Recent reviews by Random Hilarity

I tried, can't do it. I hate the ship/camera controls so much it ruins everything else. I suspect it plays better on a controller.

How is this game so good for early access?

Valheim with better combat. Would like to see a more comprehensive server browser, but this gets an A+.

I can't any more. All games, and MMOs in particular are hamster wheels. The trick is how much you can make the wheel fun, varied and pretty.

New World is a rusty, jagged wheel that occasionally breaks down and takes your stuff. Sometimes there are whips, and bees. Bees with whips.

At least it's only $40.

The spiders reminded me of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which came out in 2006 and was a better game.

A good student portfolio piece I guess? A for effort.

Free, fun, play it. My eyes dried out.
...

Only complaint is you don't have much time to look at all the ships blowing each other up, but good times regardless.

So, I liked the game and got about 80 hours out of it. I as of yet cannot recommend the game because of two reasons: First the game launched in an extremely buggy state. Crashing servers, memory leaks, hard crashes from UE4 errors, and my favourite... your inventory can be randomly wiped. The devs are promising an inventory restore, but your substats will be random, meaning previously great gear could (and most likely will) be trash. Second, the servers have been fixed, most of the crashes have been fixed, the inventory bug still exists. It's great to have a guillotine hanging over your head at all times where your dozens of hours can just go up in smoke.

** WAIT TO PURCHASE THIS GAME UNTIL PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN FIXED **

I'm a bit of a game masochist. I suffered through it, you should not have to.

GOOD------------------
*character skills are varied between classes and generally fun to use
*graphics are decent
*loot is frequent and has multiple build potential with different stats
*weapons/armour mods can feel overpowered while actually being balanced
*it has a better story than most looter shooters (still bad, but there is one)
*it teaches an important life lesson: all problems are solved by shooting people in the head
- seriously, so much head shooting even yourself

*crafting is simple but allows some customisation and experimentation
*good enemy variety

BAD------------------
*generic overall gameplay, shoot the things, guard the point against waves, shoot the things
*bugs, bugs so many bugs
*some class abilities are useless
*endgame is just short missions against a timer, rewards are dependent on the timer
*all that matters is damage output, so the tank/dps/healer classes are meaningless
*gun sounds are weak
*legendaries are only legendary for their weapon mods which can be moved, not very special
*developers insta-nerfed builds found to be too powerful in a PvE game without providing alternatives

I'd buy it on sale after more bug fixes and balancing.

Yes:
- it's buggy
- the crafting is broken and you can generate infinite money/parts
- it doesn't run well on last-gen consoles
- it doesn't live up to the hype (which was impossible)
- it's easy (only Very Hard offers any challenge, and only at the start)

It looks great, has fun and interesting quests, a mountain of decent voice acting, and a huge number of interesting quests and side stories. This game is fun and very much worth a playthrough if you at all like the action rpg genre and games like Witcher or Mass Effect. If you haven't bought it already, it's probably worth waiting a month or two for the more serious bugs to be fixed.

This is a Youtube Lofi-Study channel with a timer. That said it's free, and a nice little widget to have up in a corner while working away at something. My only complaint so far is that the cottage graphic only has one size and all that changes is the whitespace padding (purplespace?). Also an option to change background colours would be nice.

I'll be using it.

Update: Because Steam rewards. We have a cat! Still waiting on that colour change.

A better version of HL1, worth playing for Xen alone.

Just be warned that as the music plays, the credits role and you bask in the glow of nostalgia and achievement, the realization there will never be a HL3 gets all the more bitter.

New review for first Chronicle update!

The Good-------------

- most bugs fixed
- all skill nodes appear to work
- multiple builds (including spells!) endgame viable
--previously spells didn't scale on weapon damage and so fell off at endgame
- ability to change skill elemental types for more build variety
- season boss hunt mechanic
- items have their type indicated on drop

The Bad-------------

- story could be written on a Post-It (it's a looter aRPG so probably not expected)
- bugs still exist (including ones from release i.e. end boss bugging out)
- added "boss hunt" feature is very basic and doesn't add much
- endgame still pretty weak
- some endgame town features still require a *massive* grind, especially now with seasons and char wipes
- loot attributes still completely random with no loot filter

Verdict------------- *Buy on Sale (50%)* / Wait and See

Progress is being made, the game is improving. It's much better than on release. If you like aRPGs and loot grinding it's worth it to try it out on sale. If not, it's been almost a year... maybe in another year it's worth another look.