Recent reviews by EXLR

Quite a gem for a virtual novel series. It was the most "unexpected" game seriesI might have played in the last four years. If you're reading this, I suggest giving the series a try. The first one is free to begin with.

I played Mask of Arcadius years and years ago, bought Liberation Day when it released but ultimately forgot to play it after getting busy in life. I saw this game release and decided to replay MoA again and finally go through LD. Suffice to say, as someone who doesn't play a lot of anime games, much less virtual novels. This has exceeded every bit of expectations I've had.

Without getting into much spoilers. I expected this series to just be an anime-ish space opera with obvious influences from Mass Effect and other games. However, it has great character development and tangible relationships. Each character has their own distinct "trope" or personality akin to anime. It's very flexible and wide in regards to the characters, and Kayto Shields isn't a 2-dimensional black or white character. He is relatable in the sense of fighting a loosing battle (or war) but determined to see it through with his trusted crew and friends. The weight of command apparent on his shoulders.

The story is bonkers for a virtual novel. The amount of plot twists (from even the first game) is ridiculous in a good way. A lot of them were unexpected. It's like if you made Mass Effect into an anime and put time travel & time paradoxes into it. The pacing was good, and the characters in this one are even more fleshed out than the past.

In terms of gameplay. I liked most, possibly 90% of the changes. It shows that they're innovating and not wanting to do the same thing for their VN, things such as the 3D-space, the momentum system, and the inclusion of actual weapons & sight range. The only criticism I can point out is that some of the "Temple puzzles" are agonizingly slow, and count on whether or not you've upgraded your Ryders' move & hit points.

Some minor spoilers ahead, major spoilers will be blacked out

However, not everything is perfect. For those who come from the previous games. There are some "issues" with the story. First off, not everyone agrees with the six-year time-skip because of the implications this has had with Shields and his mental psyche. The romance of the game has also been "somewhat" cut by essentially focusing more on the grander story. Shields seemingly broken by his past experience in MoA and LD, most of the girls' affection for you built up over those six-seven years also faded in time. There are also no romantic scenes, while this can be a 50-50 for some players. It beats the point of approaching any end-route because all you get for increasing to 10/10 hearts is a bonus scene for whichever girl you focus on. I really hope the next game opts for a more balanced story-telling approach. I still enjoyed my time building up relationship with all of the characters and seeing their "arcs"

The characters such as Lynn have great "story arcs" and in my opinion hers is the best. Her discovery of human emotions, how she copes with it throughout, and her complicated relationship with Shields is something I would like to be explored further in the future. No spoilers, but I'm glad they went with the route she had at the end. Others are equally as interesting, wherein I put Asaga and Sola as a tie for second. I was emotionally attached to all of these characters over the course of the series, and that's a sign of good storytelling.

At least the developers have hinted that there will be a next game. The story is not over, however, it will take a long time until the next game.. it took them nearly eight years from Liberation Day to Captain's Return. I'd like to believe that this is due to the switch from the old RenPy engine to GameMaker. Here's hoping that it doesn't take as long.

This review doesn't cover everything, but I'd give it a 9/10 for the story alone. In terms of gameplay I'd give it a 7/10.

Farming moment.

Update 23/11/2023: I still like the farming.

February 2022, the game is great but it still crashes.

The game crashes every half an hour to an hour at most. Save every time you get to a new area. I've only played nearly 3 hours upon writing this review but it's crashed every single hour.

It's a great game, it's BioShock 2, what else do you want? The remaster is great for newer computers, higher resolutions and framerate caps but this seemingly makes the game unstable in the sense that again, it crashes every hour or so. If you want to actually play this game without pulling your hair out every time. Just play the original that comes with purchasing this.

Word of advice and I'm not sure if this can be the same for everyone else: the game tends to crash more if you're going through shops, gene banks, gatherer's gardens etc... basically anything involving a UI. So I advice to save before accessing a shop if you're really paranoid.

3 steps forward, 43 steps backward. That sums up Halo under 343's guidance over the last decade. Truly a horrible and abysmal live service experience, Halo is dead. My favorite childhood franchise is dead and there's nothing else to say about it.

Game is COMPLETELY dead, the developer does not communicate with the community anymore. I forgot I even had this game in my library, I played this back in 2019 when three of my friends and I were looking for co-op shooters to play together. We were disappointed to say the least and never touched it again. After delving into some of the community's reviews, discussions, and the history of this game's development and it's developers. It's safe to say that the developer has abandoned this project and most likely ran off with everyone's money.

I'm sorry, but it's been years. There have been successful early access games before of equal or better quality. But somehow, with nearly nine years of development. This developer has failed to bring a game worth playing that aren't just fancy showcases disguised as levels. The enemies are completely rudimentary, these "robots" charge and melee you as soon as they see you and that's it. Levels look like they came out of a game from 2008 in terms of both design and geometry. The graphics themselves are heavily reliant on bloom and cheap lighting and shadowing tricks. The whole selling point of this game was co-op but they somehow make it a point in their updates to focus on PvP.

The worst part of this "game" is how long the developer takes to make SIMPLE mechanics, ever seen a game where they proudly boast off "lean mechanics" in a so called "major update"? Yeah, this game does that. It took them ALL those years to add lean mechanics, woo! ♥♥♥♥ off.

How dead is this game? As of writing this review, the last activity from this developer was on Oct 2019. Go buy a big mac or a game worth your time and money.

THESE ARE MY OVERALL OPINIONS OF THE GAME, AFTER SIX YEARS OF BEING RELEASED. KEEP IN MIND, THIS IS MY EXPERIENCE AND I CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR EVERYONE, BUT I'VE TRIED TO BE UNBIASED AND AS IMPARTIAL AS POSSIBLE. I HAVE NOT PLAYED THIS GAME UNTIL NOW DUE TO THE MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE PRICE IT HAS EVEN SIX YEARS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

TLDR; Game is bland, repetitive, and overall, just another re-skin carbon copy of the Call of Duty franchise. Its still better than Infinite Warfare, and not as cheesy. But its definitely not worth the price it currently has. Wait for an 80% sale and then try it out. Don't expect multiplayer to work, and definitely don't expect a campaign longer than 8 hours.

PRICE OF THE GAME, HOW LONG IT TAKES & OVERALL FEEL
As of April 21st, 2020. The game is still too expensive and highly priced for a game that came out six years ago, don't bother buying this game at full price, wait for 80% off like I did. I'm not necessarily a big fan of Call of Duty games, I haven't been ever since Modern Warfare 3, and that was before Steam. Overall, Advanced Warfare touches a lot of the "cliche" and overused formula of Call of Duty. Run & Gun, take cover, push this button, wait for the AI to open the door, and all of that fancy stuff they've had since 2010. The game is fun to go through in terms of its campaign, the first half is quite well done but the second half devolves into a typical "hero becomes villainous megalomaniac bent on doing what he thinks is right" and at this point, you know that the guy you worked for is the enemy. The guy being the Atlas CEO Jonathan Irons. Ain't that a surprise? The game takes about 7-10 hours to complete on a first run, possibly 12-14 if you try to collect the intel.

THE CAMPAIGN, GUNPLAY, AND HEADS UP DISPLAY
The campaign is serviceable, gunplay is great and the usage of holographic HUDs are a nice touch instead of the occasional display on the entire screen. There is no "HUD" per se, everything is displayed thanks to advanced or futuristic technology. Your ammo and other on-screen prompts such as grenade counts are displayed on your gun, and objective markers are simple enough to not clutter the screen. However this can become a big problem in a way for people who don't notice the ammo counter and suddenly realize they're out of ammo after a brief firefight. The hardest thing to look after are your grenades, you'll go through 'em pretty quickly in this game. You'll attempt to utilize the "see-through walls" threat grenades, and the handy heat-seeking smart grenades in a single firefight and then realize you're out of grenades for the next area.

THE AI ENEMIES AND ALLIES
The AI is still pretty s**t and that's because they've overused the same engine for a near six or seven years leading up to Advanced Warfare. AI will simply spawn around a corner through trigger scripts laid down by the devs, and you can easily gun down squads of enemies because they're conga-lining towards you or to get to nearby cover. The enemy AI are absolutely CRAP. You'd think that by 2014, Activision would've found a way to somehow let the enemies utilize cover and their SMALL, BOXED IN ARENA-LIKE combat environments better, but no. Enemies and their gigantic heads will peak out of cover enough for you to be able to headshot them from across the way, they will run out of cover seemingly to run into another cover that is LESS formidable than the one they were at or to give you a chance to shoot them outright. This is in EVERY difficulty. The allied AI are no better, they'll be at least 10 feet away from another enemy having a small firefight over cover, and will be unable to kill the enemy unless they get near them enough for a melee kill or if you're moving into another area. You will clearly see allied AI PURPOSELY MISSING their shots. Special forces everyone, this is obviously for gameplay and balance purposes, but the allied AI is USELESS.

THE LEVEL DESIGNS
The level designs are nice from an aesthetic standpoint, practically though in a modern game setting. They are boring, Advanced Warfare still uses the same principles as the older games. Its the same arena-like combat areas where enemies will charge straight at you. Go from cover to cover, regain health, shoot, move forward. It gets ultimately boring. After you play the first time, you will most likely never do a second playthrough. Its too easy to figure out where enemies will come from, there's tons of doors, balconies, or straight up open areas in front of you where an enemy will obviously come from. The level design is good, but boring and too predictable.

THE WEAPON DESIGNS & THE EXOSUIT UPGRADE SYSTEM
Re-skinned and re-named versions of modern day weapons, given a futuristic aesthetic and given more accuracy bonuses due to MUH EXOSUITS. You can judge it for yourself, there's the AK-12, the ARX-160, you name it. They're silhouettes of modern day guns, just re-skinned and renamed for aDvANCed WArfAre. The guns are proper, but if you're playing multiplayer. Expect being able to gun down legions of enemies with any kind of weapon, because the recoil is non-existent and the accuracy is totally on point. This is also thanks to the "upgrade system" which allows you to upgrade your exo-suit with less flinching, more accuracy, less weapon recoil, more health, etc... which beats the purpose of an actual challenge even on higher difficulties.

THE MULTIPLAYER
You'd think a Call of Duty game from 2014 would have at least a hundred players in 2020? No, Modern Warfare 2 & 3 still have more players than this garbage of a game. The multiplayer is dead, Exo Zombies will keep connecting and keep sending you back with a prompt saying "Unable to connect to Advanced Warfare online services at this time" and this is the same for Exo Co-op. You are FORCED to play solo on Exo Zombies and Co-op because the multiplayer services apparently no longer work for Advanced Warfare, but the multiplayer service for Modern Warfare 2 & 3 STILL WORK after 11 long years. Don't even try to play regular multiplayer. If you have DLCs enabled and installed, then you're in for a rough ride. You can't play multiplayer with players who don't own the same DLCs as you, and the same goes for them. So you will NEVER find a game at this point.

5/10

Top 10 Anime Redemption Arcs

Regardless of what you thought about this game during launch, its all been ironed out and improved, Hello Games and Sean Murray kept his word, and released *free* expansion updates and treated their customers right. They never gave up, EA should take notes.

Took us 3 hours to finish the first level, amounting to six retries. My first game in GTFO was cut short by my friend not knowing what to do, accidentally shined the long range flashlight at a sleeper at point blank and proceeded to merrily f**k us as we get trapped by the first security door and the corner. That game only took 2 minutes.

10/10 would get annihilated in under 2 minutes again.

I'm looking at you, Recon . You hecked us with your flashlight!

after nearly a year since halo reach released, still a masterpiece my dudes

First off, the game is quite good in terms of gameplay. The concept of colonizing Mars had always been a goal of ours since the early 80s. The game has a lot of seemingly grounded but still semi-futurist conceptualizations of technology used in the game, such as the usage of both solar power and "stirling" generators. While stirling generators did exist in the early 1800s in the industrial age with the usage of heat, friction and air. It adds a futuristic twist by using the same principle in Surviving Mars, by generating heat or thermal power in modern fashion.

But enough about history lessons. The game is incredibly fun to play, but not in its current-vanilla state. Don't get me wrong, the game itself IS very good, however the bugs or faulty quirks in the game make it super hard even on the easiest difficulty which Haemimont Games could've easily fixed. Some of these "faulty quirks" include how badly the colonists are programmed that make it seem like they aren't humans. "Oh, I couldn't enter a medical facility or a social place? Too bad, I'm just gonna break down after years of training and jeopardize the whole mission with my completely ruined sanity just because I can't use or enter something."

Another flaw in the game is its colonist specialization system. You'd think after years of scientific ingenuity, technological progress, and human-social advancements that the colonists would somehow be able to work efficiently in their own specializations without complaining about something that's completely one-sided or outright childish. Like I said, the inability to enter a social or service building once even though they can enter it literally a few minutes later once space is available or at least QUEUE for it like you'd do on Earth as a sensible human being and not break down into sanity-breaking tears.

Overall, the game is great. However, there are faulty quirks as I've said that could've easily been fixed or remedied. Such as the faulty programming of how colonists behave, it makes the game not fun at all once you put in a few hours worth of progress. Little problems from colonists at first are manageable but once you get more, they become problematic to the point that a simple breakdown will cascade further down, couple that with the game's unbearable natural disasters then you have a colony worth five to six hours crumbling down in a matter of a few minutes.

If you want the experience to AT LEAST be manageable, you must buy the DLCs as it remedies some of these issues. But not everyone can afford the game and its ridiculous amount of post-launch DLC. It is Paradox Interactive after all and they do love post-launch paid content that "improves" and fixes the game. Its also suggested to do the tutorial first and then hop onto creative mode. Simply doing a colony from scratch in a new game will just have you raging over the fact you just watched six hours of progress dwindle down to nothing because of faulty game mechanics. And I'm not the only one telling you this, there are other reviews out there citing these faulty quirks and issues.