Recent reviews by CaptObvious

I normally don't preorder games, and I try to not give EA money whenever possible. That said, I preordered this game because the first was so good, and I trusted Renew to produce again. Spoiler alert: they did.

I understand that this game is getting fairly hit by people saying it's too buggy to play and that it was released broken. That is simply not my experience, at all. I have a seen a few visual bugs, but nothing more than I would expect to see in many games these days that require heavy graphics. The one bug I saw that stopped progression for me was one of the lightsaber stance training sessions. I simply quit to title screen and reloaded, and this fixed it; I didn't even have to fully quit the game.

Survivor does not pick up directly after the events of Fallen Order. When you start the game, Cal has spent many years fighting the Empire and making a bit of a name for himself among some if its officers. This is done very well, mechanically, in that you don't start the game with nothing. You actually begin Survivor with effectively the same toolset that you ended Fallen Order with! This is a huge improvement, and kind of a gamble. The reason games like the Batman Arkham or Tomb Raider series made you restart item/tool/ability progression was to (1) rebalance those things for the new mechanics, (2) force that progression on you as part of the story telling, (3) they probably could only think of so many new gadgets and things, (4) they wanted to make the abilities or items you get make sense for the story in that moment, etc. Survivor took the gamble of making entirely new progression tables, and it paid off!

I'll start with the lightsaber stances. You have single blade and dual-sided blade just like Fallen Order. But you get three (3) entirely new-to-the-series stances to play with. If you've seen the trailers, you can likely guess what they are. I won't name them here, though, for folks that like to stay clear of spoilers. I will simply say that each one has it's own skill progression to put ability points into.

Next is the force powers. As stated, you begin with the stuff you ended Fallen Order with, and they remind you how to use them in the early mission. You are also granted one new ability in that early mission with a line of dialogue mentioning that Cere taught it to you in the time between games. As you progress, however, you get additional upgrades to your force powers through the mission, or through the skill trees. There are three force skill trees that allow you to focus on the parts you wish to for your gameplay style.

Old enemies, like Shock Troopers, aren't has difficult to take out as they were in Fallen Order. Now, that may sound like we nerfed those baddies, but no! You start stronger, more traveled, more experienced. There are new enemies that are meant to be harder, so the bad guys you used to fight aren't as hard as they used to be. It'd be like saying because you got beat up in 3rd grade you can never take on a 3rd grader. When you are 25 you can probably take down a 3rd grader (PSA: I AM NOT condoning taking down a 3rd grader!). This makes you feel like an experienced Cal because you remember how hard some of these enemies were, but now they are fodder to you. It does the intended purpose very well.

Something I'm not usually a fan of in a lot of games is the companion mechanic. There are missions where you have a tag-along for support. This character is specific to that mission and, insofar as I can tell, you cannot change it (perhaps in New Game+, I am only just starting that now, more that in a bit). My reason for hating companions is that the AI is almost always bad and they just get in the way. My exception is the way Last Of Us coded companions, especially how they specifically move out of the way if you're walking through a damned door! In Survivor, the ally you are given isn't even necessarily there for the whole mission. There are times they break away to do something else for the task at hand and meet back up with you. They do their own combat stuff, there are cool finishers when they are around, and you they always tend to make sense with their ability for the mission you're on. That said, I actually like (not love) the companion system in this game.

This brings me to the side mechanics. In Fallen Order you basically collected cosmetics and seeds for the ships terrarium. With Survivor, they took that and brought it bigger. There are base-allies that provide different types of shops where the currency is a specific collectible you find in the world. There is a whole-ass garden, as opposed to a few individual seeds. They brought in a minigame not unlike Gwent from Witcher 3 or Machine Strike in Horizon Forbidden West - with a fun in-galaxy way to collect new pieces. There's definitely some extra stuff for those 100%ers and side explorers in this one!

And finally, New Game+. In Fallen Order, NG+ was practically an afterthought, as all you really got was all of the cosmetics and then you replayed everything from scratch. With Survivor, they definitely fixed that. I have only just started the first mission in NG+, so I won't be speaking too heavily on that, except to say the following: you begin NG+ with all of your perks (new mechanic I didn't even cover), skill points, and cosmetics. There are story-specific things you aren't given out of the gate, but you can spend your pool of skill points on other things in the meantime and earn more as you progress. They got this one pretty right, as far as I can tell at the moment.

All said, the game is getting pretty mixed reviews, but I honestly don't see it. There is less of the sliding around every level, there are more shortcuts between key mission areas, they even brought in fast travel between meditation points. The combat mechanics style is still not exactly my thing (locking onto and jumping around an enemy), but it feels far less clunky than Fallen Order did.

Overall, based solely on my first playthrough, and about five minutes of NG+ just to see what it did before heading to bed, I would say Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a solid 8/10 for me.

I know there's a lot of salty people over this game, and I'll preface my entire review with saying that I did not follow hardly any of the hype over this one. That being said, I have gone back and checked a couple of things that were "promised" in this game and can understand why many feel let down. As for me, personally, I have been enjoying the game so far. Some people thought this game would be more akin to Star Citizen, I think, and others appear to have wanted a Star Wars-like experience, and some appear to just have wanted an exploration game and were still let down. Well ... here, let's just get down to the brass tax of it all, shall we? I will make every attempt to keep this as generic and spoiler-free as possible for those that care about that sort of thing.

In No Man's Sky you play a faceless, nameless space explorer. You begin the game crash-landed on a random planet and must repair your ship in order to leave and continue exploring. Immediately you are greeted with a problem and a the means to a solution in what would barely constitute a tutorial mission. The world I began on was nice enough; trees, grass, some rolling hills, mostly docile animal life, and a pretty blue sky. I found a giant cylinder that taught me a new word in some language I'm unfamiliar with of an alien race I know nothing about.

Once you get your ship repaired you can make your way around the planet, or into space. Then you're urged to repair and fuel your hyperdrive, which will take you on to another system. I did this as soon as prompted, and wish I had not. I should've stuck around and explored my starter planet and system more, but alas ... I was eager to move one with my mission.

My mission ... now just what is that? The ultimate goal, appears, to be to get to the center of the galaxy and discover just what in the world is there. Or something akin to that, anyway. Even though I'm clearly alone rambling from planet to planet, from star to star, there are NPCs around doing their thing. But even though there are NPCs around doing their thing, I feel very alone. Now, this could be a problem for some, but I don't mind a good single-player exploration/survival game. Which is pretty much what I expected out of the game, to be honest.

So some people I've spoken to seem to have expected this to be like a down-graded (graphics wise) version of Star Citizen, looking for that epic MMO experience. One person I spoke to assumed that there would be squad stuff if you linked up with your friend(s) based on the video he saw where there were three ships flying in formation. Regardless of what everyone thought the game was going to be, here's what it really amounts to:

• Space Exploration
  
• Minor Combat
  
• Minor Survival
  
• Planet Exploration
  
• Maybe Minor Piracy

What we end up with is a game wherein you can fly around a small star system and land on planets and moons. You can then explore said planets and moons. To include caves, outpost buildings, abandoned facilities, etc. You can even fly around in the atmosphere, though with limited controls. Once you feel like you've explored all you can in that one minor system, you warp out via the hyperdrive and repeat. All the while you can shoot at NPC ships and steal some of their cargo, you can fight off space pirates, you record new flora/fauna, you meet aliens, and you learn about your journey to the center. This game is about exploring, at the end of the day.

As to the core of the game, as I've already said I feel like it's solid. The mechanics are a bit lacking and some better work with physics could go a long way. The soundtrack is amaing, though, and I wouldn't mind having the music from it for my own personal use. I've put in a little over 14 hours, and while I've seen some similar things on different planets, I've yet to be bored. Not once have I thought that these two creatures are "too" similar, or that this planet is "too" much like another one. But that's also just me ... and I wasn't expecting anything more than procedural generation and random planets to fly/walk around.

Now, I say all of that, and it may seem like I have nothing negative to say ... you're wrong. There are a few flaws, and there is definite room for improvement. Things like better flight mechanics would go on the top of my list. But if you wanted to see all the things wrong with the game you could read just about any other review on here. That being said, I don't think all of the complaints are valid. There is one I saw about how you can't see the planets revolve around their star ... how long are you sitting in one place in this game?! Could they be spaced differently to give a more realistic feel to the star system? Sure. Does that make me want to stop playing the game? No, it's rather clear - at least to me - that this was done in order to make planetary jumps easier on you. Allowing you to spend more time planetside or in the space stations, rather than half your time going between the planets.

My personal biggest complaint is the difficulty involved in upgrading your ship, and how little one ship model differs from the others. Ships that look like they would be built for speed or combat function fairly similar to those that are clearly merchant ships. I would like to see some diversity and consequences/rewards in which ship I pick up.

When it's all said and done, this game is solid. There are updates needed, and updates incoming. Has everything been delivered that was promised? Did the game get released in what some would call a timely manner? Probably not to both of these. However, if you want a procedurally generated, space exploration game with minor survival mechanics, this could easily be your game. If you want an experience of the next big space MMO, wait for Star Citizen (or go back them and get in on the ground floor of their alpha/beta process).

Rating:

• Visuals: 7/10
  
• Soundtrack: 8/10
  
• Mechanics: 6/10
  
• Entertainment: 7/10
  
• Overall: 7/10

This game is by far one of the best builder-sims I've played in a long time. Somehow through it all you end up being attached to a village of people that are just shy of nameless to you, but watching the town grow and be healthy is all you have in this game.

It's simplistic, it's easy to pick up, it's addictive, and it stole ten hours of my life on day one. If you enjoy city-building with real world problems (famine, cold, resource crisis) then you need this game!

All of that being said, you will hate this game at times. You'll have it all figured out, everything will be perfect, the town will be in the best health it's ever been ... and then it happens. "IT" could be a random early winter, or half your foresters and miners being killed by falling trees or rocks, maybe a disease that rampages half your town. What ever "IT" turns out to be, rest assured that you will hate it and it will cause you to hate this game for the next five to thirty minutes.

Then, like an alzheimer's patient you'll think you can do it next time, make it better ... maybe get to 500 people this time. And then "IT" will happen again.

10/10 would be pissed at "IT" again ... and again, and again ...

Even though the game is still technically in the beta stages, this is one of the more tightly managed and well done games I've played in a long time. As of the time of this review the game is on beta update 13.x on the way to 14, to whit we will see player ships (housing) added to the game. Adding those basic RP elements is what will keep them alive and with profit. From things like new helmets to color sets for your armor and weapons it has the customization most online players long for. Overall this isn't your big brother's online shooter.

There actually is a story, though incomplete at the moment, with missions to complete throughout the solar system. You can expect to see a slightly higher caliber of player as you advance into the higher stages. This is because, while you can buy most frames or weapons for cash, you still have to level them up and advance through the planets in a logical order. Each planet offers higher levels of enemies and if you die or forfeit out, then you won't receive the bonuses or full amounts of XP and credits. This means that you don't have a choice but to learn to play the frame you're on with the weapons you have, or get new ones and rerun some low-level stuff to figure it out.

One nice element is that ability to play solo, no matter where you are or what mission. You can choose to play solo or in private groups, but you may find that sometimes you need that extra body to absorb bullets . . . or shoot a few extra.

Sure, you can get carried, but that's true in just about every online game. You'll always find people that get in the way or on your nerves, but overall the current community is amazing and usually willing to help. This game is a MUST HAVE for anyone who remotely enjoys shooters, who loves to customize their characters, and who likes the ability to pick up people if they want.