Recent reviews by moatsmjl

to those complaining about queue times, welcome to every major online release ever. to those that say they have no SEA servers, they're in portland and my ping is <20ms.
great mmo so far, having a blast

a fantastic management game for the pun-loving public. lightheadedness = light bulb...i mean...come on.

The game immediately started to reek of "just another fps". it added a couple nice free roam mechanics, but honestly, nothing to keep me interested. the fast paced combat is immediately let down by unskippable "stay here and listen to this person who's telling you a story that was written on the fly". The "powers" you get are just another recycled set of fps perks. push a guy with force, dodge quick, etc.
the guns, shooting, and interactions with them seem very polished, and well tuned, but lack innovation.
the story...is there a story?
This game would be worth the purchase at a much lower price tag.

bugs: in the first minute i encountered models that were motioning speech with no dialogue coming out, characters that were staring at walls while talking to me. for 60 bucks you'd think the kinks would've been worked out in the tutorial phase.

How the hell did i get sucked into another job? i just wanted to build a dream computer to see what it would look like with real world parts i want to buy. i get in, and it says "maybe try the campaign so you can learn the ropes"...sure i'll give it a couple minutes. 3 months of work, at least a hundred customers, so many cans of compressed air, and a few red bulls later and i'm just another PC tech, a cog in the machine of people who "don't know how those viruses got there".
Might have to quit my real job.

You can tell it has the same fun apeal as previous versions. wacky physics, grappling fun, explosions galore, etc.
The problem with this version is what everyone else has been complaining about. it's a poorly done port.
The controls that aren't mappable are just poorly thought out, the graphics feature some amazingly detailed parts and then seemingly important details are low grade textures with stretching and pixelation galore.
the most annoying part for me was how they handle LOD (level of detail), you can see trees in the distaance that looks like you're viewing them through a cheese grater.
I have a gallery of a couple screenshots here where you can see differences https://imgur.com/a/6zdLyEW

If they patch in some graphics fixes, some control mapping, and more i'll be back on board, but for now, i'm out. it's not up to par with 2 or 3.

Way too early access. There's early access, which should really mean "we need to work out a few minor kinks, and do some tuning" and then there's realeasing an alpha product that people in the studio should know is not meant for consumption just yet.

Pros:
-The environment looks great, the sounds, the effects, the design and lighting of a swampy region feels immersive. i could almost smell the hillbilly BO coming from my pits as i trapsed through a hazey world of volumetric lighting, and dark disgusting looking houses.
-related to the environemt, the mechanic of so many things making noises that will attract mobs is really good. stumble into some meat hooks dangling from a rafter and the clang will draw attention. It looks natural in some places, but then unnatural when you see a living room scene with 6 perfectly place hanging hooks with no discernable purpose other than to be a crappy door alarm.
-The weapons LOOK good.
-There is a chance of this game getting much better because there's plenty of upwards room for improvement.
-provided the detection doesn't bug out (which it will occasionally), popping a zombie in the head with a rifle shot is a satisfying feel.

Cons:
-This is sort of a big one which i don't see changing for a long time. The core mechanic of this game seems to be *walk around a very large map quite aimlessly, looking for a bounty, until you find a clue. then we'll narrow it down a bit. do that twice more. there's other players on this map. will you encounter them? maybe, who knows really. good job, here's some money, it gets you some more guns and a lot of this stuff looks the same.*
-for a game with the level of graphical polish as this has, i wouldn't expect the melee combat to be so MASSIVELY buggy. I can't even tell what's happening on the back end to make so many misses with large melee weapons going through a zombie body causing no damage. Everything melee feels massively clunky, and more of a crap shoot than shooting by far.
-your character has bandages, this only stops bleeding, doesn't heal. you can equip the bandages, but for NO reason. it's hotkeyed to H if you're bleeding. equipping bandages is just going melee with your fists.
-WAY too large of a map for far too few players. I feel like someone plopped me into the state of louisiana with 5 other people and our job is to kill a guy who's "in a house" somewhere in the state. and to kill eachother.
-I get the feeling there was a marketing guy recording trailer footage and he was like "ok group up, make some noise, be excited. yell 'ThERE's THAT MOB THAT YOU SEE EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME! OH MY GOD!". i feel duped. it's not very exciting.
-There's loot to be bought, but man is it not exciting. a bunch of rifles that look almost identical, some abilities that i don't know why i need. "bandage faster" - why? i bled once in a game and it wasn't bad.
-I got poisoned. what did it do? i dunno. it turned my health bar green.
-I'd say if you want to market this as a full fledged game, create a story, write a decent single-player or co-op hunting campaign and add the multiplayer to something that gives me a sense of purpose. who am i? what happened to these people? why are some more important than others to kill? who's dog was that? why am i relegated to 15 variants of pappys old rifle?

I'm certainly willing to try this upon an actual release, maybe on a free weekend, so i can see where it goes, but it's a definite no buy for me right now.

I can't honestly recommend this to anyone looking for an RPG experience, or anyone looking to satisfy the description "Pyre is a party-based RPG from the creators of Bastion and Transistor".
It's a sport ball game with varying degrees of difficulty wrapped in a very linear story with very little room to make impactful decisions.
The art, the soundtrack, the story, all great as is expected from the team that made it. For me however, i wanted an RPG and this feels far from it.

This seems to be the least polished of the tom clancy games i've played. physics are whack, animations are lack-luster. And boy oh boy does it not live up to videos and screen shots. worst helicopter i've ever controlled.
pros: shooting seems well done. yep.

abysmal performance under many different network conditions.