Reviews

The characters and monetisation are Overwatch, everything else is Fortnite, and surprisingly for a cynical cash-in that brazenly takes the two biggest things around at the moment and smashes them together it's not bad at all. Nonetheless, if this really is the only Titanfall 3 we're getting that's a huge disappointment.

Starting with the positives, dropping in as a squad is super cool (and they realised it too with the music and free-look camera) while also helping to make players stick together as a team, although how well that works out depends entirely on your team-mates. In-fact all the stand-out features of Apex are based on the key change of playing in teams of 3: Pings are a simple system (calling out loot and enemies) absolutely perfected - with character voicelines for pretty much any situation, and (the biggest change by far) a respawn/revive system that lets you come back from dying. It's a change that eliminates much of the waiting around you get in BR games, encourages finishing off the entire squad to prevent a comeback, and adds a whole new type of strategy, but very few team-mates when playing randoms seem to use it, instead running off to try and 1v3 the team that killed you, inevitably dying themselves. I think Apex's changes to the established formula would make it by far the most fun Battle Royale to play with a team of friends but with randoms it's much less of a game-changer.
Speaking of Battle Royales, this is one of very few games that stick to the game-show idea of the ORIGINAL Battle Royale (let's not talk about Radical Heights) and that gives an interesting flavour to matches. Big screens and banners everywhere proclaim the current leading player/squad and an announcer lets you know when they've been dethroned. The game-y flavour goes a long way towards explaining the wackier elements that don't fit in a serious setting and lets Respawn focus on map design without having to tie it together in a story-justified way. Because of that each area can be designed as their own, almost stand-alone, miniature arenas, and they're all fun to play in with some interesting visuals to boot.

Respawn - known for their game's hugely fluid and fun mobility - have pared down that signature style for Apex significantly, so while the movement is still fun, it's been stripped back to just sliding and ziplining - a huge step down from the options Tf2 gave you. They say it's because grappling, wall-running, double jumping etc was too chaotic for a Battle Royale (and I can completely see that) but it's like being teased by what could've been. I'd like to see them add in maybe one hyper-mobile character who could do those things but even then it wouldn't be the same without the enclosed city spaces (and would probably be an irritating character to fight against to boot). Lack of fall damage does go some way to helping it keep some verticality, with ambushes from above being opened up as a potential option unique to this BR that the map fully embraces.

As for the bad, that's mostly the Overwatch inspired parts. Personally I find the characters bland - they've got the "diverse group of people from around the world" thing pinned down but, despite being too cartoonish to really fit in the Tf universe, they still just feel a bit devoid of personality. Even Bloodhound (the one design I do dig) seems to fall apart in other ways with pretty tepid dialogue and less-than-useful abilities. Even the top-tier skins, which should be the things that make you want to throw down some money feel uninspired, with the chances of getting one you do want even lower than in Overwatch due to the sheer amount of stuff they know you don't want that's loaded in: voice-lines, banner poses, banner frames, 15 low-tier recolour skins per character, INDIVIDUAL weapon skins. If you do end up putting money in be prepared to drop a minimum of £8 for each of the two locked characters and £16 for each individual skin. That's 1 and a half Hollow Knights. Even gambling on the lootboxes has an £8 minimum buy-in.
Be aware it's also not the most stable game ever made. The very first thing that happened to me was a hard CTD before even choosing a character, and then 3 more happened in-game along with 5 ~1 minute freezes that happened at some decent and some awful times. I'm also getting strange notifications from the game's anti-cheat system whenever I quit that seem to be it detecting the Origin Store itself as a cheat. Whether that'll cause problems eventually I don't know but, other than those issues and some entertaining animation bugs, it ran fine for the 7-ish hours I played. I was very impressed with the dynamic resolution that works just as brilliantly as it did in Tf2. Positional sound seems to be borked because all I'm hearing is left/right/both channels which is absolutely useless in a Battle Royale where you're trying to track gunshots and footsteps - try turning your character as the tutorial bots are speaking for an extreme example of this.

If they fixed the frustrating crashes I'd recommend the game, but only if you planned on playing with friends or on mic. There's a special feeling of betrayal you only get with this game where you see one of your team-mates fly off on their own (or just vanish as their game crashes) and know that you've already lost the match before it's even really started.

As a part of my 12 in 12 project, I completed Oxenfree. (You can follow my progress here → https://rawg.io/collections/my-12-in-12-project)

*The gameplay*

It's an adventure game which basically has two gameplay actions.
1. The dialog system. It's quite innovative. There are three options (usually) to choose from and the main gimmick is that the system is kind of dynamic which means that sometimes you can just keep silent and the NPCs will take “nothing” as the answer. At some points you can interrupt other people as well. The voice acting is done very well and the dialog system has several voice tracks which are triggered depending on which dialog option and when you choose. This system has its downside too, since you sometimes can't even read and understand what your character is going to say and you mash he button at the last second. So the timing is weird sometimes. The other problem I had is that I misunderstood some dialog options. I wanted the character to say something nicely but it turned out to be sarcastic or a bit mean.
2. The radio. It could be done better. You just go around and listen to scrapes of info trying to collect the full story. It could be used so much more but that's just it. At some point, even one of the “enemies” makes a joke about you how you go poking everything with your radio like with a stick without even understanding how it works. That probably shows how poor this thing is used from the game-design perspective, although obviously this wasn't intended as a self-referential joke.

*The story*
The story is good, the characters are well-written. Although I had two problems with it, and that is why the overall rating for the game dropped from “Recommended” to “Meh” for me. 

The first problem doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the game. The thing is, I read a lot of Lovecraft some years ago. And as a teenager I also read a lot of teenager horror fiction. And since the game balances just between these two I wasn't surprised at all, nor was I scared or drawn in the story in some other way. 

[spoilers ahead, scroll past the second screenshot to avoid those]
The second problem is how the narrative is constructed. First off, choices don't make much difference in the short run. There was a moment when ghosts made me run around the house searching for things. So I failed the first riddle and I decided to fail the next riddles too, just to see what would happen next. The result? Well, I had to fix three tape recorders after my three friends disappeared. I guess I would have had to fix one if I'd failed just the first riddle or none at all (if I had had just a bit more time to go around the house to find the right item). So you can't really lose here. There are more cases like this one.

Besides if you want to get the true good ending and break the loop you have to replay the game one more time and choose a specific dialog option and at the end of the game you'll have the option not to go to the island before the loop even starts and that's it. Happy ending. Sounds boring and it is boring. There's not much content and variety to replay the whole thing again.

[end of spoilers]
*The presentation*
The best part of the game. The art-style is unique, I made around 20 great screenshots (which I added to the game page here). The music adds to the atmosphere and works to present the locations perfectly. The voice acting is very solid, although I already mentioned it. 

*The summary*
The game disappointed me in the end, that is true. However, if you enjoy mysticism and adventures and you haven't read a lot of good books with the same style and theme, I recommend you to give it a try. It's very short (around 3 hours for a playthrough, at least what Steam reads, I felt that it was more like 5 hours) and you might love it.

I am still glad that I played it and knocked it off my backlog. Although I am making a note for my future self not to play the games which I know what to expect from.

Note: Make sure to either pirate this game or purchase it from a third-party reseller to avoid supporting unethical business practices.

I've seen several complaints that Mankind Divided is unfinished, and while I don't agree with this sentiment, at least not in that particular wording, it's incredibly easy to see where these people are coming from. The original Deus Ex, as well as Human Revolution (MD's more direct prequel), and *maybe* Invisible War (honestly I don't remember enough of it to really say), all feature *multiple* hubs, designed in a semi-open world fashion. These hubs often contain many friendly NPC's (that can be easily pissed off and usually executed), many optional areas, and side quest-like endeavors with many solutions that give the world a feeling of depth, vibrancy, and even a degree of realism, or at least immersion.

MD has one of these hubs: Prague, and it's shown in 3 separate iterations. It's a poor bastardization of something that was done really well in HR and probably the original as well (it's been a LONG time), returning to an area to observe the impact of both yours and the narrative's actions. Prague does that, except it adds a non-committal halfway point between the two extremes, and there's no other hub to break it up, just one-shot story areas. In short, you'll be really fucking sick of Prague by the end of this game, even if you ignore most side content, which brings me to my next point.

A lot of the main quest objectives feel like chores, and the illusion of importance is only preserved if you're the type to get sidetracked with mysterious air ducts and distressed civilians. I'm thankful that I have a near-obsessive compulsion to scrape content out of the corners of the map, or I would've *really* felt the back and forth nature of the questline.

Obviously, I'm addressing the campaign as a Deus Ex game. Even though the mechanics and formulae of Deus Ex are worth analysis and criticism, I enjoy its tropes, and these issues are ultimately irrelevant to my lukewarm opinion on MD. In fact, if the campaign were the only thing I'm addressing here, this would certainly be a recommended. I obviously have my issues with it, but the duct-crawling, armblade-extending fun is still largely intact. This is a game I wouldn't consider great by any measure, yet I can find myself engrossed in it for far more consecutive hours than most games I'd consider masterpieces. Take from that what you will.

The biggest threat to my opinion of MD is the pathetic, insulting, nauseating Breach mode. Before starting the campaign, I noticed the "Breach" option on the menu and made a point to investigate it after finishing the story. Throughout said story, I found many items titled "Breach Software", as well as a vendor that seemed to take those items and redeem them for *something*, without specifying what that something was. All of this made me very curious and excited for Breach, since I still had no idea what it *actually* was.

Breach is a bad multiplayer game, designed with a typical free-to-play economy at its forefront, and the primary goal of hemorrhaging its players to irresponsibly waste money on valueless fake currency, and to then irresponsibly waste said fake currency on intrinsically rigged and unfair lootboxes. You know what my "Breach Software" got me? Fucking lootboxes. I played an hour of this shit max, and it was incredibly obvious that many of the objectives being dangled in my face were designed to be impossible without a disgustingly bougie amount of money to burn and record-breaking lows of self-respect and dignity.

And that's all there is to say on that. On to the DLCs.

MD's DLCs are the definition of a mixed bag. Up first is Desperate Measures which is a pointless waste of time and belongs in the garbage. It's a single mission that fits into the main story. Like they actually just cut a mission out and sold it as DLC. Fuck you. Next.

Then it's System Rift which is...uh...okay, I guess. It's probably also pointless, but it manages to actually be enjoyable for the most part. Someone understood that breaking into the Palisades bank to rob corporate secrets was probably the dopest part of the main game, and it shows. Also at least there's a (very tiny) new slice of hub world. Even if it still takes place in Prague. My biggest gripe is a particular mandatory section of first-person platforming that just feels horrendous. Definitely not something the engine was cut out for. This is then followed by a really intuitive and intriguing bit of abstract puzzle solving which almost totally made up for it. But then the inspiration behind *that* short section visibly shrivels up and dies on-screen, taking the chances of this DLC standing up on its own two feet with it. But honestly, it isn't bad.

But then there's the last one. *Holy shit*, the last one. A Criminal Past is fucking top notch Deus Ex level design and gameplay. It's what all DLCs for this franchise should look like. A fresh and unique setting, familiar characters used only as a jumping-off point, new characters that actually have a point, world design that *rivals* and often *surpasses* that of the main game. Seriously, this bit in the prison is tangibly better than any section in the campaign. It's in a unique situation, where the thorough, meticulous, and immersive design of the main game, is paired with a story on a much smaller scale, and the result is ecstasy. It genuinely feels nonlinear, when you're tasked with breaking the prison's rules to accomplish your task, but the level is designed like an actual prison and not a corridor for you to progress through. You plan and execute your own jailbreak. Security is overwhelming and you're underequipped. Executing everyone and then casually picking your path is not a viable option. But even then it doesn't have to stay that way. Seriously the density of the prison as an area is absolutely fucking ridiculous and consuming. I joyfully tore through it in one sitting. 

Tl;dr the campaign and A Criminal Past are absolutely worth playing at least once, especially if you're a series fan, but keep away from the rest as far as you can *especially if you're a series fan*.