Gameplay- ☑ Exceptional ☐ Pretty damn good ☐ Nothing special ☐ Mediocre ☐ Terri-Bad Graphics- ☐ I saw the face of God ☐ Indescribable Beauty ☐ Chef's Kiss ☑ Average Enough ☐ Fridge Crayon Drawings THE MESSAGE- ☑ Thought provoking but not immersion breaking. ☐ Player interpretation is key. ☐ If you look hard enough you can see it. ☐ Typical ideological pandering. ☐ Anita Sarkeesian would be proud! Audio- ☑ Immersive and impressive. ☐ Like your fave song on repeat. ☐ Could you turn that down? ☐ I'd rather listen to Nickleback. ☐ Dial-Up Connection Noises. Audience- ☐ Crotch Goblins (Kids) ☑ Filthy Parasites (Teens) ☑ Regular Meatbags (Adults) ☐ All of the Above (Everyone) ☐ Unfit for Mortal Consumption. (Nobody) Story- ☐ GOTY Worthy. ☐ It's REALLY good. ☐ Decent but engaging. ☐ What was happening again? ☑ Plot? What Plot? Difficulty- ☐ Dean Takahashi 100% this game. ☐ Just press 'W' and you'll be fine. ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Comp PvP levels of try-hard. ☐ Souls-like. Grind- ☑ None ☐ Ranks/Leaderboards Only ☐ It's optional, but helpful. ☐ Risks breaking immersion. ☐ No thanks, I choose life. Game Time- ☐ Refractory period of CoD players. ☐ Less than a day, easy. ☐ Avatar wasn't this long... ☑ The Spongebob time-card guy died. ☐ Oh look, the heat death of the universe. Price ☐ But wait, there's more! ☐ Buy one tire, get three for free! ☐ Average Steam sale cost. ☑ Check between the couch cushions. ☐ Potential money laundering scheme. MTX- ☑ 100% Optional, as all MTX should be. ☐ Pay for Convenience type stuff. ☐ It's distracting, but optional. ☐ Are you sure this isn't Bliz/Acti? ☐ Hey EA, hold by BudLite! ________________________________________________________ The King is dead. Long live the King. As a long-time fan of the Battlefield franchise I can safely say that I wholly regret not taking the plunge and jumping into Squad much sooner. It is truly the spiritual successor of the old school Battlefield games before they were casualized by the console audiences and arcade shooter fanboys. Squad is the game Battlefield could have grown into, instead it fell from grace and left a gap that games like Squad now fill perfectly. It has enough arcade-like mechanics that make it playable for really anybody who has a solid attention span, but it's simulation enough to keep the aforementioned player types out of the game. The graphics aren't the most realistic but it fits the game just fine, and the audio is exceptional (unless you're counting teammate's mics.) but make sure you start the game muted because master and music audio starts at 100% and it will HURT. The game has seen some very limited released MTX, and while that does worry me with what happened with similar MilSim-lite games, I think it isn't the worst yet but I will be keeping an eye on how it unfolds in the coming weeks/months. I enjoy a LOT of different aspects of Squad, but the key factor is immersion. I won't lie, I'm older now and can't play the twitch shooters like I used to, so a game that puts victory or defeat squarely on strategy, communication, and small-scale tactics is amazing. However my favorite aspect of Squad is the same reason I fell in love with games like Hell Let Loose and the like: Immersion. Everything is faction specific: weapons, uniforms, vehicles, maps. I don't have to worry about someone coming along in hot pink and gold tiger striped camo wielding an M4A1 as an Insurgent, or seeing an RU airborne soldier decked out in all black with a flaming skull for a helmet while using a sniper rifle at CQC ranges. This game is NOT about your individuality as a player, it isn't about showing off your achievements or challenges with skins and paints. It's about being just one nameless grunt on a larger battlefield. If you want individual and personal get involved with your squad and those in your AO, but don't come looking for a way to stand out in-game outside of sheer skill. The best feature of Squad, however, is how surprisingly welcoming and helpful the community is. Sure, you get games where nobody talks or chat is toxic asf, but for the most part the game has been amazing for it's players. Dropping in on one of my first games, being asked if I had a mic, and being able to say "Yeah, but it's my first game, so IDK what's up' and then having the whole damn squad basically give you a TL;DR and in-game (and better explained) tutorial of the game as you proceed to experience firefights and small skirmishes that wouldn't be out of place in a major picture like Black Hawk Down or The Hurt Locker. If you're one of those disenfranchised vets of games like Battlefield like I was, don't sleep on Squad like I did. It takes a bit more focus to pick up but once you have the basics the game is a vast and intricate, yet still accessible and fun, title to play either with friends or whoever happens to be in a squad you join.
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