Recent reviews by FancyThat

I don't know what's worse... ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ myself because I'm being shot at or because I got hit by a stray .50 CAL that wasn't even aimed at me.

Forever Winter is a game held up by atmosphere and aesthetics. It's incredibly buggy, malformed, and not quite well put together, much like the Scavs that you play as. However, what we have now is incredibly fun, even without proper weapon or economy balancing. The game shows it's potential within the first hour and may very well hook you in that time.

The development team has within a single week after launch proven that they are passionate about being better, about the community they've garnered, and most importantly, about the game. I've very excited to see the future of this bleak future!

I can't aim to save my life, but I love it! The map editor is pretty robust as well, if not a little clunky

This is the logical conclusion to real world Roller Derby.

Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!

It's like if R6: Siege and CS:GO had a baby, but CS:GO was also having an affair with Time Crisis.

Played a match where upwards of 6 of us were doctors. We all just roamed together, constantly saying "Doctor" at each other. When it was down to the wire, we all just attacked the one person alive that wasn't a doctor and won the round.

11/10 Would lose my medical license again.

Purchased the game twice; once on Xbox, then again on steam because I wanted to use my T16000m setup. While it accepted some input from the flight stick, I was completely unable to use the throttle. I figured: "Alright, whatever. I'll just use the built in throttle on the stick itself."

HAHAHA NOPE!

This game has extremely poor HOTAS support and appears to only take inputs from a single device. Guess I'm sticking with console and refunding the PC version since there's no point in owning a second copy.

The game overall was fun, though nowhere near perfect. There were times I got bored, or others when I felt frustrated. The story isn't really much to talk about, but for what it is, it is interesting enough to keep the ball rolling. Customization of your avatar took a bit to get interesting, but it was fun once you get it going. I do recommend this game, but not with a lot of merit.

Gameplay
The mechanics of playing the game were relatively solid, though sometimes inconsistant or outright working against you. Controlling the avatar and modern Sonic is probably the best and most consistant. While they do have unique attributes and abilities, switching between the both of them will never be too confusing. Switching play to Classic Sonic on the other hand is a pain, but not because of poor controls; the controls for these segments are solid, fluid, and easy to get the hang of just as the games from way back. The problem in lies that his momentum, controls, and playstyle are so vastly different from the other too that it's jarring until you adjust, which again isn't that difficult, just annoying.

The pain most inlies with playing as modern Sonic though. His high speed works against the homing attack and ironically the boost ability on occassion. When doing the homing attack, all momentum is lost and it can be difficult to regain speed, and depending on the level design could mean death. The boost is a problem because it can lead to you vastly overshooting a landing, running into a wall and killing momentum, launching you into an unseen hazard, and a few other issues. The issue with the boost though seems more to come from level design, though, which I will discuss later.

Playing as your avatar is the probably the best out of the three, overall. They move just slow enough that your abilities don't stop your movement to the point of no recovery, yet fast enough to speed through the environment (when possible). The moveset changes based on your Wispon and can open up a lot of different play styles as well as paths on levels. However they do accelerate the slowest, so if you find yourself on/in a hazard that causes damage on contact, don't expect to get out of it unless it's small.

The one big consistant problem that you will see, especially when using a controller, is that sidestepping on the rails or on on foot is miserable. The game tells you to do this either by pointing the stick left or right, or by using the left and right bumpers on the controller. The bumpers don't register quickly, so if you need to sidestep twice in quick succession, you won't. Doing so with the stick is so rediculously sensitive that you'd end up doing it twice, maybe even thrice. All this makes dodging hazards difficult and tedious.

Another issue is that the homing attack has to be "aimed" now, as in it only works for targets in front of the character. Now this can be nice in that you don't accidentally go for something behind you and ruin your flow. This can also be a problem since there could be two lines of targets and sometimes you might not be facing the one that you'd like to go to. The targetting is also extremely inconsistent, even the enemies your ARE facing won't get targetted and you'd end up jumping and not doing anything. It's rarely a life or death problem, but geez it's irritating.

Level Design
Dear lord, this is awful. So before I start, let me ramble. A lot of people say the Sonic games are about speed and momentum. I say that's not the case now, and it never has been. The games have always been about flow. Being able to smoothing go through the entire level, not necessarily with consistant speed, but with consistant movement.

The levels in this game work almost consistantly against you when trying to maintain flow. If there is platforming, they are spaced inconsistantly so that you can't judge your required speed on the fly. While going top speed on one jump might be good, the very next platform will be too close, meaning you'd have to stop entirely to make the proper jump. And no, you can't just slow down and make the jump, you do have to stop entirely because the platform you landed on is too short for you too keep moving. Other times, perhaps there is an enemy standing somewhere on far way platforms. You use your homing attack as modern Sonic or the Avatar to destroy it, but now you lost all momentum and the platform is still a bit away. The Avatar likely won't make it, and Sonic probably won't either since controlling him midair is nigh impossible. Even playing as Classic Sonic, the levels are problems because the levels don't seem to be designed for him either and the only improvement he has above the others is that jumping on an enemy doesn't entirely kill your forward momentum.

What hurts the most is that in parts where you get the best flow (with any character) it's left to "cutscenes". No skill, no control, and in some cases you don't even get a quick time even. Nothing. You just watch the player character go about with you sitting at the controller, not doing anything and not feeling accomplished.

Did I say momentum enough in this review? I don't think I have...

The Avatar
The initial customization is nice, but limited. You don't get a lot of options and you're character will come out looking bland. Even after the first handfuls of unlocks, it's not great. It does start to get interesting about half way in though once you start to get gear that match nicely together. It's fun trying to get just the right costume for your personality.

Visual Presentation
As with pretty much any Sonic game, everything is usually made quite beautifully. The backgrounds were wonderful to look at and the tracks were fun to watch zoom by, given you could actually keep the flow going. There is the occassional oddity in design where something might be out of place or just bland to look at, but overall it's nice.

The graphics are nice, they get the job done. Aliasing is oddly inconsistant, sometimes appearing for no reason. For most people, this won't be an issue, but to others it might be. I don't know. Framerate does tend to drop every now and then, but weirdly enough not where you expect it. You could be in the center of a Metropolis stage or perhaps in a particularly noisy boss fight or in-engine cutsene and get a smooth 60 frames. However, when you seem to have sheer nothingness on screen, then BAM!! It drops! Never by too much, but it's just weird.

Also, in the sidescrolling segments, the camera will stutter to keep up with the player. Doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, dear lord you might lose your momentum from how jarring it is.

Music and Sound
What happened to the old guys, Crush40? Did Sega end a contract with them? Or do they just not sound the same anymore? Either way, the use of lyrics in the music was way too much and sometimes interferred with dialogue, or more often then not, just didn't fit with the moment. And the lyrics themselves? Well.... They felt way to literal. Heck, they could have been musically narrating exactly what I was doing and it'd probably feel exactly the same as what it is now.

Sound effects were weird. They were either so loud that it detached itself from the environment, or so quiet that it had no punch. Minor problem, but is noticable.

Story
It's a sonic game, don't expect art. Expect an adventure. But wait... where is the adventure? I didn't feel like I was turning the tides to a losing battle, just an upbeat "Hey we're always winning, even when we're losing" kind of battle. And we probably could have gone a few more levels without modern Sonic. It would have added more to the "We've lost all hope" feeling. That and Classic Sonic, while fun, was completely unnecesarry. That's just my opinion, though.

Even with it's cheese, though, it did keep things moving along and relevant. So yeah. Not much here.

This game has confused controls. No, not confusing; I do in fact mean confused.

-Timing for reversals is inconsistant. It would say "too early" when I'm sure I pressed to late, say "too late" when I know for a fact that I pressed too early, or give me no response at all and fail the reversal. Hell, there are even times when I would flat out NOT do anything and it would lead to a successful reversal.

-Button mapping is miserable. Now, looking at the control scheme and the move set up, in theory it is actually well thought out and feels good. Ability to move from a strike to a grapple to a finisher to what have you is smooth and nothing feels like it's getting in the way of itself... That is however, if it feels like working. Often times, I'd try to perform some kind of strike, only for my character to poorly attempt a finisher or something else not even remotely close to the button combination I pressed. And the rest of the time, he would just stand there and not do anything. Very rarely would he perform the actions I input.

-The tutorial is sparse. If you are a newcomer to the series, or this is the first game you played in a long time in the WWE line up, then be prepared to look at the input menu A LOT. Don't get me wrong, the tutorial prompts come up when contextually appropriate. Once you complete that tutorial successful (and sometimes not even that) that's all you get. There is no mode to walk you through the gameplay so you know you have it down. It tosses you in, gives you some pointers, and that's it.

-The menus have input lag. I've done some digging and thankfully this is a problem that only myself and a handful of others are experiencing, but come on. It's a menu. You press up, an sometimes it might take a second to actually register. Want to make a small adjustment to some option with a slider? TOO BAD, IT'S ALL OR NOTHING!

-Everything feels off. This is because this game is taking a bit more of a "simulation" approach than previous titles. There's nothing wrong with that, but momentum is weird, hits feel like they don't connect as hard as they should, throws feel slower and more awkward. Again, everything just feels off. Like a little too fast, or a little too slow, or too heavy or light. It's always something.

-MyCareer is broken as hell. Going into my Week 1 match, the fight started; I got tossed out of the ring pretty damn early; fade to black; I won?!?! I am by no means a good player at this game, so I know when I get my ass kicked. Even worse is when the match starts and I take a few steps towards my oppenent. Neither of us do anything, then suddenly fade to black. I won again.... Okay???

-If MyCareer breaks then a quick match might just break too, apparently. With the above problem, I just assumed it was for "story telling purposes" or some such. I got made and decided to just play a quick 1v1 from the main menu. The game loaded up, everyone had their shnazzy intros, aaaaaaand fade to black. I won........

There's a lot to have in this game. I'll give it that.

-MyPlayer customization is quite deep. You have a lot of options to choose from for body, hair, clothing, behaviour, moveset, and a whole lot more. And that's before everything is even unlocked! 2k18 brings a lot of quirky goodness that everyone will love. If you want to make that freakish Smurf Danny Devito/Goku hybrid you've always dreamed of, you have the freedom.

-There's a bit of fun distraction in MyCareer. I don't mean the bad kind, but all the little extra fillings that you can do in between matches. You can talk to other characters and learn more about the current events of the game, choose from multiple matches to go into, do a photo op for your Goku Devito and whatnot. It's not a lot, but it's nice.

-There are a lot of things to do besides playing with Goku Devito. Personally, I haven't played in online yet, but even so there is a lot to do in the game. There's a rather good list of matchs from the main menu as well as the TLC line within the MyPlayer tab. Don't ask much about it from me though, because I mostly just played the quick matches and MyCareer so far.

Oh boy, this is a fun one.

-TURN DOWN YOUR RESOLUTION!! Nothing more than 1920x1080. The game likes to boot in 4k and it's not optimized for it. The graphics options are a bit thin, so good luck because the game doesn't seemed to be optimized for any resolution at all.

-It looks nice, but hitting that photorealism. In this day in age, high quality graphics is to be expected. The problem is that it doesn't look any better than the mildly cartoonish appearance of before and opts for even more realistic textures. It all ends up looking rather off putting, especially when you notice that everyone looks wet. And no, turning down the "body oil" option for your wrestler won't make them look any less wet.

-Animations are snappy and awkward, and the intense motion blur doesn't help. It's kind of jarring to see your Goku Devito sitting down and moping to suddenly (and without much transition) stand up, throwing a punch as the cloth physics of his suit start flailing about not knowing what to do.

-Animations straight up break occassionally. Granted, it's rare.... But every so often, it's fun seeing Goku Devito's arm go through his torso as his head reenacts the characters from ME:A. I wish I had some way to have recorded them. Would've been fun to put on youtube.

-EVERYTHING CLIPS IN EVERYTHING. Now, I get it. The geometry of a model won't always line up with its collission, but when I see Fandango standing inside the ref, who in turn has the ropes going through him, then I supsect something is wrong.

This game has a lot of work put into some places, but the time put in some aspects shows in the lack of time put into others. This game is confusing to play, confusing to run, and confusing to operate. I want to like this game, honest. But too much is wrong with it. I'm sorry Goku Devito, but I'm not going to recommend this.

RAUCKET LAWNCHAIR