Reseñas recientes de Ashley

Payday 2 goes back to one of the oldest conflicts in the entertainment industry, cops versus robbers. Four hardened criminals go on their newest crime spree across Washington DC. From drug trafficking to political framing, to the Payday gang, it's just another payday.

Payday 2 is a co-op first person shooter with RPG and stealth elements. Missions have a heavy focus on a risk to reward design, often providing optional objectives within missions. Teams will frequently have to weigh their ability and the situation to get the best payout available.

Combat takes a chaotic shoot em up feel as police show little intelligence, instead opting to overwhelm players by sheer numbers and firepower. Most teams will have little trouble on normal or hard difficulties, however higher difficulties will pose a challenge even to experienced players. The large range in difficulty allows the game to appeal both to casual and hardcore gamers. Weapon recoil and animations make guns feel unwieldy and hefty, creating a very powerful hit between each shot often missing in many FPS shooters. As players level up they will gain access to skill points, allowing them to gain new abilities and passive buffs.

Payday 2 also offers players the option of using stealth to complete levels without being detected at all. While this can be enjoyable for some, players who are not skilled in the stealth approach will often find themselves waiting around for the 'all clear' back at the spawn zone. Combat can keep players engaged during timed objectives; stealth leaves you just standing around twiddling your thumbs.

While missions are short (mostly lasting 10-20 minutes average), repetition of levels quickly becomes frequent. Replaying the same mission, objectives will remain the same yet many aspects of the level design can change. Levels have many random factors which will force players to alter their approach to a mission. These random factors can range from an escape door no longer existing to the location of the primary objective. Random elements add a lot of replay value to missions as well as stopping players from acting out the same plan repeatedly.

Strong dependency on working as a team can cause public games to be frustrating at times, however they still remain functional and entertaining. Playing with a group of friends is where Payday 2 shows its strengths: a team works tightly together within the chaotic action. Single player, with or without bots, is poor making its simple AI and repetition more apparent, and should be completely avoided. Downloadable content seems reasonably priced, offering new weapons and levels to play. Those who own DLC missions are able to host them, while friends and other players can join without having to own the same DLC.

The price tag comes just short of most AAA titles and the same could be said about the gameplay. Missing animations and high repetition make Payday fall just short of what we expect from top budget titles. Although Payday 2 plays rough around the edges at times, its solid and heavy hitting shooting mechanics along with its RPG and stealth elements allow it to appeal to anyone interested in the action genre.


Pros:
+A role available to all who enjoy the FPS genre
+Randomized maps add replay value to missions
+Weapons feel powerful and weighty
+Dependency on teamwork without feeling too weak alone
+Free content updates
+DLC does not separate the community
+Great soundtrack

Cons:
-Stealth can fail because of synchronization issues and bugs
-High repetition of missions
-Absent animations for actions such as jumping
-Hackers can be prominent in public games
-Bugs after updates are common

Like the review? Check out Analog gaming for unbias gaming reviews.
http://steamproxy.com/groups/AnalogReviewsOfficial

Warframe's relaxed take on third person combat, impressive visuals, and vast combat customization lets it appeal to both hardcore gamers as well as weekend warriors. Latency issues and high system requirements can put off many but its free to play model is fair. All of the content is provided to players free of charge and that makes it difficult not to recommend it to everyone.

You assume the role of one of the Tenno; an ancient group of warriors that were placed in cryogenic stasis in order to survive a losing war.Your character then awakens to find the solar system in extreme turmoil. Caught in a war between three major factions and being the only ones able to disrupt the stalemate, they soon attract attention. Awoken and lead by a mysterious identity going by the alias “Lotus” the Tenno's intentions continue to remain unknown.

Warframe's third person combat is simple but refined, providing a very relaxed and smooth shoot-'em-up feel, while a complex but easy to follow weapon modification system offers endless customization to the gameplay. Enemies will drop many modifications during missions, which allow players to change weaponry and their character to improve combat performance without limitation. This design allows players to modify all of the smallest aspects of their character and weaponry while maintaining the game’s RPG elements. Each of the weapons have their own specific function, attack patterns and style, which further compliment your playstyle. Dying can come across as cheap as some enemies will stun lock players to death or simply hit through their shields for an instant-kill. Included to increase difficulty; it often feels unjustified and overly punishing.

Mission maps are generated randomly based on pre-existing tile sets depending on the planet and type of mission chosen. Each mission has a specific objective, however many of these feel overly similar; often consisting of back tracking and repetitive fetch quests. Missions are unlocked by completing the adjacent nodes connected to them; however this soon branches off into many directions, though many of these use the same tile-sets as the previous mission with only a few varying objectives between the two. Missions can often feel too similar to one another on a single planet, giving little reason to play ones that branch away from the main path.

The matchmaking system can be frustrating, offering little choice in terms of selecting a mission or joining a game already in progress. Offering no options besides public or private, you may often find yourself leaving a laggy game only to be thrown back in again numerous times. The matchmaking system definitely needs work and it’s constantly overlooked throughout updates.

Warframe's free to play model uses micro-transactions to speed up the acquisition of weapons and characters with the use of in game currency called platinum. Free users are still able to access all content within the game but will struggle to gain access to everything without consistent farming for materials and parts needed to create new weapons. Platinum allows players to directly purchase weapons and characters without the need to craft and collect materials. With free players able to access all content while giving paying customers faster access to new content, Warframe shows how the free to play model doesn’t have to alienate non-paying users.


While Warframe doesn't provide the adrenaline fueled action we're accustomed to in shooters, its Shoot-'em-up style combat remains satisfying for many hours and the endless customization options add much needed padding to help overcome the repetition. The heavy reliance on a random loot table for item drops throughout the game can lead to extreme frustration at times, especially when farming for a specific item. Bugs can be prominent at times, especially the ones that affect the user interface, however most major issues are fixed quickly with a hotfix provided by the development team.

Pros:

+ Stunning visuals, especially for more powerful video cards
+ Plenty of weapons and characters to level up
+ Customization allows any type of design and play-style which adds replay value
+ Frequent content updates


Cons:

- Dying can feel unfair at times, leaving the player stun-locked until death
- Matchmaking system needs work, often selecting poor hosts
- High repetition within missions
- High system requirements
- Microtransactions are a little overpriced


While rough around the edges at times, most bugs and technical issues are not persistent. As long as you can meet the system requirements and bandwidth isn't a limitation, there’s no reason not to give Warframe a try with its fair free to play model.


If you enjoyed this review, please check out the Analog Reviews steam group where we strive to provide honest and unbiased reviews: http://steamproxy.com/groups/AnalogReviewsOfficial

Resident Evil 6 takes more steps away from it horror survival roots and pushes itself further into the third person action genre. With the removal of many survival aspects and a much greater focus action is a disappointment to many of the original fans of the series however Resident Evil 6 ___. The over the top action makes it difficult to take the game seriously but provides plenty of excitement through all four campaigns.

As the new C-virus runs rampant through Estonia, China and America the player battles through four separate campaigns to discover and stop the source between the new attacks. Each campaign provides its own focus, such as the more traditional zombie killing experience to Chris Redfield’s much more combat focused campaign. The four separate campaigns provide plenty of variation throughout the game however when characters between each story meet you will soon find yourself having to repeat the same fights. Though the intention of these events was simply to provide interaction between the main characters having to repeat them between separate campaigns can feel like tedious padding. With plenty of boss fights and approximately five to six hours in each campaign there is plenty of varied gameplay to be had.

With the Resident Evil games frequently trying to add greater events then the previous one, the 6th is no exception, as soon events turn from dramatic to just ridiculous to try to top the last death defying stunt. With a serious attitude you can soon lose interest and find it difficult to enjoy as each event because more comical then the last, however if you simply accept the lunacy of the situations and simply enjoy the action then there is plenty of fun to be had. Without spoiling a simple example of this is how persistent some of the bosses continue to be through the entire game. After watching many victory cut scenes where your enemy suffers fatal damage, only to have them appear again one hour later then those taking the game seriously will soon become irritated and lose interest.

The basic and minimalistic HUD is unobtrusive yet concise in displaying information which only appears in combat situations, allowing unobstructed views of the environment around you as well as the many cinematic scripted events you will encounter. Fixed camera angles in many areas serve to compliment this design even more, ensuring your gaze is never pulled away from the action. The use of fixed cameras can be a source of much frustration, especially during chase sequences. Many situations will have your character fleeing from one of many monstrosity’s behind you, as the fixed camera ensures you see the path of destruction behind you, you simply can’t see where you are going at all as you just blindly run towards the camera. In some situations the camera will jump to a new perspective or rotate suddenly changing the direction all of the movement keys, often resulting in you walking accidentally towards the enemy as you try to get your bearings again.

With a heavy focus on cooperative gameplay I soon expected to be dying each time my partner messed up, yet this was not the case. As the game will harshly punish you for the smallest mistake, you will soon become dependent on your co-op partner to pick up the pieces and get you back on your feet. Finding a balance between individual responsibility and cooperative gameplay can prove difficult for many games, often either being overly dependent on your teammate to a point where you can feel unjustly punished each time your partner makes a mistake. The other side where players simply don’t interact at all, making it feel like you’re simply playing a single player game with another gun at your side. Resident Evil 6 manages to seamlessly find the middle ground between the two, making co-op great fun through 3 of the campaigns, with one of the four being focused for single player gameplay. When playing single player, your AI partner will behave a little odd at times but it always manages to stay close and get the job done, making single player a perfectly viable choice if co-op isn’t your personal choice.

The game frequently changes direction from action to short periods of stealth based gameplay, chase sequences and the occasional vehicle sections in an attempt to keep things fresh. Despite the fact that these can be fun, especially as they break from the standard gameplay they also feel unfinished and misplaced. You will find yourself frequently with little direction during these, becoming confused as it can occasionally turn into a scene of trail and error after each death. I found myself trying to escape avalanche on a snow ski, only to frequently die at many corners because I picked the wrong side to approach the corner, to which I would find a bottomless pit right in front of me with no possible time to react.

Resident Evil 6 accepts the flaws in its design, while improving the strengths that it has. Yes the storyline is painful, and filled with so many plot holes that finding possible answers would be harmful to ones mental health, but I found it easy to just completely switch off to this as I waited for the next adrenaline fueling moment. Why is the building around me exploding? Why doesn’t the boss simply crush me instead? Why is this base filled with lava? If the answer “because it’s fun” is answer enough for you, you will find plenty of excitement in this game.

Pros:

Over the top action and strategic elements blend well to create smooth flowing combat
Many unique multistage boss designs
Co-op finds the middle ground between looking after yourself and your partner
Over 16 hours long
Many scripted cinematic scenes
Each campaign has slightly different gameplay from the others
Cons:

A barely functional storyline is just to tie events together
Practicality sometimes suffers for cinematic scenes
Some areas lack direction for players, often leading to trail and error
Some clear signs of a port, such as a the options menu presentation

While being a sequel, Company Of Heroes 2 offers less content than the original game and has many holes that scream to be filled with future DLC releases. Many of the units simply feel like a re-skin; the Russians take the exact role the Americans did in the first game. All of the Russian units have a similar counterpart in the first game and yet CoH2 still manages to offer less variety in units than that first game, leaving certain battlefield roles completely missing.

On CoH2's day of release it already had a gigantic collection of twenty six DLC packages totaling a whopping £42. Costing more than the game itself, the downloadable content added vehicle skins and access to five unique commanders which could have simply added to standard release. Downloadable content implies you are actually paying for something, however Company Of Heroes 2 manages to charge and give nothing in return. The five commanders that can be bought offer no new abilities, just remixing the existing content within the game, only changing the orders of abilities players can spend hard earned cash without adding a single drop of new content to the experience. For pre-ordering I had access to the new co-op “missions” known as theater of war; instantly I was unable to access most of this since it will be released as future DLC. These missions are meant to have a unique co-op focus, however they did little to bring anything fresh to the game: most of these simply being a skirmish with one or two unique abilities and a smaller unit variety then a standard skirmish.

The main campaign does little to inspire beyond the first game. Consisting of fourteen missions about an hour each, they simply feel like a skirmish game except offering unique units, upgrades, and abilities which are not available during any other game mode. I found myself questioning why all of this had been removed from the other game modes. With poor dialogue, story, and boring missions that simply feel like tutorials you will feel little incentive to return for a second play-through. Multiplayer does little to improve as an unfair matchmaking system frequently creates unbalanced teams as well as giving players no choice in what they would like to play. If you want to play with random players, you lose choice over the map played as well as only having access to point control mode. Creating your own custom game denies you access to other players, and only allows you to invite friends which feels unnecessarily limiting.

The new winter maps add new mechanics to the game in which infantry become exposed to the cold and risk freezing, while random blizzards limit speed and visibility that can quickly turn heavy skirmishes into silence and small raids. This welcome and unique design can really change the battlefield while making players adapt to the new low sight conditions however it soon loses its novelty after a few games. After a few maps I soon found that blizzards simply seem to slow the game down and add to unnecessary micromanagement of units. After hearing “Your men are freezing to death” I moved my camera to see an infantry squad stood one meter too far from a fire where they simply stood allowing themselves to freeze to death. After this happened a few times while I focused on the battle it just made winter maps soon feel like additional and unneeded “busy work.” With no other new game mechanics besides additional “busy work” it brings into question, “why should I choose Company of Heroes 2 over the first?”

With the combat mechanics remaining the same of the first game I expected to find myself playing an almost identical game to the original but with additional content. However, after playing against the AI on many skirmish maps I soon realized that my choices were significantly more limited. All of the maps are very open, with little to no choke points to really plan any defensive tactics: I soon found myself getting slaughtered if I ever tried to play defensively. Defenses soon become useless as they are now easily flanked by speeding armor or even basic the infantry squad which pushes all players to play aggressively and use almost identical tactics. Do you like to play defensively and push forwards inch by inch? Tough luck. Want to focus mostly on support infantry? Tough luck. The only way you can win is tanks, immune to most damage and with all anti-tank weaponry so easily flanked. Every match becomes a race to build the first tank and with Germany armor being superior to the soviets in every possible way, except mobility, the Germans have a significant advantage on all maps.

During a match you will eventually earn your first command point, giving you access to your custom selected commanders with each having five traits. At least one of these will be a passive ability that will add little to nothing to the battlefield. Two points will often give you access to unique units, with only two semi-unique units per commander it hardly changes how you decide to play against your opponent. Often these unique units are shared between many possible commanders further removing any roles or unique identity on the battlefield. Everyone builds the same units, everyone is forced to play the same aggressive tactics and as a result every game ends up playing out like the previous one. Losing teams do not have any chance to retake the battlefield against aggressive players and the winning team within the game can be seen within the first five minutes.

Pros:
+good campaign length of around ten or more hours
+action focused RTS appeals to those who are not interested in most RTS games
+weather elements are impressive for the first few game
+cinematic combat provides impressive sights

Cons:
-a complete downgrade of the first game
-high system requirements
-overpriced and unnecessary release DLC, with more to come!
-winning with defensive or support roles is impossible
-the new commander system makes every battle the same
-poor multiplayer system, removing all choice from players
-predictable campaign story does nothing to entice the player
-no reason to ever replay the campaign missions
-content available for campaign but denied in all other game modes
-skirmish and multiplayer maps offer no chance for a losing team to fight back

Company of Heroes 2 remains a good game, the fun action-orientated strategy game remains satisfying and intense while able to appeal to players that are not familiar to the RTS genre. Though still an enjoyable experience it is a complete downgrade from the first release back in 2006. Seven years later fans are left with an overpriced game. DLC, and less content than the first release for a small graphical update. For these reasons I would not recommend CoH2 to those interested as the unique gameplay the game has to offer should look to the original Company of Heroes instead.

Enjoy the read? Check out Analog reviews, for unbais gaming reviews. http://steamproxy.com/groups/AnalogReviewsOfficial

Edit: Simply improving grammar and sentence structure. Same text.

The first Sanctum was a first person tower defense game, with first person shooting aspects added to help give the players something to do during waves instead of simply watching your towers do all the work. It was a somewhat new concept in how well the tower balancing was executed while giving almost limitless designs and combinations. The drawbacks were simply trademarks of it being a new Indy title, a simple lack of content for missions and poor textures clearly showed the limitations of the budget and time they were working with. The first person shooting elements needed much more work to be entertaining in the long run however the game’s much heavier focus on the tower building distracted enough from this flaw that the game remained fresh with each new layout you created.

With the release of Sanctum 2, I was looking forwards to an updated version of the first giving more customization, towers, maps and maybe a few thrilling scripted events during the campaign missions. As I launched the game for the first time, ignoring the many technical errors of the initial release and completed the tutorial I started my first mission. As expected the graphics were considerably improved as they took on a more comic based look, similar to the art design of borderlands 2, although it has been done before it definitely gives sanctum 2 a much more unique appearance. The new addition of a progression system allows players to level up to unlock perks, new weapons and towers that rewards players who play on harder difficulty settings with a shorter grind.

Once I decided to get started building I suddenly realized I was only allowed to build seven blocks of wall, which meant I had to obey the map design when creating my maze for the enemies to pass through. This immediately felt very limiting, as one of the great aspects of the first is that it allowed you to create as many walls as you desired, and simply expecting you to create your own design within the map layout. With a limited number of wall blocks, the game forces you to take the basic route that the map often implies for you to take making it feel like I had little choice at all when it came to the design, just simply having to do what everyone else does within the same map. Speaking to my co-op partner on skype I found myself frequently saying, “I could do this amazing layout.. oh I don’t have enough blocks I guess this will have to do.” Constantly leaving missions with a feeling that it could have been better, and wasn’t complete, one of the worst feelings possible within a tower defense game. I decided to play a survival mission to get around this issue, where each wave I would be given more blocks. I would be able to finally create the layout I wanted, however I soon found myself no longer being given wall blocks after the first few waves, leaving me to keep the same incomplete design for the never ending survival mode.

After my second to third mission I started to notice in the end game statistics that I was dealing considerably more damage then all of my towers each game. With the new design you will notice a much stronger focus on the first person shooting then the tower defense, with many levels not even requiring the use of towers providing the use of the right equipment. The stronger focus on shooting would expect dramatic improvements to the design of shooting compared to the first game, however this is simply not the case and some elements of the weapons have been removed. You are no longer able to spend resources on your weapons to improve their performance as possible within the first game. A bigger selection of weapons allows you to focus on certain strengths or help cover flaws that your character choice may have. With the addition one weapon slot being fixed depending on your character choice, you only have access to change your secondary weapon. With such a strong focus on the shooting elements, it leave me to question why they forced this to be so limited during missions. It soon becomes a boring chore to shoot during waves, especially when weapons empty their clips so quickly and then demand a five second cooldown time to reload.

Within the game mechanics of Sanctum 2 the placement of a single block can often decide the success or failure of a wave on specific maps. Some maps are clearly much better designed then others, some of which only emphasize the first person aspects even more as you are not allowed to build along the enemies path at all. This just turns entire missions into a first person shooter with shooting that does little to excite. The new addition of boss waves simply takes all tower defense aspects and throws them out the window for the final wave. Bosses are able to destroy towers and wall bases, so on many maps a well designed layout will be instantly ruined as the boss targets a vital block and is soon followed by every other enemy in the wave.

Pros:

The character progression adds more value to replaying missions
Four player co-op
Colourful eye catching visuals
Cons:

A stronger focus on first person shooting, with little content within the shooting elements
Balancing issues, some characters and towers are simply sub-par to others
Boss waves completely ruin all aspects of tower defense
Limited resources often leave your base design incomplete before the end
Frame issues can sometimes cause huge frame rate drops

Sanctum 2′s attempts to become a stronger hybrid between tower defense and first person shooting by removing many tower elements of the first leaves Sanctum 2 with little identity. Becoming a jack of all trades, it simply becomes a case of “Anything I can do, you can do better.” If you want an action orientated defense game, Orcs Must Die 2 surpasses anything Sanctum 2 has to offer. For those who want a more traditional tower defense game then Defense Grid or Sanctum 1 have much more enjoyment to be had. The limitations of the new gameplay mechanics means nothing stands out, leaving a disappointing collection of “ok” and as such no reason to buy it over other titles available.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified not only fails to grasp its strategy based roots but struggles to smoothly incorporate some of the most basic elements of gameplay.

Set in the 1960′s you take the role of William Carter, a CIA agent with the task of delivering a mysterious object, as things don’t turn out as planned Carter finds himself caught within a global alien invasion. After showing the ability to command, Carter is brought into the XCOM project to combat the new alien threat and keep it hidden from public domain.

While the story has plenty of potential, filled with plot twists and interesting concepts that promised much however the abysmal animation quality and equally poor dialogue stomps on any attempts for the story to blossom. As your character speaks to others, it won’t take long for you to notice the constant repeat of three animations that just feel artificial, along with poor voice acting that simply changes tone every sentence making it impossible to take anything they say with any care. Plot holes run amok with many of the side quests, and dialogue not connected to the main focus of the storyline.

The Bureau tries to blend the turn based strategy of the XCOM series with real time cover based shooting. Promoting teamwork and RPG elements to overcome challenges works well on paper but poor execution through AI simply makes many of the strategy components redundant. Often finding my partners simply refuse to take any useful cover unless directly told to do so, however when they take position the poor AI simply takes over, soon making them move out of cover instantly. The AI will often struggle to perform basic tasks, watching myself go down right next to an ally as they simply stand on my face watching my hp slide down to zero.

While enemies are based on those featured in previous XCOM games, within The Bureau they lack the identity and unique traits that made combat diverse, tense and tactical. As you progress through the game, enemies will remain the same except for an additional armor or shield bar with the word elite lazily thrown after their names.

Character progression within the game is very limited, offering little combat customization. As you and your squad levels up you are given the choice between two new upgrades, often being the choice between duration and damage. This design has been taken from XCOM: Enemy unknown which worked fine within the game design however playing as a single character through the whole story, and only having two teammates with you at all times means characters simply feel too limited, with a maximum of three skills per class, you’ll soon find your preferred attacks and have no reason to add diversity to your tactics throughout the entire game. Skills are activated by bringing up a battle HUD, giving you access to your own and team skills, during this the game will slow down giving you more time to plan and consider your options. Though slowing down the game reduces the pressure, the game continues to play making many tactical attacks an impossibility. Many times I found myself trying to time my snipers critical strike with turrets and protective abilities however the moment a skill is selected it will begin to play out giving you little time to organize the ambush you planned in your mind, often resulting in a messy and inconsistent first attack.

One of the huge holes apparent within the game seems to be a lack of co-op within the game, the structure of combat and the storyline feel setup for two players. Situations where the main character become split up for short periods of time from the team, as well as the dependency on tight coordinated teamwork scream out for two player interaction. Many flaws within the game, specifically the unreliability of the AI would be overcome and none apparent with a second human player. With a second player the game could be incredible enjoyable and the fact developers missed this opportunity is a great disappointment.

The Bureau is definitely not one of the worst games available for sale, but simply tries to do so many things, it does none of them well. Barely meeting the line of mediocre in any aspects of gameplay giving it no identity on the market, and as such simply giving no reason to buy it especially at a full AAA title price.

edit: Fixed typo.

Another example of the Alien franchise going in the wrong direction, as the once survival horror franchise takes another step closer to being a modern military shooter. There is little this game has to offer besides generic linear shooting, short campaign and gives off all the signs of a rushed incomplete product. While there are few moments that give off the Alien horror feel and tension, they are short lived and you soon find yourself fighting against and alongside awful AI again.

The single player campaign simply emphasizes the numerous issues within the game. As well as soon questioning which product you bought. After the first level of killing aliens you will soon find yourself fighting mercenaries for at least fifty percent of the game or more. The game offers no originality or twists to combat while still finding it almost impossible to match up to even some of the most basic shooters on the market. There is a scene in which the game takes a stealthy horror approach however this very short experience is soon over before you find yourself back in the same combat situations you have been for the past two to three hours. Many aspects of the game offer the accuracy of detail for the Alien franchise such as accurate pulse rifle sounds and map design that respects the original designs from the Alien films. Other areas simply express the laziness of the development team as the iconic smartgun simply has the identical sound of the pulse rifle, which as many Alien fans will know do not sound the same.

The voice acting and storyline are both very poor, with voices just sounding unconvincing and out of place , while laughable dialog just makes cut scenes a painful chore to watch. Many times during the dialog the characters lips will become completely out of synchronization with the voice over. Characters will also often seem very stiff and lack animations, and at some points they will simply skip an animation which has just clearly just not being put into the game. One boss simple does not even have any attack animations, it simply walks around in circles and if it touches you, you find yourself on the floor for no reason missing a health bar.

The poor voice acting and animations make it difficult to take characters seriously or develop any bond to them, this is made even worse by the awful artificial intelligence of your team. You will often find your team shooting the walls, standing still or walking around in circles very confused during combat, it would have been much better if they simply removed the teammates from the game completely. If you were left alone instead of frequently listening to O’niels bad dialogue, it would greatly improve the experience. The enemy AI does little to inspire as well, as many aliens will simply slowly walk up you in the open and never use speed or wall running to help them, while bosses simply spend more time struggling to navigate the terrain.

If you are playing this, I would suggest co-op instead of single player, this by far improves the gameplay when you bring friends along. As more players join the game, the number of aliens and health of enemies increases to try to balance the game, however some areas especially against enemy infantry or not scaled. This often leaves situations such as four players walking through narrow corridors and killing two or three poorly armed scientists in each room and many players having nothing to do for around half an hour. There is no class system in co-op but simply an increased number of players, an area that the game could have looked at to improve the co-op teamwork involved.

Multiplayer seems to have the most work put into it, with many customization upgrades for not only the marines but also for the aliens. It also offers more variety then the older Alien games with multiplayer, with new classes for the aliens to use in more effective ways such as a spitter or crusher aliens. It can be frustrating at times, as the aliens seem to have such little health issues with lag and controls means you may often die and be confused of what happened and why. Playing as the marines adds much more tension then the single player campaign has to offer. The motion sensor has use and often fuels the paranoia for the marine team trying to stay alive. These tense and exciting moments can soon be lost however, when you find aliens lagging then suddenly you are on the floor dead and the poor and sometimes none existent animations make this even more confusing. The multiplayer will unlikely have a long life, with many upgrades available within one or two days of playing multiplayer will soon lose interest to the majority of players with the lack of content.

With a season pass DLC already available on the steam store for 30$, for future DLC, I question how they feel its appropriate to charge for more content for this game while its clearly unfinished and lacking content in the main game. With many people disappointed with the DLC released for borderlands 2 made by Gearbox, I have little hope that we will be impressed and find our moneys worth within future DLC content. Personally I feel that the future DLC should be free, considering how much content that was promised before release simple is not there, but that isn’t how business works.

Pro:

Most areas live up to the lore of Aliens
Four player drop in/out co-op
Multiplayer that can sometimes provide the paranoia fueling Alien experience
Small customization features and upgrades
Cons:

Poor dialogue and voice acting
Poor animations, sometimes none existent
Poor visuals
No real boss fights
Dreadful enemy and team AI
Generic combat that struggles to meet up to even the most basic shooters
Lack of class system for co-op
No re-playability for the campaign
Multiplayer can be fun, but has little to offer in the long term

My verdict is that you should avoid this game under all circumstances. There is little to be gained to playing this poorly executed shooter, while it may appeal to some of the Alien fans, and those into modern military shooters, it still is poor in every single aspect. Simply put, everything this game tries to do, other games do better as it just feels terribly outdated and unfinished. If you really want to purchase this product still, I would advise waiting a few months for a sale or the price to drop, I can’t imagine it will retain full price for very long.