megasamus1 said:
Yeah, I'm mostly considering waiting until game #3 shows up.
How was Hunted, by the way? I'd like some impressions before I choose.
Long post inbound. Sorry for length:
It certainly wasn't fantastic, but I've played worse. I played it alone and never found it difficult or frustrating to play alone. Quite the opposite actually. I played as the Archer, and once you spend some points to give the melee guy some magic skills, he randomly buffs you and depending on your bow you pretty much one shot anything if you use your armor piercing arrow.
The length of the game is a sigh of relief in that it didn't take me 5 hours to complete nor did it take 20 hours. I'm not sure my total time, but it felt long enough without being overdone.
Game play wise, if you are ok with fighting off hoards, sometimes massive endless waves of enemies in an endurance match, you'll enjoy this. It isn't every fight, but a quiet a few instances put you into this match. You have the tools to fight it off if you think and plan cover out. It isn't amazing but nothing about it was bad so to speak. I didn't experience any bugs that prevented me from using cover, I never got stuck on terrain or objects, like in other 3rd person shooters.
Keyboard and mouse controls work fine. No issues at all aiming, moving, switching weapons. One issue I did run into 2 or 3 times was a bug with the bow aiming. Sometimes after releasing the right mouse to zoom back out to normal, the bow locked up, not allowing me to shoot or zoom again. To fix it I just spammed the mouse buttons and rolled a lot and it freed up. It was such a rare happening it probably isn't worth mentioning, but since it did I'll share the info.
Graphically, there is really nothing to be amazed at. Perhaps a lot of the new age gamer kiddies get frustrated with the game due to this. Since the gameplay doesn't wow them they expect the graphics might but are disappointed when they don't. There are a lot of dark sections, and given that, using a bow with an arrow on fire often served as a cheap flashlight or torch through dark areas.
Sadly though two shots with the arrow and the fire is gone leaving you in complete darkness. This was one of the gripes I had with the game. The only other option was to waste an arrow and some mp by firing off a magic arrow. After you fire a magic arrow (ice, fire, armor piercing) the next arrow glows with the color of the magic you just used. Again, this was frustrating and happened often. Though enemies don't respawn, and fire pits to relight torches were within running distances, so it didn't make me want to quit. The other option is to mess with your brightness settings, but I hate messing with mine once it is set.
Sound wise, nothing is amazing. A gripe I have is the terrible voice quality. It sounds really tinny when characters speak. Almost as if sound compression or recording/microphone quality was an issue. Everything is clear enough to hear, it isn't distorted, just doesn't sound natural. Lucy Lawless lends a voice but I found her character unlikable. She is great in Spartacus though! Great show!
Enemy AI is aggressive so if you aren't careful you'll die. Simple as that. If you play with an AI melee character, he does pretty well at keeping mobs focuses on him, but ranged mobs can be keen to you in the back, and do try to take you down. It can be overbearing at times, but you are often outnumbered and there is only so much either of you can do to keep them occupied. You must make kill shots fast or they wear you down.
I think one of the biggest issues I had was the skill system. It is based off crystals you collect and bring to a portal to hand in for upgrades. The crystals come from a variety of sources and are plentiful. I got about halfway through the game and had every upgrade I wanted maxed out on both characters. I felt the second half of the game I had nothing to look forward to. Considering you can only map 4 of the 6 available skills to active slots for use, it felt like a waste of effort to try to scrounge to collect them.
The story and characters are all pretty forgettable. This was another big negative for me. Honestly the quipping back and forth between the two lead characters was decent enough without being outright annoying, during game play. In cut scenes though, they felt somewhat different. It is hard to put my finger on exactly why, but I will say the melee character Caddoc just sounds like a complete pussy. He is cautious of everything and reluctant to do anything until towards the end of the game when he grows some balls. E'lara, the archer is the balls to the walls danger seeker. She is far more likable.
The puzzles in the secret areas are enough to make you think, without being too difficult. Sometimes you might get turned around or run around trying to figure out what you are supposed to do, but with some careful thought not hard at all. There was however, one puzzle I did look up the solution to because I got stuck for 45 minutes, and this is where I felt dumb because the solution came back to what i was talking about before with the darkness factor. It was so dark even with a lighted torch I missed some pressure plates on the ground that had textures and geometry that blended with the floor well.
In the end it comes down to this. I enjoyed the long endurance match battles. I enjoyed the few puzzles. I enjoyed fighting the enemies that posed challenges. If you don't have any other games in your backlog, then the price is right and you can get a few hours out of it. If you have a friend with it, and can get the CO-OP to work (read a lot of reports of people having trouble with PC online co-op games) you might get a different enjoyment out of it.
For the price I don't feel cheated so I like to think I have a non-biased opinion. I enjoyed Brink too when everyone else is crying it isn't COD or TF2. If you aren't picky, then this game isn't bad. Sorry for the novel. Hope this helps.
