Recent reviews by Supersmosh

I've played Arc Raiders for about 20 hours, so I'll give my review of it.

Environment:
Arc Raiders has very interesting and varied environments, yet Embark Studios managed to tie them all together aesthetically, from the Dingy hallways of Stella Montis, to the half-buried landscape of the Spaceport. The maps are on the smaller side, with a detailed map of the area always available from your pause menu. There is also a large element of verticality on all the maps, making combat more interesting and giving everything a grand sense of scale.

Weapons:
I have yet to try all of the weapons in game, but I certainly got very familiar with the game's workhorse weapons. The main four "starter weapons are: the Rattler assault rifle, the Kettle assault rifle, the Stitcher sub-machine gun, and the Ferro Battle rifle. Apart from the rather abysmal Rattler, all of these weapons feel good to shoot, and are more than capable of dealing with any of the smaller ARC robots. The rattler is also a very solid choice, but is hampered by a very small magazine, relatively high fire rate, and long reload. If they slowed the fire rate, and increased the magazine size, the Rattler would be significantly more useful, but as it stands, it's the least useful "stater" weapon on offer. The ferro and kettle on the other hand, while almost polar opposites, are the best on offer. The Ferro offering extreme damage and accuracy at the cost of a long reload after every shot, and the Kettle offering rapid, precise shots with rapid semi-automatic shots with low recoil. All, however, are very nice to look at, and sound satisfying to shoot.

Combat (against AI):
The weapons, in-game, seem largely balanced around dealing with the various robotic enemies of the game, with some (namely the Ferro battle rifle) being way better at this task than others. The robots themselves are very fun to fight, and while sometimes they get themselves stuck, or into stupid situations, they use tactics and movement to both make themselves harder to shoot, and to better attack the player. One of the basic flying enemies is enough of a challenge, but when dealing with 2 or more, they often move to pincer the player, or find angles to hit the player in cover. The rocketeer, a large flying enemy, can singlehandedly end your life in 2 seconds flat (one time it somehow found an angle on me through a building just to kill me). The grounded enemies are simpler in tactics, but often make up for that in either sheer number, or overwhelming firepower.

Combat (against players):
Now, this is a very interesting thing. Player versus player combat in arc raiders is... Well. Horribly unbalanced. This is due to a bunch of other factors I'll get to later, but in this section I'll just talk about how this relates to the weaponry on offer. No weapon in arc raiders can kill a player in a single shot, which is a very nice addition, but it puts otherwise powerful weapons like the Ferro at a disadvantage compared to other weapons, due to it's single-shot nature, necessitating a reload after every round fired. Most PVP encounters take place at point-plank or short range, giving a large advantage to the first shooter, and making standing your ground a very unwise proposition. Ambush tactics are very prevalent, and shoot-on-sight engagements are not uncommon. The game's loot economy also plays a large factor in PVP engagements, which I will address later.

Economy:
Arc raiders has a very forgiving economy early on, with low level gear being available for very little cost, or free, if you use the game's randomized "free loadout" to go into battle. Costs scale rather harshly with power, however, and with all gear being lost upon death, upgraded gear brings a significant risk along with it. Low level loot is rather easy to acquire, and I found myself drowning in crafting materials early on. There are two very glaring exceptions to this, being Keys, and blueprints. Keys are single-use items used to unlock doors on various maps, with valuable materials being held inside. Blueprints allow players to craft various pieces of mid to high-end gear, instead of buying a limited supply from the NPC traders. These two items are basically non-existent for many players, so those parts of the game are just... Locked off. As for how the economy interacts with the PVP combat, the dynamic is quite simple. You bring out your high-end upgraded equipment, die and lose it all, and have to go right back to using basic equipment. The term "gear fear" is pretty much the entire gameplay dynamic at this point. Why ever bring out expensive anti-robot gear, when another player is going to kill you and put you right back to square zero? As a result, the vast majority of players are using base level equipment, and ignoring larger robotic enemies altogether to avoid getting third-partied.

In-Game events:
Forget it. Just don't even try, it's not worth the pain.
...Okay. It's not unplayable, but only just.
There are a few larger robots, and these are the game's equivalent of roaming bosses. They require expensive anti-ARC weaponry, or large groups of players to take down, with each approach offering substantial risk with only a moderate reward. If you bring expensive ant-ARC gear, you run the risk of dying and losing it all, at any point during your game. If you find a large group of players, you run the risk of running into someone who will just murder you, again at any point during your game. As a result, most of these enemies are just avoided rather than dealt with at all. They do drop important items that let you craft high-end gear, but you'll just lose all your high end gear the moment you take it out into a game anyway, so... Why bother? And that's the main crux of these events. Why bother?


Conclusion:
A very solidly made game, I enjoyed most of my time, through the good and bad. But one thing that really struck me while playing, was how many base-level issues there were with the PvPvE design, that have already been solved by other games, time and time again. I just don't understand how it can be the year 2025, with how many games in this genre, and they all make the same mistakes, and it takes years for them to come to the same conclusions, and make the same exact fixes. I have to admit, it's a bit tiring at this point. Also, I thought I'd address this here, directly addressed to the developers: The PvPvE dynamic is inherently unstable, because PVP and PVE players/content are not two sides of the same coin. One side will always push the other out, because that's how human beings are. Now see you guys in a year, when you make the same fixes as literally every other game in this genre, because we never learn from the mistakes of others, apparently.



7/10, super fun when the player base isn't eating itself alive.

Got a job for you, 621.

Go kill everything that moves.

HITMAN 1-3, simply put, are the best stealth action games currently out in the wild. Hands down, no debate.

'Nuff said.

THIS.

"Inch deep but a mile wide" is the thing to remember about Elite Dangerous. You'll do the same things over and over again, because the grind is unbelievable. But, as far as full featured space sims go, there's really only the one game in town, and it's Elite.
I'd rate the early game 0/1, The mid game 6/10, and the end game 3/10, only because the only thing left to do after you get there is just grind.

Overall, I give ED a 7/10, however, this is definitely a "Bucket list" game for any space sim fan.

It's lit.

This is one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. Hands down.