Recent reviews by AlexeY

Most Normal/Hard servers are empty, a handful are full or have a ping of 200+
That's a problem because you have to level up your character perks to take on higher levels or else you'll get stomped
It was fun back in 2014-2015 when I played it often but back then there used to be more people playing it too
Guess it will go into the dust bin
As for its successor I said it once and I'll say it again; it asks for 100gb for A game, that's too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ much

Look up the Alpha version online. Mute the one track it bundles (a loop of Red Like Roses) then make a playlist with songs you like on a music player and slash away!
I'm glad the guy who first drafted the idea for this game lived the dream; his idea got picked by then reputable RT, had help of the creator of the series (Monty Oum), expanded the roster to the rest of RWBY and JNPR, and added plenty of things to the game. And that's were I would end this review, were it not for the problems:

- Resource heavy; for a game that graphically looks less appealing than AAA games, it makes a computer built just two years ago go very hot. Especially on Grimm Gauntlet, the closest thing to the Alpha you'll get. For a comparison, I can play Borderlands 2 on medium high, and Tomb Raider on High, heck, even CS:GO which in the last years shat itself performance wise, it plays better on this computer, than this!
- DLCs; you may not know this, but RT had an interview before/during release where they said the game would not have paid dlcs... Scroll up to the dlc section. Not that you miss much. If you ask me, just get JNPR. The rest if you already have watched the series you already saw it.
- Its (development) dead Jim; Rooster Teeth games was disbanded. No more official support and, don't quote me on this, this is from memory, the multiplayer component may not receive support because the company that sold the service to RT went down/ was bought, can't remember. Not that this will block you from playing online, just that any needed bugfixes may never come.
- For good performance you need to mod it (but it still is not enough); gvk is a godsend, this guy is responsible for pretty much the ability to mod the game. Even if you don't want to play custom content, his modifications bring options that help mitigate the poor performance of the game. But that sadly, is where the good news ends. Because to perceive major improvements you have to disable almost every bit of detail; grass, tree leaves, model lod has to be brought down until models lose their face, every surface is painted on a solid color. This should not be the case. I'm glad gvk made the game run better, but at this point a funko pop has more detail on its face.
- It falls on the trap of story driven games; once you play the campaign with every character, if you ever go that far, you have seen everything. Grimm Gauntlet and Horde were made to address this, but once again, the computer get really hot. So no.

I insist, get the Alpha. There's no way to prove to you I have been playing that for years (since 2014/15) and picked it up again after testing GE in my new system. Sure, it's only Ruby and beowolves, but It's not nearly as resource intensive as this, and it's free.

It's good but as with every single player and story driven game there's only so much you can do.
In the first run, when everything was new, I had a blast, skills, weapon upgrades, the tombs, all of it was exciting.
But there's no reason for me to play it twice. As far as I know, post end of campaign there's an additional tomb and that's it. Sadly, in my case the tomb is bugged on the mid point and I can't progress any further.
Maybe one day I'll replay it but for now I did and saw almost everything. The things I missed are collectibles but those don't affect gameplay or story.
All in all, very good game. Check it out speacially on sale when its dlcs also are on sale.

The good; girls on bikinis with water guns (a novelty when all the games I play are about huge splashes of blood, gibs and brutal termination attacks), works with Proton.

The bad; I can write a book about this, but, because space is limited, let's go with bullet points.

* The controls can be changed Almost all controls can be changed, but you can't erase keys you don't use. You don't need/want the camera keys? Too bad, you need to bind those to something, or else they stay on the default keys. You also are forced to bind Shoot to something, EVEN WHEN USING A MOUSE.

* Why did I strike through the first point? I almost forgot. The Esc key that you take for granted will cancel/go back one menu/pause the game is not there. No, you use the right mouse button for those. And no, that one binding can't be changed. Oh, you want to reset something on a menu? What about middle mouse click? Want to rebind a key? Press the space key! Ha... ha.. ahahahaha!

* It doesn't detect Mouse4 or Mouse5 (additional buttons). So I can't take advantage of those for Lock On (Zoom) and Attack.

* Auto aim enabled at the start of every match (at least on SP). So you lose a key to Toggle Auto Aim and needs to be close to your movement keys. No, the game doesn't offer an option to disable auto aim permanently, something that has been possible elsewhere since 1998.

* Confusing menus. There's a button for Single Player, Multiplayer and Tutorial. Being new, I chose the Tutorial button expecting to get, well, the tutorial. The tutorial is locked. The only option enabled is Fire Range, Ok, maybe I have to go there and then the tutorial buttons will be enabled. Nope. What you have to do, is click Single Player and there you'll get the tutorial. And once you complete the tutorial the buttons under the Tutorial menu are enabled. Simple, right?

* Story: no big spoilers, have just played an hour and a half. I'll just say this; opening the story of a game about girls playing with water guns with anime pseudo philosophical chliches makes me feel second hand embarrassment. Please, don't. You sound like an idiot when your next scene is 15 or so girls sliding down a rainbow in bikinis.

* Wanna play a second kind of game? How about a visual novel. The game includes this bold new idea for cutscenes where you have to advance the dialogue manually, with the space key. Speaking of, as far as I know, you can't skip them. What actually happens when you press Space, is that you only advance the text, but the game respects the audio tracks and will only advance once those are over, so pressing to advance is kinda stupid and a chore.

If you want to see these girls on bikinis or even more revealing, search their pictures on your preferred search engine, those are mostly free, the mouse and keyboard movements are better, and it also includes a privacy mode so you can get kinky with them.

Things to note:
- Inescapable Microsoft login, even if you want to play the campaigns only (only alternative is to get your hands on Halo:Custom Edition and Halo 2:Vista, forget about Halo 3). C'mon Microsoft, just let me play offline the campaigns.
- It will eat a lot of disk space (About 90GB with all campaigns and multiplayers included. You can reduce it a little by not installing the Language Packs but that is like dropping a bucket of water into a raging fire)
- Halo 2 classic is not separated from Anniversary, going from the original 4GB to 30 GB, you have been warned.
- When using Gamescope, if you try to set the upscaling method, it will crash, Do not pass the "-F" argument in launch options.
- You cannot leave an action without a key binded, the game will threaten you with erasing all your changes (if you changed video settings and other stuff in one go) along with your bindings, effectively giving you the default settings. Microsoft, pls, stop doing this, I don't wanna bind any keys to Teather Mode or Forge.
- If you join Multiplayer: there are smurf accounts. Lots of them. After a match you can click of any player in the Scoreboard, then click Career, then Multiplayer. Don't be surprised if Playtime is 00:00:00 hours, or if Playtime is roughly equal to yours but somehow they win with a ratio of 19K:4D. Keep a cool head because it will happen constantly. You have been warned.
- Oh, why would I tell you to go with it? Simple. If you keep disconnecting from matches where you're being curbstomped, your Xbox account will be penalized. And if you disconnect often enough, you will get a time ban before you can rejoin matchmaking. Microsoft, pls, no. Let me go whenever I know I have been beaten. I can't go toe to toe with smurfs.

Technical stuff:
- Last version of Proton tested is: Proton GE 8.32
- Additional software used at runtime: MangoHud (just monitoring, no fps limiting), Gamescope (Games, cope. lol), Feral Gamemode
- OS and DE: Arch Linux with Linux 6.7.4, Sway WM with Freesync enabled

It's a mixed bag. The positive review stays because I can finally play all campaigns minus 5. And that's something I wanted to do for a long time without investing extra in a console.

Multiplayer is an even more mixed bag. When the teams are actually balanced and you can make some kills, it's great. When your team is full of new players and the other team has a smurf and two experienced players with 150 hours+ in Multiplayer, not so much. And Microsoft will make you own it. Least you want your account to be temporary banned from Matchmaking.

Come for the campaigns. Stay for the multiplayer. Leave for the multiplayer. Then come back for the multiplayer, because perhaps this time you won't find smurfs, or very unbalanced teams.

Current: 0/10
Play only if you have no money, gambling addictions or compulsive buying disorder.

Updated March 24/2019:

Carbon copy of their other game: Shards: The Deckbuilder.
Released: October 2, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIEWE2YBmM
https://80arcade.com/shards-deckbuilder
https://archive.fo/YWEo3

They just changed the card pictures and some graphics.
I don't mind code and asset re-use but the details are too similar on everything, sounds, effects, mechanics, interface, the only change is the rwby skin they applied. WTF?

>No Linux support.
>Requires DirectX 11. Why? is a mobile game port in which I haven't met with enough detail other than one 3d model!
>Leaving a game unfinished? Want to start a second one? Buy premium and get more game slots! :^)
>Want other game modes that come with rewards? Buy Premium! :^)
>Make a second account and link it, we swear is totally worth it :^) (Don't even know to what I am making an account to.
>Dust in itself is just another currency that you have to convert back to Lien and Dollars. While the game rewards you with it, it intentionally gives very few to get you desperate and make you pay the money.

Final point on transactions:
For a basic experience: $0.00 USD
For a expected experience (max slots, access to premium and raid cards): $21.00 USD (that is if they don't sell more than 4 slots)
For the complete experience (all of the above and card backs and themes): $25.00 USD

>Trimmed pictures straight from the web series serve as cards.
>When winning a boss card, this will move fast, leaving a three seconds (maybe less) gap in which its power changes. Sadly, you can't read it because it plays an animation.
>Confusing values that can make you not understand how buying cards and attacking work. It will take you a few minutes to realized that one of these values doubles as energy and money to buy cards from the lineup.

This is garbage.

Well, at least it isn't a serpent-like plant strangling your self-insert as a young wizard because you didn't give them money am I right?

Performance: If you reduce your resolution and use windowed mode you can play this with an RX580. 60 fps stable and the card doesn't go above 60% usage. To my surprise it wasn't using that much my processor (About 26~30% usage). This is what I saw atleast using mangohud.

System: Arch Linux with Xanmod 6.6.8 Hyprland session (w/o custom taskbars)
Hardware: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, AMD RX580.
Software used while running the game: Feral Gamemode, Mangohud

Notes: Fans in the GPU and the processor revved up but not as loud as before, and once quitting the game, they went almost silent again, (although this might be because of Arch not running things like SELinux ootb).

Playing with a smaller resolution is going to make it harder to see enemies, so prefer scoped weapons.

I'll monitor the situation but I doubt this will change. Ever.
Well, I stand corrected. After years of being denied, one demonstration outside Valve HQ, one online campaign and endless threads, Valve finally started to address the bot issue.

Not all bots have been taken care of yet, but it's nice to not have them anymore on community servers crashing the round.
I haven't tried much Casual official servers but the situation looks better now than last year.
They've got a contractor who's fixing and patching the game and it shows, community servers have improved.
In Casual there have been some bots but the community has adapted and kicks them out of matches in the blink of an eye.

Good job so far Valve, please keep it up.