| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 4 | 8.00 |
| Overall | 8.00 |
|
I am a fan of Groundhog Day scenarios in video games, my favorite of all time is all about a repeated three day cycle. So when Arkane, who developed the fantastic Prey, announced a time loop game I was interested but hesitant because it looked a lot more like Dishonored than it did Prey, which I didn’t care as much for. Glowing reviews got me to try this game sooner rather than later and I can say I am happy to have played it because it is a great game but it definitely has some shortcomings that hold it back from reaching its full potential. The premise is great, you play Cole, a man who wakes up with no memory but sees messages written in the air telling him clues about his goals and past. He is on an island filled with masked lunatics and being run by a group of 8 prominent individuals, some scientists, some artists all batshit insane. He is in radio communication with Julianna who wants to hunt him down and kill him, this is where he discovers that if he dies he loops back to the beginning of the day. The goal is spend the day traveling through four different locations on the island which can be visited at one of four different times of day and piece together what’s happening, why it’s happening and how to break the loop. Ultimately the goal becomes killing all 8 of the visionaries in one day, how to do that becomes the main quest line. Deathloop starts off extremely intriguing and I enjoyed slowly building up Cole from being basically naked with no skills and weapons to a badass super powered death machine. Gameplay is similar to dishonored and prey, there is plenty of sneaking around, scavenging for weapons and health. Some levels have mines, cameras, turrets all of which can easily be hacked with a tool you always carry around. Enemy variety is not great, everyone is the same kind of person just with different load outs. So one guard might have a better shotgun than another but they all can be killed with a simple headshot. The only enemies to have special powers are the assassination targets, the visionaries, they each have one of the powers you can steal off their dead body. So the first 5-10 hours feels like there is a proper balance to sneaking and having to fight if you are caught. The world is dangerous as enemies can swarm Cole when alerted. Each new gun and power allows you to go deeper and explore more without risk of death. Guns come in the usual varieties and have different perks depending on its rarity level. You can also install mods that are found around the world by solving side quests or killing the visionaries. Personal mods can be found as well and these allow skills like extra health, silenced walking, being able to breathe toxic gas and so on. Every time a loop is completed you lose your inventory unless you infuse the item you want using residuum which is an energy source you absorb all over the world. Residuum is found on glowing objects around the world or by killing the visionaries or Julianna. You can then infuse the power, gun or mods you want so they stay on your inventory for all time, that’s how progress is made. The best upgrades are the powers which are heavily borrowed from Dishonored. There is the shift which is basically the teleport from dishonored. Karnesis which lets you force throw enemies around, always a fun choice. Invisibility, a power that links enemies together so if one dies all linked dies, and a shield buff round up the powers. Each of these have extra mods that can gathered by killing the ones with the power over and over. It’s great fun to use these powers as it opens up the game a ton. Shift alone let’s you find far more hidden routes into certain locations. The shield buff is super overpowered as you can turn that baby on and not get hurt as you just run around murdering everything in your path, oh and once you get the mod where inflicting damage keeps refilling the magic bar you become unstoppable. Throwing enemies around is always fun, can even be a stealthy alternative to kill who’s in your way. Basically as you can surmise once you have all these powers stealth doesn’t really seem like a good option anymore and the game gives you ZERO incentive to be stealthy. So at a certain point when your Cole is maxed out which will happen WAY BEFORE the game is over, you can basically Rambo through every level no problem. I actually really like the gunplay in this game, it’s snappy, fast paced, and the moves compliment the action very well but the enemies just don’t provide enough of a challenge. They do nothing but run at you or just take shots from afar. Every once in a while they throw a grenade. The only real danger is being overwhelmed by numbers, that’s it. This becomes a problem because it means the game becomes extremely repetitive in the combat department, the main obstacles to get around a level become more a nuisance rather than a legit challenge. This is a game where you will repeat levels over and over, I guess it’s good in a way that you don’t have to worry about being perfect every single time you play a level but at the same time a challenge would be nice. The wild card Deathloop has is the online invasion mechanic. As I mentioned Colt is in contact and constantly hunted by Julianna, someone who clearly knows what is going on and has a long history with you. Death doesn’t really mean much in this island so they have fun gloating about killing each other. If you play offline Julianna will invade your game controlled by basic enemy AI. The fun comes when you go online and another player will come into your game as Julianna and throw a huge wrench into your plans. The rules are simple, when she shows up she sets up a radio antenna that locks the exit of the level. As Colt you need to hack the antenna and escape or kill her. This introduces a great twist as now the Julianna player knows Colt has to reach the antenna so they can set traps and scout that area. As a Colt player I need to decide should I go after the antenna or just go about my business and maybe lure her out. There are many factors in Colt’s favor in these encounters, for one he can die three times in any one mission before he fails, Julianna gets one life. It takes much much longer to build up Julianna than it does Colt so most of the time Colt will be much more powerful. I think the system works, if Julianna was too powerful the game would be a nightmare, imagine having a set plan and then this person just enters your game, wipes you out and now you need to start the day all over again. I have had well over 20 invasions and died once (and it was a worthy death, this guy was really good), this is fine, I don’t want to die but it’s always exciting when this unknown threat enters. Finally this super easy game becomes somewhat interesting and a wrench is thrown into my plans. Granted most of the time the invader is terrible but every once in a while you match wits with a strategic player and now you are both setting traps, sniping each other in a big cat and mouse game across a whole level, when you have a good match it’s brilliant. As Julianna there are some issues, mainly the wait to connect to a match. When you pick to invade you first enter a loadout screen while it tries to connect. Unlike Cole who gains skills by finding them in the world, Julianna only gains skills by ranking up, and it takes many many invasions to grow. Problem is it can take 5 minutes or more to connect sometimes, no one is going to sit there waiting that long for something with no real reward. Now I love invading others, it’s a great rush and there is zero pressure on you, if I die as an invader nothing happens, I just invade someone else. The Colt player has a bunch to lose and that makes it fun knowing you are making it a nightmare for them. The enemies in the level only react to Cole so I make sure to use them as my ally. I have only won 3 times out of like 15 but hey I have fun trying to hunt. If only it was easier to find matches, I assume many players just turn the setting offline (offline is default as well) as they don’t want to risk the death. The best aspect of the game is exploring the game world and piecing together all the mysteries of the island and how to get the perfect run. There are secrets everywhere, I constantly was uncovering something new that I wanted to immediately figure out when and where do I solve the puzzle. For instance there was a hidden room in a cave and inside was a man behind a glass that traps you in the room and feeds gas to kill you. Now that you know this you can plan ways to sabotage him on a later run. There are mysterious doors that require a certain phrase to open. You learn through files that there is a hidden radio broadcast in the morning, so if you find a radio you get some strange code which if you are observant you will figure out what it’s referencing. There are a bunch of mini games to try out at different points in the game and ways to cheat them by messing with them earlier in the day. I loved exploring every inch of these locations at every time of day. The game keeps things interesting by having certain locations open only at certain times. Visit Updaam at noon and one of the visionaries opens this big castle like area that he turned into a deadly game of cat and mouse. One of the psychos is doing an experiment in the afternoon so you can infiltrate the lab and try to kill her in different ways, deus ex style. There is a massive party that opens up at the end of the day again offering really fun opportunities to kill the target there. Figuring out when to and how to kill everyone is great fun BUT I feel the game wanted the battles with the visionaries to be like boss battles but many times the first time I encountered them the encounter ended up being very sloppy. The problem is they can be killed just like anyone, so sometimes i would just run around their area and shoot them in the face a few times and down they go. The game keeps a log (in the style of a string chart) of how to set up the perfect day, each visionary has its own section and for a few of them that sloppy encounter would unlock parts of the chart I didn’t do. All of a sudden I realized I was supposed to first find some code, and manipulate computer to lure them out or something but instead I skipped all that and bullied my way to them. Some of them have these elaborate traps and again I feel I broke the game by not doing what the devs wanted me to do, so I bypassed them. In later runs I would purposefully do what the chart said just to see what was supposed to happen but it would have been nice if the game made it so it was more clear. Also these targets should have been elaborate boss battles, but as I said you can easily cheese or brute force kill them. Also it’s a damn shame that this game doesn’t allow the player to figure out how to kill everyone on their own, it’s dictated by the game and that one route must be followed. The quest menu needs to be criticized because it’s horrible. The chart for the main targets works well, there is also one for special weapons of which there are only four. For side quests though trying to keep track of everything you find is such a mess. Everything you find gets added to a list that is broken down by location and time. Problem is many quests require going to multiple locations at different times so trying to remember which point on the list matches with another gets annoying. Compound that with some quests having codes and key info in many of the files, these files are all thrown together in one giant list that can’t be filtered. So if you need a code from a file from earlier you just need to go file by file and hope to find it. The grand majority of side quests give you a high end weapon or mod, which by about hour 10 you will have all the mods and guns you ever need, so all rewards from side quests become utterly pointless. Thankfully I enjoyed many of these quests, I love secrets and mini games but it’s a shame it doesn’t contribute anything unique. The story of Deathloop is mostly told through files which is a shame because there seemed to be plenty of opportunity for fleshed out characters and a mystery with solid answers. Instead every character is just a caricature of some generic egomaniac. The visionaries do almost nothing but a few lines of being a clear arrogant ass; you learn more through audio recordings. The only meaningful relationship in the entire game is Colt and Julianna and even that is just playful banter back and forth with a little twist by the end. There are so many mysteries brought forward by the game, where are they, how did the time loop start, why can Colt remember each day and other can’t, what’s going on in the outside world, when are they and so on. Some clues are given but there isn’t ever much revelations and the ending is pathetic, almost a non ending. The voice acting from Cole and Julianna is good stuff, almost like a grindhouse style banter, I laughed at a lot of their exchanges. It’s a damn shame so little is done with them. Graphically Deathloop has the same art style as all Arkane games, it’s more cartoonish then realistic. The game runs smoothly on a ps5 but nothing really stands out. Even the levels are kind of bland, you’d think a game that has you replaying the same levels a ton of times would make them visually memorable. The music isn’t memorable in any way and you will hear the same alert music over and over and over, if never changes. Throughout my play this game froze on me about 6 times, I don’t know why, it’s annoying especially when you lose the progress you did in that level. At least the game is meaty, I spend a good 20 hours to do mostly everything. Deathloop is a great game marred by some aspects that hold it back, mainly the difficulty balance with how rewards are given out and some poor menus that make tracking quests annoying. It has the spirit of a Deus Ex like game, exploring the locations are a thrill and with so many mysteries abound I was enthralled. The combat and skills are fun to mess around with but I wish the enemies had better variety and AI. The online invasions are the extra ingredient that makes it memorable in ways that say something like Dishonored wasn’t for me. Arkane has something here, with more freedom and complex enemies Deathloop could be very special, for now though it’s a fun game that’s absolutely worth a shot if the premise intrigues you. |
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Posted by Dvader Fri, 08 Oct 2021 03:08:09
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