Recent reviews by Mister Commons

It's been a LONG time since a game's made me want to 100% it.
tl;dr- Fantastic game- enjoyed every second of it.

I didn't have any crashes during my entire solo playthrough, though I can't speak to the stability of the co-op experience, I haven't tried it yet.

I've got some pros and cons on my mind, as well as a couple things that kinda just made me debate with myself if its good or not- so I'll start with those.

-They keep it simple with the weapons, though it feels deliberately simple, and while I DO wish there was some variety- the pistol never felt unsatisfying.
-There are some airborne enemy types, it would be nice to have some sort of high-RPM or lock-on weapon to deal with them, but they don't move crazily enough to not be able to hit them with the precision of the pistol. They sort of gently waft around slowly.
-SCANNING SCANNING SCANNING- it was a simple, nearly-boring experience, but it nets you some cool upgrades and some funny little descriptions on the things you scan.
I had fun collecting them- it was kinda like figment hunting in Psychonauts.
Until I ran out of things to scan...more on that later.

Now for some things I know I liked-
-The absurd comedy, the absolute highlight of the story, with the wonderful idea to have live-action cutscenes.
Every time I was away from the base I was wondering what would happen in the next 'message' when I got back.
I quite literally had popcorn ready before I hit the teleport to base button.
-I never felt 'forced' to farm for upgrades or story stuff- any grinding that did happen was because I was trying to complete EVERY upgrade and challenge.
-The game looks beautiful, they keep a stylized look with a consistent art direction through everything you can look at or listen to. You can definitely use some screenshots as wallpapers here.
-The animations took some getting used to, but they grew on me. I showed my friends some gameplay and they had a similar first reaction. "What is that runcycle bro?!"
The way your character moves with the exaggerated swagger of a laid-off corporate employee, really makes you FEEL like you're stranded in the cosmos. (Seriously, I love the animations.)

Now, some things that I didn't like that much-
-The music, sounds great, gets grating. Sometimes just getting from point-A to point-B, I'd get spotted by one lil' guy standing in a field, and suddenly the combat music kicks in...and then it goes away as quickly as it came. Repeat that about 5 times as I'm getting to where I'm going, and you get the worst parts of a song stuck in your head to where you don't even want to hear the full song anymore. And while the music kicking in did help me notice when an enemy appeared, it wasn't ever a huge threat just out in the open world. Maybe if the combat music only kicked in during arena-like fights, it wouldn't have left such a repetitive impression.
-Now with the scanning, taking a scan of every little thing in sight was pretty satisfying. What wasn't satisfying was reaching those last couple items, it became really 'needle-in-a-haystack-ey'. I REALLY wish there was an upgrade for finding unscanned objects, which I find weird that there isn't one. There exists in the game already, an upgrade for your scan ping that highlights collectible upgrade materials, it even puts them on the map for you to come back to later which I think everyone would agree is more important to be able to find, so its not really a deal-breaker. The saving grace is the upgrades you can unlock by scanning a lot of objects, aren't dependent on getting EVERY LAST scannable thing. You can still 100% the achievements, including every upgrade in this game, without reaching 100% in scanned objects in your 'Kindex'.
-The chatter from the lil' drone fella. One thing, I'm VERY appreciative of the option to tone down the chattiness, but I wish there was a distinction between 'story chat' and 'gameplay chat'. I had it set to the one setting just above completely off, where it gives you a disclaimer that the story might not make sense if you cant hear the drone speak. And I was STILL getting hints for puzzles, leading to situations where I'd be staring at an issue, thinking for a second, and as I'm walking over to the solution, the drone chimes in and says "What if we try- -"
I would have shushed them if I could.
-lastly, no new game plus.
I wouldn't mind a shot at powerin' through the game with all my gadgets and gizmos unlocked, see how fast I can collect everything again.

I know the negatives are a little more wordy than the positives, but I really wanted to try and include both how it made me feel, and try and show how those pains could be alleviated.

In conclusion, I adore this game, and I'm excited to play it again whenever a friend asks to play.
It's left me waiting to see what these devs are capable of in the future, and will be watching and waiting for their next title.

To preface this, I'm not the best source of critique when it comes to games. I find enjoyment in games some would find more entertaining to click the uninstall button before actually deep-diving into any of the various game's intricacies.
Metal Gear Survive, Death Stranding, The early days of Fallout 76, as a few examples.

When It comes to highly anticipated games, I tend to hold back my excitement and try to 'water-down' my expectations, and a game with a reveal trailer as beautiful and hype as this game had, I couldn't help but be a bit worried about how ambitious this whole experience was beginning to sound as more details became available...
After all that wait, I can say personally, the wait was well worth it.

A few pros: A beautiful world, a magnificent soundtrack, fun and unique characters, an extremely addicting loot-shoot-explore loop, and some of the best voice acting for a narrator I've ever heard.

This is a first day-one experience I've taken a chance on in a long time, and I was quite worried about stability, but In all 20 hours of my playthrough, I never once crashed, and for an open world game, the glitches were few and far between.
Through my entire time playing I never encountered a bug more than a weird looking animation here and there, and never anything game-breaking.

The weapons felt great. Guns are quite powerful, but melee is just punchy and satisfying enough to make it worth using out of choice. The customization of these weapons felt like a game in and of itself! Looting more stuff to strap onto your piece and watching those numbers go up was all quite addicting.

A few cons: My absolute biggest concern about this game I found out about halfway through my playthrough that I could turn it off... The narrator.
The narrator chimes in at just about every chance he gets during normal gameplay.
Throw a punch, "THATS GOTTA HURT!" Shoot a gun, "Nice shot!" It starts to rain, "No way to avoid getting wet I suppose..."
I was more than a little annoyed when I found out you could tone down his jabbering in the settings so late, but I'm glad that's an option at all.
I don't have a problem with narration story telling, but narrating my moment to moment gameplay was a bit excessive.
A second con would have to be how empty the world feels sometimes. You can tell they tried dressing up the open fields with mount-animals and the like, but the fact that they're extremely static and almost always in groups of identical creatures in both size and color makes them looks unnatural. Just figured it to be a missed opportunity to show 'Mutant' creatures of all shapes, sizes, and colors.
The last con I can think of would be my least favorite feature of the game, the quests. Just about all of the quests felt like chores more than engaging tasks. A lot of back and forth, typically long distances, fetching random items of varying importance.

All in all this game is fun, but fun is subjective.
I was looking for an open world exploration game with loot to be had, and I was not disappointed.
If you're looking for an action packed story-driven 'Just Cause meets Fallout', you might not find what you're looking for.

Also, why the hecc you gotta' fling the cute things at the big scary monster... :c

"I wunna play cawa'dooty-shoot-a-man!"

Well now you can, Timmy.

With the amount of mods available for this title that span from star wars to game of thrones, you cant find a more thriving community just waiting for a sequel.

The single player experience is extremely in depth and and can become quite addicting.
The multiplayer is unparalleled, massive battles that can be as hectic or as organised as you make it out to be.