Recent reviews by Navic

i love clocking into the lose everything factory

And that's not even a bad thing. The amount of loot this game throws at you in so plentiful, having space in my vault is my main challenge in this game. I go on donation runs where I purposefully play dumb to try and die, and usually I don't and the problem gets worse.

The gunplay is fantastic and very deep with the mod system, which is also how you change the "tier" of weapons. In other words, weapons are only one tier, and their tier goes up when you put better tired mods in them. So I can get a white AR and make it purple just with some mods I found around the maps. This also means I can really customize weapons to how I like them.

While this is a team game, playing solo is super fun as well. This ain't a friendly game, but sometimes you can team up with others in solo to get into certain areas of the map to share loot. Rook runs are always a toss-up, but a great way to gear up with no fear. And the abilities rook has make it much easier to get loot from certain events.

But the maps, oh my god the maps. Each map progresses in difficulty, both in terms of the AI bots you face, and the type of environmental challenges and puzzles you will encounter, and because of those factors, usually the tier of player you go up against. I don't even fully know how the end game map Cryo Archive works, but it's still such a blast even if I've only explored and understand maybe 25% of the map. Like the big boss fight in it? Never even gotten close to it, but I know that one day I'll be able to get in there. But the threat of players coming in makes it so that you always have to be on your toes, and go in with good loot and a good team.

I'd even argue having an end game space as difficult as Cryo Archive makes it better for the lesser skilled players as well. Cryo demands so much from you, that the well geared players are destined to lose the high tier loot they bring in with them eventually, so they'll go on the other maps with lesser tier stuff to regear. And that's not even mentioning the ranked modes, god this game has so much depth to it, it's actually insane.

There are so many other great things I can say about this game, but I can boil everything down to this: once you learn the basics of loot in the game, the game is super accessible, but the skill ceiling is incredibly high that there will always be room to grow. Probably the only downside is how CPU heavy the game is. Even with a 9800x3D, it is holding me back on certain sections of certain maps. Hopefully this gets ironed out in time.

I've been having a blast with this game already, and I cannot wait to see how it evolves over time.

But man, the gameplay is just something else. It combines all the tricks from your favorite movement shooters into one and it actually works. Even if you aren't good at the movement, just bumbling around getting trickshots with the sniper or grenade launcher is so fun. The map is huge, and the one boss battle I've encountered is amazing. Don't take it seriously, goof off, and have fun. The humor is honestly endearing, especially the achievements. This has quickly become one of my favorite games.

Such a heartwamingly good game about two friends lost in their world, with very robust and amazingly cool co-op mechanics. Not being able to see what the other person sees, and needing to direct the other person was absolutely amazing. There are a few choices you make throughout the story, so it's worth multiple playthroughs as well. Super fun to play, can't recommend enough to play with your partner or best friend(s).

i never see the person who shot me, feels just like real war, 10/10

TL;DR: Good game with a very satisfying personal skill progression in PvE. Once you learn more about the combat of this game, it becomes super fun. Campaign is great, tech is a mixed bag for a modern AAA game but mostly good, and PvP is not for me, but I can see it being fun if I learned more about it.

The game has an amazing campaign (recommend watching some lore recaps from the previous game at least) that really gets good at the end. It is short, but that isn't a bad thing I would say. Definitely makes me want to learn more about 40k, a franchise I know has a TON of super deep lore.

The PvE after the game is a bit confusing to level, but once you start leveling and get better at the mechanics of the game at the same time, the game becomes immensely more fun. It's crazy how it keeps hooking me in as I get better and better. There is some stuff I find to be annoying, but I'll probably get used to it in time, and that's what makes this game so satisfying: learning attack patterns and strats as you play, and once you get them down and can chain them, it becomes so satisfyingly fun.

The PvP I've barely played, and was getting absolutely steamrolled. It's clear you need to have some coordination with your team on what classes to run and you can't really solo, and I'm sure if I learned more about it I would like it more, but right now it's not for me.

On the tech side, the game is mostly impressive. The amount of enemies and physics that are synced across all players is insane, and it does make sense why this game is harder to run. Having a beefy CPU (X3D) greatly improves the performance of the game, which makes sense. I will say it is sad to see a AAA game in 2024 that doesn't have native HDR support (Nvidia RTX HDR is a good replacement, but not the same as native HDR, and has a 5-10% performance penalty when used), but overall the game is gorgeous and performs as expected with the amount of enemies on screen. Would be better with proper HDR though! There are bugs like any other game, like having my inputs stop randomly, where I need to release the key and then press it again for it to register, which is very annoying in combat (and can be fixed by stopping certain devices on your network or USB from randomly pinging your computer, but shouldn't be there anyways) but the rest of the bugs are pretty scarce and minor.

The devs seem to be listening to the community and making changes quickly when their previous ones weren't received well. Hopefully they can keep this up and make the game even better with time.

Overall, a very fun game, especially with friends in PvE. I expect to play it a lot more just to get better, because when you can get off a string of perfect combos or dodges and take no health damage, it feels amazing. 8/10

2024 may have barely even started, but this is already my game of the year pick.

It's fun with randos, but to get the most out of it, getting 3 of your friends together makes the chaotic nature of the game even better. Call in a nuke on your friends to get rid of a bile titan, but you don't see the other coming from behind, and that's when the fun begins. When s**t goes f**k, that's when this game excels.

i like cars

wish the sound for them was better tho, sounds like all cars and engines have the same base sound and the game just modulates that sound a bit to fit what mods you have. that's the only complaint I have, everything just starts to sound very similar and not true to life.

man, i did not think this game would make me ugly cry, but it did. 15/10, loved every second of it. it's so friggin cute, so wholesome, and the story tugs at your heartstrings. gameplay and puzzles are easy, but fun and engaging. definitely worth.

Wow... What a breathtakingly beautiful and amazing campaign. Few games make me emotional, and I would've never thought that a Halo game would be added to that list. It really is a beautiful story. Worth it all the way through.

And this is the first time Halo went open-world, and I like it. Plenty to do but not so much it's overwhelming. The story is still linear and the open-world design doesn't take away from it. Abilities are good too, and all useful in their own ways. Upgrades are meaningful as well, and super easy to get (you even are left with some left over upgrade points). Overall the game design is good, and doesn't take away from the story, and maybe even enhances it a bit too.

My only complaint is that the facial animations run at 30fps. So even if the game is running at a smooth 100fps, the animations are still playing at 30fps. So cutscenes will play and pan in whatever fps your system will run at, but the facial animations are locked to 30fps. Feels weird, and I hope they fix that. But that's my only real complaint.

I really think this might be one of the best Halo campaigns in the series. If you are thinking about picking it up, do it. And maybe a box of tissues too.

it's aight