropped a deck full of the rarest cards on me.

Pure pay-to-win so if you're gonna play it online, skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip this. Go play Combat Master instead. This would be fun with some friends casually though.

It says it requires an xbox controller (there's even a popup on launch for me) but it doesn't, you clearly just use your VR controllers.

Fans of stealth games and vampires, this is a good one so far! Fans of the Vampire franchise will also appreciate how nicely the lore and gameplay and setting tie together. Level design is linear. Reminds me of VR Dishonored but it's Vampire. Worth your consideration if you dig that. Biting people is weirdly satisfying.

First few levels down and this is a good time so far. Very fun stealth game, gives you some neat powers fairly quickly. You can be aggressive if you want and just punch enemies in the face, but stealth + biting them is very satisfying. Particularly when you nail the timing to get that full Hunger burst and not accidentally kill them, it's a solid mechanic.

I have whipped a rat down a street in order to distract an enemy so I could sneak up behind them and give 'em the ol' fang treatment. Good times so far, even just a couple "Undertakings" in.

Update: The very next mission hands you a crossbow with a couple nifty bolts. Acid for melting chains and such (which seem to do some damage to enemies as well) and sleep/stun bolts. You can generate these freely using your Hunger resource, pulling from the same pool as your various powers and forcing you to ration what you're using it for in between snacks.

Very solid accessibility/comfort options for seated or standing, lots of options for vignettes or not, various locomotion and turning types. Hide the arms and go with "hands only" - the arms are cool briefly but they go absolutely wacky regularly and end up in the way.

I'm an old-school Vampire player and this absolutely scratches that itch. The back alleys of Venice makes for a great backdrop that lends itself well to this sort of level design. The various powers are well represented - fans of Obfuscate rejoice, it's the very first skill you get. There's plenty of blood powers, an Intimidate track that gives you additional dialogue options (hooray vampiric bullying!), and plenty more just in the first hour or so of gameplay.

Beats the hell out of CoD in its current state. That said - NEEDS better spawn protection and desperately needs an anticheat.

EDIT Feb 21: They juuuust dropped an update that now pushes huge popup screens for their microtransaction bundles, added giant "GET THIS" buttons under the names of everyone wearing a purchased skin, etc. Damn guys, way to ♥♥♥♥ where you eat.

I like the tight arena concepts but my god this is bad as a beginner. Your shield/HP/gun clip size/damage is all based on how much you've played, so when you have level 3-6 guns against people who have 4x as much health and do triple your damage, it quickly becomes boring.

Righto, first impressions after a couple hours:
- This is HELLA fun
- Having it free for Knights is an 11/10 decision
- PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ADD LOCOMOTION FOR THE GIANT!!!!!!

If you have anything that isn't a huge empty room to play this in, VR-wise, it'll just frustrate you. The only way to move around as the Giant is to physically walk around, and some maps are REALLY big. I've got a decent amount of space (plenty for ANY other game I've played) and still more or less can't reach 60%+ of most of the maps.

Literally just the ability to move with the joystick - even just a point-and-move - would make this a must-buy. As it is, it's a big ol' skip if you don't have a dedicated VR room.