This game is awesome and will definitely win you over if you have any sort of fondness for puzzle/tactics games in general. If you enjoyed the original Desperados or any other similar squad tactics game, this is a must-play. You're constantly ambushing, picking away at vulnerable guards, and getting more and more complex/creative as more vision pathways open up. Later levels demand true understanding of the game's mechanics and timing. Levels are potentially ENORMOUS, and can genuinely take several hours to play through for the first time. The game is a little lacking in guard variety, but it makes up for it with some really great level/scenario design that stays consistently great the whole way. There are tons of challenges, alternate pathways and other options that give this game virtually limitless replay value. There's even a "level editor" by way of a save game modifier that allows you to add/subtract/modify all sorts of objects and guards from the various maps.

I really don't have much to say about it that's bad. The only thing I will say is that the regular walking state is completely pointless, making me wonder why the characters even have a normal standing state. Kate wears disguises, and I thought it would have you arouse guard suspicion by running in their vision cones or crouching while disguised. This would make sense because as it works, you can literally crouch-sneak through a Heavy's vision cone (who normally detect Kate despite her disguise) in front of lesser guards who are fooled by the disguise. There are also neutral areas now, so it also would have made sense to not allow characters to crouch in these areas, lest they arouse suspicion. No such handicaps exist, however, and thus there's really no functional point to ever having characters stand up. This would make sense if running were tied to changing states first, but you simply run by double-clicking, and by default, characters go right back to a crouched position once they reach their destination.

But don't let my pedantic argument bother you, I have 70 hours in this game and probably a similar amount of time in their previous game Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, so the minutiae sticks out to me more. Just go play the first couple levels and have fun. It's very much worth it.

I have a feeling this game is gonna be in a pretty good state by the time it gets to Game Pass next year

Mutant Year Zero is one of those titles that I felt had a lot of potential for a sequel. I played through that entire game on Hard and even through the final encounter, it was only ever about coordinating sneak attacks around a map to break down to the smallest final encounter possible (since any non-stealth attack would pull an entire map's worth of bad guys down on you). It made for a satisfying gameplay loop, but it's too repetitive for a longer campaign and the mechanics get pretty asinine towards the end. On the last mission I used a crit-shot stealth kill on a giant mech, which then exploded into an enormous inferno yet somehow did not alert allies standing 20 feet away because of the stealth status. But the game has loads of aesthetic charm and of the XCOM knockoffs out there, it's one of the better ones. A true sequel (not Corruption 2029, which felt like MYZ 1.5 mechanically but had zero personality) that captures the charm of the first game while fleshing out the stealth and giving you more tactical options and campaign variety would probably turn out pretty great.

This will likely be appealed, so it's not over yet, but still a big blow to Apple. Apple income will drop considerably so the stock is likely going to take a hit. Developers are going to save BILLIONS being able to use in-app payments, and with no more Apple umbrella, some companies will try to compete by lowering prices. The show goes on.

This comment was edited on Sep 10, 2021, 12:46.

Very much looking forward to this! The demo was very promising, seems like quite an open-ended experience

Agents of Mayhem was a huge miss so I'll cautiously wait and see on this one. But, my brother and I had some incredible fun with the co-op of 3/4 and I absolutely loved the writing and characters of those games, so I'm definitely on board for this if it lives up to previous standards!

Thanks Blue! I've had my eye on their keys because this is the version that houses the original game as well! Gotta figure the keys will run out at some point.

Far Cry 5 is a good candidate for a fun free weekend. The game is pretty repetitive so you'll probably burn out on the activities before the end, but it's pretty compelling for a little while (especially in co-op).

A lot of the problems listed in these reports date back through several leadership regimes and even during times of great Blizzard success. This is a move in the right direction but Activision-Blizzard should be looking at full sweeping changes here, it's the only way to renew confidence in your employees and fans.

Is this game worth my time?

About damn time!

Doom Eternal looks absolutely wonderful in that video. I wish I could locate one of these cards to experience the full glory but I am looking forward to running this at a lower resolution on my current card

Can't wait to not be able to get one!

I would be so for this, this game turned out to be a major Kickstarter win. Even the 8-bit tie-in platformers are solid. If you have any love for quirky Japanese video game tropes and ideas, I strongly recommend giving it a go.

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This comment was edited on Sep 10, 2021, 12:52.

Man I would adore a chance to play this game with mouseaim and unlocked framerate! I'd be a lot more interested in this than the other two games they've released (so far, let's hope they keep coming out with stuff and give us God of War and/or Bloodborne at some point)

I remember the days when I used to get excited for Blizzcon. I was coming out of HS and WOW was the coolest shit ever. Blizzard seemed like a company that could do no wrong once. Anyone else remember the Burning Crusade reveal?

But the Blizzard I grew up loving is not the Blizzard that exists today, unfortunately. This wasn't even on my radar.

Initial reviews of this have been absolutely horrible. Yet another feather in the cap of the argument against pre-orders, I suppose.

My favorite Red Faction game is Red Faction: Guerilla, which changed the destructive focus from the landscape to structures, and the perspective from first to third person. It's still a fun open world game to romp around with for a few hours, and it gives you an amazing sledgehammer. But there are undoubtedly better-structured and smoother-playing open world games to spend your time with these days. Even back then I was getting frustrated with the cheap and relentless enemy AI.

Still, RF:G is why this series will forever hold a good place in my memories. Had a ton of fun with it.

"We're totally different now, trust us!"