Recent reviews by [wB] RustyRazor

I purchased SE yeeears ago, I think even before the DLC's started to come out, and even though I'm not playing it 24/7, I always come back to it. The concept and ambience really do scratch that space survival/exploration/tinkering itch I get every now and then

(UPDATED June 2023)

A lot has changed since update 1.2.0.0

I:RR is not EFT, mind you—I've not played EFT myself, but I know from friends who have, that the pain, health and ammo management work a little bit differently, or, in the case of I:RR, have been simplified.

For example, while in EFT you can load multiple types of rounds in the same magazine, in I:RR you can not (or couldn't, last time I tried), and medical care is limited to pain, bleeding and health: there are no broken bones per se, just health damage. On that regard, there are certain similarities, like the stamina management, the armor tiers of "protection", and how they are able to protect you (or not) against the bullet's "piercing" tiers upon impact.

Notably, you can now repair your used (or looted) gear. It costs money (but IRL it would, as well, even if you're quite handy with the DIY) and allows you to use gear that you otherwise would just have discarded away in the previous versions—this applies to weapons as well, as they now seem to decrease in durability the more prolonged their use. You don't get to see the weapon's durability value unless you inspect it in the inventory, but I noticed you can now see the end of the barrel turning red as it overheats during prolonged firing.

Weapons: they added variety to the previous stock, I can't say I have explored all the available attachments, but I can say it definitely scratches the tinkering itch for the gun nuts out there >:3 — In this update you can also use a workbench at your safehouse, to mix and match the available weapons/parts in your stash, or the market, and even save weapon presets so re-crafting your favorite gun will become less of a hassle than the previous versions (where you had to go part by part, gun by gun). A nice QoL addition indeed.

There had been a long-standing community concern about the audio design. I've played a couple missions and I feel it has been addressed quite nicely, and it makes now more *audiological* sense to identify where the threats are coming from, and how far are they. I think the bullet impact sounds have changed a bit as well, but I'm not sure at this point. Also there are new foley sounds, like the breathing changes if you've been draining your stamina a lot, which is also nice to have for inmersion.

I like the new PDA design, and the general interface look & feel, except that maybe it would be nice to have an option to adjust font size to make it more readable, depending on the resolution. The maps have been reworked as well, and while there have been some complaints about some obstacle hitboxes being out of proportion (and blocking shots out of the blue when you have clear line of fire towards your target), it seems that they've been releasing hotfixes (or so my steam downloads say) to address crashes and issues that have been coming up.

Even though it's still on Early Access, I do recommend it for any player who's been looking for an extraction shooter that you can just PvE without the frustration of overpowered/overskilled PvP players absolutely steamrolling you and you can't just "git gud" or "git moar gud" anyway to make the next raid more enjoyable (although that might just be a skill issue on my part, I know xD).

Anyway the AI seems manageable enough in the lower difficulties, the higher ones seemed to be overpowered at first, but were also tweaked in the latest patch as well; as a backup, there's the option to customise the individual AI parameters to your liking

There's been a lot of changes in this new patch: it seems that the big chunk of content updates are slow to roll out, yet the hotfixes roll out relatively fast. All in all understandable for a small studio, and at least they seem to be listening to the bug reports, which is nice.


TL;DR: Get it now that it's on Early Access: great bang for your buck, and if the dev team keeps pouring love into this title, you'll probably be glad in a couple years that you made the investment today

I know it's early access, and there could be some technical rough edges to sort out, but, especially if you've played and liked PoE1, don't play this game—seriously, all the nostalgia, playing with your friends after coming back home from college, the excitement from going through the campaign and revealing the story bit by bit...

IT ALL COMES BACK IN STEROIDS AND CRACK AND IT'S SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ADDICTIVE! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED O.O

to my boss: if you're reading this, I hope you don't suddenly think that I'm using my PTO to play

If you get this mental high when you're tinkering, Factorio is your drug dealer: come to watch the conveyor belts, stay because you're pretty sure you can optimize it a little more

I played and have enjoyed the time with my fellow helldivers A LOT, it's been decades since I saw such a nice community first time I started playing a game, even being able to enjoy idle chat with fellow strangers while we spread the most outrageous amounts of managed democracy upon the enemies of Super Earth.

Plus, I've been able to witness how the community banded together to voice their concerns upon the whole controversy of linking PlayStation network accounts with Steam accounts in order to be able to play. May 5th 2024 was definitely an internet sight to be seen. This is what gaming is about: Unity! Community! Spreading managed democracy!