Dvader said:

I feel you have this backwards. Real life family and such I get the embarrassment, they see you daily, they will be face to face with comments, that could be scary. But us? We know your deepest darkest secrets already lol, there is nothing that can be embarrassing, have you read the stuff we talked about over the years. This should be the safe space to try out ideas, we are always here to support. Whether you want to share with us early or not, you should pursue this.

.....        ....

So MS shadow dropped Hifi Rush yesterday, the new Tango Gameworld game from the director of the evil within 2.  What an awesome surprise and the game looks stunning with that artstyle and being a fun action game. Played two and a half levels of, about 3 hours. This totally feels like a long lost PS2 era action game, which I do long for. The art style and presentation is phenomenal, the world and it's colors pop. The beat based combat works well as there are so many tutorials to explain how it works, maybe too many as the first level just feels like tutorial after tutorial, issue is I'm just not that good at following the beat. That's ok you can still play the game just fine missing the beat but you won't do extra damage or get high scores which is what I love to go for. There are a bunch of aides the game has for you to stick to the beat but I guess I'm musically challenged. When I do hit a groove it feels great but most of my time I’m hovering around 50%.

So the combat overall is really good, nice enemy variety. Constant new attacks, skills and enemy types are introduced. It's all one weapon and basic combos but you get your usual crowd control attacks, heavy attacks, knock into the air attacks to juggle and so on. Problem for me is when the action gets too intense I revert to my instincts of just mashing buttons and dodges which means I do worse at the most important times. I'm sure in time I will get better, I really can't wait to replay the levels for high scores I think the combat will really shine then.


I have fought two bosses so far and they have been great. Lots of different attacks, they have multiple phases that keeps the fight interesting (very generous checkpoints too).


The part that bums me out the most is the level design, and this maybe a remnant of old school design, it's extremely linear and mostly one note. It has some "platforming" in the sense that you have to do some jumps to move around but in a game about rhythm I thought there would be crazy platforming musical obstacle courses and there is none of that. There is zero challenge to anything outside the combat and the combat to me feels to spread out. Combat also always occurs when you enter a space that looks like a combat arena, it's usually a well defined square or circle area and you get locked in, I can always tell ok it's combat time, there are little surprises in the game world. There is also nothing really to look for outside gears (money) and some hidden power ups. Most action games have hidden fights, or challenge rooms to discover, nothing here so far. I find myself wanting to get to the next combat room.


So lack of interesting levels, no setpiece moments yet. It's just fight room of enemies, go through linear area, fight enemies, and repeat. Luckily the combat is great but it isn't top tier. The presentation, music, and fun vibe really help elevate the overall package, so I'm enjoying it a bunch. I see it averaging low to mid 8s, could be higher if the rest of the game gets inventive with the levels and combat keeps evolving into something even better.

Its on Game Pass. Yay!

travo said:

travo said:

And Goldeneye on Game Pass. Let me play this and fondly recall how awesome   accept that its doesnt play as well as I remember.

gamingeek said:

there's no ballsack?

I never noticed.