Recent reviews by Machine

Visually interesting, but gameplay is just empty and dull, no direction at all given in the initial area so you end up lost, fumbling doors and puzzles trying to progress. What a shame, because the art style looks wonderfully macabre; the trailer makes the game look much better than it actually plays. Geniune dissapointment, it looked fantastic.

I got enough enjoyment out of ARC for what I paid for it (around £30) but have decided to pack it in. A bit of background, I've 2k+ hours on Hunt:Showdown, and untold hours gaming in general over the past 40+ years - and whilst I had a nice honeymoon with ARC, it wasn't long before the sheen wore down and the ugly parts began to show.

- On release we had absurd hit registration, they addressed this is patch 1, so good on them, it's still not amazing, but it's better. Expect to be hit round corners, play with jiggle peeks and see how they work for you; I think the server predicts you'll keep moving and gives the peek-ee chance to hammer you.

- There are no loadouts - what I mean by this is the only quick way into a game is to take the free loadout, which hands you a random tier 1 weapon, a full stack of ammo, a basic shield, no safe slot, and a random assortment of consumables which can contain useless items, like binoculars.

If you want to take another loadout you build it all from your inventory, and if you need to craft some of that well get comfortable because you'll be here a while navigating menus and remembering which bench it is that crafts ammo (no, it's not the gunsmith bench)

This process is painful when you're on a loosing streak and you quickly run out of resources so resort to the free loadouts.

In Hunt:Showdown a free hunter would be chosen from a small roster so you could pick the best one for your playstyle, strengths or team makeup. You could also augment the hunter with odd items you had in your stash, in ARCs case - more bandages and shield rechargers are pretty bloody basic items - especially when the game can spawn you right next to other raiders or AI.

- You are also massively undergeared to PvP with a free raider, that wasn't the case in the beta or early days, but now we begin to see that with tier 3 guns, shields more commonplace - remember you have a single shield recharge and bandage - a single shot from another raider and you're on your last legs.

- Even getting the drop on another raider, you'll empty the clip into their heads if you happen to get a good close range option, reload, and they'll drill through your level 1 shield in 3 or 4 shots, bam, dead, back to crafting menu.

And so it suffers the dark and darker issue all over again, a failure to balance or match up vs players of similar gearing.

- You will also spawn into a round halfway - this means the dynamic of play is changed, you have no idea where anybody might be, where they might have been, what loot places are taken or trapped, oh that quest you wanted to do that needs 25 minutes? Nope, not enough time friend, extract, back to menu.

- Searching items is just watching progress bars, then more bars waiting for the items to appear, it's like my guys got cataract or something, I can just imagine him squinting into the drawer he's searching trying to make out the mix tape they've just found.

- Certain items and weapons are locked behind bench upgrades, and some of the items you need to do that are stupidly hard to find, i.e rusted gears, this further separates the lower and higher players since higher level weapons make a big enough difference to turn the tide in a fight. I don't even want to tell you how long I tried finding prickly pears.

Embark have made a good game here, it's styled very 80's / star-wars to appear to us 80's kids - and I enjoyed the time I spent discovering the game - after a night of repeated losses I recognised something I'd felt before with Hunt... crippling lows to the feeling and flow of playing the game, but this time, without the highs of landing that headshot with the worst weapon in the game - Hunt became an unhealthy habit for me, I know that ARC becomes that for me, it becomes an abusive relationship and I'm not blindly in love with Arc, I'm sorry but you just don't do it like Hunt did it for me, it's not worth it.

I do like how lethal the Arc can be, the maps are pretty, the guns and stuff feel good, the setting is fleshed out and the lore compelling, the store isn't obnoxiously placed in the menus or anything though the prices are steep.

Later in the evening I played other games I'd put down because of ARC and as fate would have it, ended up in tears of laughter with friends just enjoying my free time. I left for the evening feeling good; That's what gaming is for me, ARC cannot reliably deliver that.

Review subject to change because games aren't static these days.

Imagine you bought a car with a radio that didn't work because everyone else in other cars was (ab)using said radio in their cars, then imagine the people who sold you the car disabled key parts of the radio because some users where using it wrong. That's where we are with BF6 portal games, no XP or challeges can be completed in these games, if you can ever make one without an error.

This wouldn't be a problem if the gear unlock system wasn't basically a full time job, scaled probably to the people who can sink 6 hours a day into it and not the adults who have to work for a living and just want to chill out with friends.

Key equipment like spawn beacons & certain weapons are all behind absolutely horrifically scaled tasks, clearly untested by any normal human - so what you have are all the guys who are already fantastic at the game with said equipment, and you, can't spawn your team in that clever little spot you've found because you've not murdered 30 people 7 seconds after injecting yourself with something that blurs the screen.. gate-keeping the core weapons and equipment is just a bad game design decision - skins go ahead, but not basic stuff that means we're on a level playing field with other players.

However, the game play itself is solid, and being a part of the growing game culture from the start with other good friends trumps many negatives, the game feels good, most of the time - hit reg can be sketchy - and the map design is questionable - too small or too big - not enough cover on the big maps, too much clutter on the small maps.

Again... solved by letting portal maps give standard progression and allowing the players to build and publish maps within Portal - we'd see some classics like Metro, Karkland come back plus new content!

Overall, I personally am having a good time on it, but it has been mis-sold with the portal experience and the scaling is way off on challenges - this will only make new players, joining later in time struggling for hours to get the fundamentals in place whilst the level 500s dance on their faces.

If you want to be a part of the developing climate of the game, sure, go buy it. Especially if you're going in with a good group of buddies.

If you want a solid battlefield X shooter, then any of the ones before this one will sort you out, I actually put BF1 on over the weekend to just check it vs BF6 and it's a heck of a lot of fun.

Edit for steam awards! This is still a good game - there are many great things about it - I wish there was a "neutral" option in Steam because it is kinda worth it, but still, the obnoxious challenges that force you into their new mode are unwelcome along with the weird way they disband matches and players after EVERY ROUND... why no server browser option?

I'm glad they've done this, but damn... I was way more tolerant of games when I was a lad... no wonder I found this confusing to navigate, because it's genuinely very difficult to navigate!!

Absolutely amazing that they've kept such an old game alive, love the vibe of what they've done here, and done it well. We were able to knock up a co-op within minutes, one of us on Linux, the rest windows, no problem, all good.

This friends, is a slice of what games used to be back in the 90's and it was utter wonderland to us back then, my teenage self was lost in this for months, I'm glad I got to go back for a bit, thank you.

Yes, but also no.

I 100% clocked Hades 1; Hades 2 felt familiar, but with some nice welcome differences - it took me about 10-12 hours to reliably be able to clock the game on zero fear (like the old heat system) in part due to just being used to Hades 1.

The artwork and music is outstanding, I love how all the lore ties into the first game, there's much to learn and see and I'm only part the way through unlocking things - I don't even have the weapon aspects yet.

However, it's not all sunshine and roses.

The grind to unlock things feels less natural than Hades 1, a bit more painful, and the ability to progress is locked behind these crafting obsticles. There's also a very clear bias towards ranged builds as other reviewers mention - I was able to succeed with an axe build, but in no small part due to a massively overpowered hammer cast that I could keep dropping on enemies from afar whilst hitting nearby ones with said Axe.

I'd like to see that balanced a little more.

Other reviews suggest "the first 40 hours are grind" and yeah, I can believe it...

Finally, the absolutely obnoxious sheep transfiguration needs removing - it's not even hard to avoid damage when you're turned into a sheep during particular boss fight, but the fact it's nigh on impossible to avoid is just dull - honestly the worst part of the entire run for me, I roll my eyes every time it happens because it's just boring waiting for it to run out whilst you hop avoiding missiles.

In summary, worth it for me, I'll probably 100% it again over time - needs better balanced weapons and some ease or better feeling grind / unlock process - remove the stupid sheep bit and this is pretty much perfect.

I am having fun with it though :-)

P.S did I mention the sheep bit?

Playing on Manjaro LInux, using flatpak Steam, all AMD - runs superb, will occasionally startup not fullscreen, but restart the game sorts it.

Expedition 33 is a wonderful, bizzarre, utterly stunning looking game - the environments are absolutely incredible, such imagination and detail into every aspect - it's not often in a game that EVERY corner you turn you're like... wow, another amazing view.

The game itself is deceptively simple, I almost got annoyed in the first area with how restrictive the blockers are, but you quickly accept it, and it does make it impossible to drop off a ledge you shouldn't drop off. Combat is challenging - sometimes because the enemies are so weird, they're difficult to telegraph - if you look for visual or audio prompts in the attacks that can help a lot. As the game opens up, the complexity comes from tuning your characters skills and items.

No DLC, you get the whole game, and nothing is nagging you in game breaking the immersion to buy more - 100% recommend.

The story seems initially twee and childish (I think the music and how the whole game is introduced) - but get into the expedition and it becomes compelling - I went in blind, I had no idea about anything.

Annoyances that stain an otherwise incredible game.
- The game runs amazingly @ 144fps, then why oh why are some of the cutscenes recorded at 60!!! render them in game! My game looks better, and produces more frames than the cutscenes do. Every time one comes on, it's a little bit URGH, jerky....

- Given loosing a fight normally means you run straight back to that same fight to retry - a "retry battle" button after loosing would be great.

- You can't switch loadouts or weapons mid fight (or choose them before starting one) as far as I know - meaning if you end up vs something resistant to your main attack, it's way harder.

- The order of your characters playing cannot be defined (Divinity Original Sin copes with this well by allowing a character to "wait") meaning if you have one character that applies a debuff and another to take advantage, you can't seem to reliably set this up - occasionally it'll align - but when your entire party has turns one after another I feel like you should be able to choose any of them.

The worst annoyance are the cutscene FPS's but if you play at 60 FPS you'll not notice the transition quite so acutely

Stunning game though, no regrets so far

Yes.

Like MT1, but better, you even get all the original clans eventually.

Great sequel, just like the original but more.

Okay, I've given this enough chances, and I'll probably play more since some of my friends enjoy the game but I'm not recommending it.

What a damn shame, you make a game with a good engine, amazing atmosphere, great premise, rock hard objectives - then you mess up the bit which could have provided some of the most fun. The combat.

You've these wonderfully malformed enemies in the game, even invisible ones are cool, but the combat, fighting them is a exercise in frustration, and it's for a multitude of reasons.

- The weapons feel crap, they feel under powered and useless.

- The limitations on ammo are just a little too harsh, not even STARTING with full ammo is just a gash design decision.

- Headshots on enemies will remove the head, and characters even state, "go for headshots" but then the enemy can operate without a head... forever... like it's not a few hits before it dies, it's literally not dead.

- Those bloody things that shoot weird fast homing bullets have some of the most inconsistent hit registration on their missiles that I've ever seen, sometimes hitting you behind cover.

- The game will sometimes just toss crap at you after 40 minutes of doing a mission as if it wants to see you suffer.

Now, if all of the above is intention game design, well done, you've designed a game that isn't fun for me, sorry, I'm out - you've missed the mark, you had all the right ingredients, but it's come out wrong.

Almost there....

If this game was still just as hard, but had good, enjoyable combat, it would be an utter gem. As it stands, a very key core element for me is so frustrating, that I don't wish to play it. A great looking game, full of unique ideas, ruined by poor design all in the name of appearing hardcore.

Excellent game, much more logic over luck, great soundtrack, works fine on the Deck and Linux, outstanding.

I'm loving the little twists each character brings to the table in terms of fighting style. 100% recommend. :-)

Played with 4 friends, absolutely hilarious. What a dumb idea for a game, but boy it was a laugh.

It's janky, silly, and just about put together well enough to work. Could do with more variation in the jumps and puzzles you have to do - but I mean, it was £4 or something, well worth it.