I really enjoyed this game, has a little bit of jank but otherwise really excellent. After playing E.E.R.I.E 1, this game is a massive improvement in most all aspects. Of course, it's a small, short game, took about 5 or so hours to beat it, then I spent a while messing with the in-game editor/spawning tool to try stuff out. All that said, I really had fun with it. So much so I appear to have completely filled this review with my thoughts, and can type no more lol. So with that, good job Ureasoft! Love the game! Pros: 1. Well though out gun play. You can lean, you can crouch, you can look though multiple sights, some with optical zoom, fire modes, combat reloading, half spent mags stay half spent, bullet drop, the works. If you've played games like ArmA, you'll get the feel for it pretty quick. 2. Gun customization. You can buy, or loot, guns, attachments, new mags, ammo, etc, and use them to customize your gun(s). Some weapons don't have a ton of options, and some parts are specific to one gun or a specific series of guns, so something to watch out for. But c'mon, you can have a scope on your scope, with iron sights on your scope, and a holosight to the side in case you aren't feeling tacti-cool enough. 3. Map design. The maps aren't huge, but the dev clearly put thought into how each area fits together, both in terms of the connecting maps, but also how each individual map should look/feel. And for every map, there's an eye for detail you don't always see in a indie game. There's one moment that sticks out to me, it was right towards the very end of the last map you reach. I'm making sure a courtyard is clear, checking corners, etc, and there's a bloody water spigot with a drain basin. Why? No idea, but in terms of real life, of course there'd be one there. And someone went through the trouble of putting it there, which really caught my attention for some reason lol. 4. Character design. The characters all look pretty decent, the outfits feel like someone spent time to make them look right, and you can semi-customize your character by looting clothing and armor from anyone. 5. There's a store now. For all that is holy, E.E.R.I.E 1s loot crates are GONE. That system sucked, you never got what you needed. Now, there's store kiosks scattered about that allow you to use money to trade for some guns, ammo, and parts. Not all of them though, you have to find special parts in the field. 6. Vehicles. There are several vehicles you can drive, from APCs to an ATV, some vehicles have functioning turrets, and the driving feels pretty good. A bit of jank when you run into something, but this isn't a driving sim, it is strange that driving full speed into a wall does no damage though. 7. Tutorial. The tutorial covers just about every single thing you need to know to play the game, from how to move and shoot to how to customize your guns and reload vehicle weapons. Really wish some other games took the time to do that! Meh: 1. Shoes. Speaking of the store, how do you acquire money, you may ask? By stealing the shoes of the dead and selling them at the kiosks. .... Why? I have no idea. Shoes are not particularly valuable, only netting you 100 money for each, so it really feels odd. And you can't sell anything else, so those weapons you picked up are just dead weight, leave em' and just focus on your favorites. 2. The playtime. I wish the game where longer. The game feels pretty well paced, just a little to short. There are a lot of side missions to complete, most with multiple steps, but even including those it only took me about 5-6 hours to beat the entire tutorial area and campaign. 3. Vehicles again. They are really under-utilized. The maps are not super conducive to vehicles, except for a few maps, they are generally to tight for most to be effective. Also, the enemies only ever used one, in the whole game. I think I may have spotted a second one towards the end of the campaign, but it never engaged me if it did exist, and was obliterated by BluFor. Cons: 1. Aimbots. The enemy AI is definitely better tuned then E.E.R.I.E 1, but they still have a tendency to nail you in ways that a human could never do. I had several moments where an enemy was in the process of turning towards me after I shot them, their gun pointing AT THE FLOOR, and they still head shot me. I watched the bullet travel from the enemy guns muzzle directly at me on at least 3 occasions. Rigged. Also, there are moments, especially when there's lots of close clutter, or the map is very wide, where an enemy would engage me from out of my sight. I'll see the bullets or grenades coming in, but could not figure out wtf was going on, who was shooting and from where. And then I'd figure out the enemy is like 300 meters away and somehow noticed me though 3 trees, or that part of my body was visible around cover and somehow identify me as a foe, and then pinpoint land a grenade in my lap while shooting my elbow off. Luckily, this is mitigated by being aware of your surroundings and playing the game tactically. If you pie the room as you enter, you'll see them before they see you pretty often. 2. Cirno. Okay, having a battle buddy is great, especially when they never run out of ammo, grenades, or health. But. BUT. For fucks sakes, Cirno is a moron. She will punt you out of cover (she's an immovable object, if she chooses to run THROUGH you, you'll be shoved out of the way), throw grenades in places that end up with them going half a meter and blowing YOU up, alert enemies that you could have more easily killed by stealthing, and does fuck all damage half the time. There was one moment, where there where NO VISIBLE ENEMIES, and we we're in a tunnel under a road, and she starts chucking grenades with me in front. Hit's me with two grenade blasts, starts shooting, I'm trying to figure out what the FUCK is going on, and get popped by the now-alerted enemies that charge into the tunnel. Cirno can be a great a bullet sponge, but leave her behind when scoping things out. 3. Skeletons. Okay, first off... Why? They don't really fit the game environment at all. Their these big skeletons with no skull, with a big fuck-off gun strapped to them. They have a glowing orb for a "heart" (hitting that is like shooting a regular enemy in the head), white for friendly, red for enemy. They're great allies, terrible enemies. They suck up hits like a tank, taking 5 or 6 to down (unless you hit the orb, in that case it's 1-3(?)), and they show up in groups. Like, 5-6 at a time, in one big cluster, and gun you down like a dog. At the start of the game, they aren't to bad, once you're playing the last couple missions, good luck. 4. Translation. It's not super terrible (all ur bases are belong to us), but it's not quite there. It's certainly better than E.E.R.I.E 1s "laod" button, but it's clearly machine translated and missing a ton of context. Like, one of the very first lines in the campaign, the first thing Cirno says, is so poorly translated it leaves you wondering what the hell you bought. "Oh my, we was spotted by Alice. No more gold brick now. Hurry up, I finally came back to my hometown, but it is for a fucking war again." Yikes. I assume the machine translator took something very literally there? And it continues from there, to a greater or lesser extent, the whole game. You get a pretty good idea of what's going on and things mostly sound okay, but the translation really needs a real CN to EN translation. 5. Info. So, while the game tells you how it works, it's severely lacking in other important information. You might buy a gun, and wonder, "what ammo does this take?" Well, figure it out yourself cause the game will not tell you directly. Maybe you want to know what an attachment does? Trail and error. What happens if I remove every piece from a gun except the bare minimum it needs to function? I don't know. All this and more, is really frustrating. Especially since that's something E.E.R.I.E 1 got right.
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