Recent reviews by TwistedLogic

So far, so very Fromsoft (not in a good way).

Initial review:
I was going to write a bit dump of text for this, but I got bored and sad, so lets shorten it into lists as people like. I will update once I get to play more, if I ever feel like playing again.

TL:DR - Microsoft is a massive company. Halo is a massive franchise with a huge player base. There is a much higher bar they should have met that they are nowhere near at the moment and with the developers, I don't expect that to change. Fun with friends or for short stints alone. You can insert your wallet if you want to, but I see this as a worrying trend in games, even those just being used as adverts.

The Pros
- Looks good, like Halo
- Sounds good, like Halo
- Obviously it's free
- Matches currently feel fair and balanced for me coming in as a new player
- They have a battlepass system for unlocks, including a free tier

The Cons
- It's free and owned by Microsoft (Future prospects are grim for other cons on this list)
- The progression is intentionally set to be as unrewarding and slow as possible to push monetization routes
- The battlepass includes a premium tier with pretty much everything on it
- The battlepass free tier includes such gems as "Reset a challenge you have to another random one" and "Reset a challenge you have to another random one". They KNOW their progression system is abusive and this is all they will give you.
- You cannot select a game mode to play or set "preferred" game modes. You hit "Quick play" and the mode is random.
- This is one big free advert for the campaign... and they are still milking every penny out of it.

Recommendation
Buy the campaign if you want more Halo. I'm sure it will be everything we have come to expect. Don't rely on this sticking around for very long or having any decent support.
If you want a good and less abusive multiplayer experience, try SplitGate. It will cost you less and you can choose to play slayer.

One thing I would say is do not be put off by the Steam store appearance of this game. Yes, the graphics may seem a little dated from the screenshots (look beautiful in-game imo), but this seems to lend more into the aesthetic of the game rather than detract from it. I put off playing this because of that and I sincerely regret putting it off.

This is definitely a game of discovery, so I would strongly recommend going into this blind if you don't mind figuring things out for yourself.

tl;dr
Pros
- The attention to detail from the devs
- The look and feel of the game
- Exploration, fighting and crafting/building are all fun
- The soundtrack sets the mood perfectly
- Great multiplayer experience with friends
- The mechanics seem simple, but allow added depth from player creativity
- View depth done well
- Very few bugs (none encountered) and smooth gameplay
- The lighting effects are very nice

Cons
- The graphical style may put some people off and only improve so far with settings
- You need a little patience and forethought
- The simplicity can work against some minor aspects
- Audio levels will need adjusting in the settings
- Depth of view may make some uncomfortable

Without giving too much away, you explore, craft, forage, build, fight and develop much like in other survival open world games, but this feels so much more different; The world feels more alive and wild because of the simple attention to details. Storms whip trees around, other environmental changes affect the feel of the area you are travelling through, giving the world a feeling of the unknown. Crafting and building have some interesting nuances and tech development is actually requiring more effort which makes it more interesting and a bigger achievement when you finally reach a milestone.

Interesting to play alone, fantastic to play with friends. An absolute gem and an instant favourite.

Portals, Jetpacks and quake-style arena shooting! As everyone points out, Splitgate is the love child of Halo and Portal, with interesting quake-esque maps and game play mechanics. This feels akin to pure arena shooter fun, with the added complexity that only giving each player a portal gun can bring. Even the portals have their own unique mechanics and twists built for this title, allowing you to see through your own teams, but not enemy portals, everyone having access to anti-portal grenades to cut off escape or foil attacks.

While the player base is reportedly small, going into a casual (social) match with friends feels fresh, fun and a little addictive. I honestly cannot tell who is a bot and who isn't in the half dozen hours I've played so far, but I am guessing that difference will become more and more apparent as we progress in the ranks. Great as a pick up and play title when you have a little nostalgia for the older shooter titles, but want that lil extra. Different game modes and map voting keep things interesting and seems well designed and balanced.

Overall, a little hidden gem that needs at least a quick play with friends (it IS free). Definitely one I will be keeping around for those quick matches.

So I've played one or two SW games in the past, definitely not many and I'm not exactly a die-hard fan, so take this review as it reads.

Pros:
Looks awesome - The graphics, environments, lighting and animations are all really nice.
Great Sound - SE and music tracks are very nice, capturing the SW feel.
Combat - General combat feels nice. You are not a Jedi master and you can definitely feel the pressure when you are outnumbered.
Exploration and secrets - Exploration and puzzle solving are nice, not too restrictive and don't feel overly repetitive.
Characters - The character interactions are nice, querky and entertaining.
Story - A cool story to add to the universe, there was a driving goal behind everything, even if it meant a little back-and-forthing. Nothing was overdone to the extreme and the characters we interact with keep it fresh enough to make it interesting and keep it going to the end.
Loot boxes - There are none. Not quite sure what happened. Maybe EA had a bunch of interns working on the business model for this, but they did good and left out micro-transactions completely... so far.

Cons:
Boss fights feel... forced? (no pun intended). My issue with these fights is that instead of picking 'A' system to make them feel like tough nuts to crack, the devs seem to have ticked the "all of the above" box... which makes them feel cheap. They have a guard to break, health pool on top of that and QTEs at certain points and its just kinda... 'meh'. It often feels like its complete chance when a normal interaction works or not, such as dodging or parrying and turns them into a huge war of patience and attrition, rather than skill or putting together everything you have learned thus far. They are repetitive and easily the dullest fights in the entire title (barring the last boss 'fight' which is pretty cool and still makes sense both in design and the universe).

Normally, I like to feel like I have a good grasp on a game and how a full play through handles before I leave a review. I don't even know how to describe Disco Elysium except to say it is very deep and very strange. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes or wants something a bit more thoughtful and slow-paced. It
is incredibly well-written and thought-out making it thought-provoking, heartbreaking and hilarious all at once in a believable and slightly horrifying look at politics, discrimination, self-discovery and good old detective work.

For some slight spoilers that may reduce the full effect of going into the game blind, please read more below, but if you really want to go into this blind as I would suggest, please stop here:

Throughout, the MC has for company his 'internals' as I call them. His senses, his bodily systems, different aspects of his psyche etc. They all spring up from time to time, depending on how you develop them (oh yes, that's a thing) and offer their 'view' on current events, situations, items, people etc etc. For example, as a crippling alcoholic and drug addict, his Electrochemistry system constantly bugs you to get high, drunk or both, even going so far as to give you quests such as "find some booze and drink it". This combined with excellent character writing for most of the other cast and npcs makes for some very interesting 'conversations' you can have. The work put into the descriptive writing to convey how the MC feels, sees and smells the environment sounds small and weird... and it is, but it adds so much life to the art style and game play without being intrusive or obnoxious. I genuinely found every single facet of writing interesting, often bizarre and completely human.

This is just the tip of the iceberg that I have seen so far and I am looking forward to much more as I continue my play-through. Maybe something later in the game will change my mind, but I doubt it. If anything happens to improve my opinion as I go, it wouldn't surprise me.

Disappointing. Graphics are lovely, the fights are a little fun and feel pretty cool sometimes, but the story is almost non-existent, the 'world-hub' feels flat, boring and contrived and some of the mechanics make very little sense in a brawler title. I am still not sure why you can take 2-3 able-bodied fighters into a battle, and have them share a single bar of health...have one character or multiple health pools, this was something devs worked out a looooong time ago.

Still, the cast of characters is everything you would expect, they are fun, cool and have their key moves etc so fans of well.. anything Jump will likely be entertained for a few hours at least. That said, I cannot recommend this to anyone, even fans. It is a sub-par fighting game at best and a technical demo for a much better game at best.

If you are purely around for the multiplayer experience and are willing to overlook the lack of content, just make sure you practice with Boruto.. against Boruto, because you will be seeing a lot of him outside of the custom characters people inflict upon your senses.

Fantastic tactical team FPS, loads of fun and always kept fresh and interesting by the introduction of new content, operators, maps etc, bug fixes and balance changes. A different breed to the likes of CSGO or Fortnight, for those who prefer a little more sophistication in their shooters, without being impenetrable to new players.

The main downside for new players is the increasing cost to stay up-to-date with operators. Ubi is yet to release what I would call a 'fair' pack for older content. Charging for new content is expected, but their pricing seems a little weird and their pack contents are strange. I have to acknowledge the 'loot boxes' in the game, despite them basically being non-existant for myself because I don't care about skins (which is the only content). The boxes contain a single item, so they are not really worth purchasing in bulk unless you are particularly keen to collect skins and have money spare. You can still unlock these with an increasing chance after each win in multiplayer. Each time you get a pack, the chance resets, each time you do not get it, the chance increases, so it is not terrible.

Definitely a recommend from me either way, as this is the go-to team tactical FPS to play alone or with friends.

-Sigh-
I really want to like this game. I kinda do, but getting stuck in the same loops over and over and over just waiting for the inevitable death of your character in various ways, with absolutely no direction, not even a notice that you are making progress of any kind is really frustrating and boring. The things on screen make it look like something is happening and I've sank a few hours into trying to find out what, but it seems that dead ends are simply the norm in this game. The lack of instruction is one of the games best points... or so many reviews will have you believe, but as a result, I honestly cannot bring myself to recommend anyone gets this title unless they are specifically looking for something that might essentially be a complete waste of time... an interesting one, but otherwise a waste.

A full on tutorial would probably take much away from the game, but even simple, cryptic hints when something is not working out or when no progress has been made, even as a activatable option would turn this from an exercise in frustration into something genuinely interesting.

Honestly, I think you need to be on the same wavelength as the devs to understand the logic behind the progress paths in this game... or find a very succinct wiki (which defeats the point), as they are complicated and completely un-signposted.

This game is a hell of a lot of fun playing online with friends and looks promising for more fun in the future. Hectic, fast paced and skillfull plays with a nice selection of classes, laser maps and powerups make for a game that is never over until it's over. Turning the tide of a round is pretty much always possible if you play well enough and the general style and aesthetics lend well to the design and theme. I absolutely love that, as simple as the game concept is, the ambient sounds, music and the arena crowd make every match feel like the world cup finals in your favourite sporting event. Definitely has a massive futuristic sports feel to it and I love it!

For the peeps who want more technical and involved review; The various classes all bring something very specific to the table and all have been very well thought out. Each one feels very powerful and useful for the team. There are some very powerful combinations, but also almost always a way to counter them with your gameplay skills, rather than just class A "counters" class C, for example. Despite the actual arenas all being very similar, it is the laser node mapping that is the real environment you need to pay attention to. Each laser map has different spawn timers and locations for different laser node types. Learning these and utilising them at the best time is the best way towards victory and feels bloody awesome.

There are always going to be bugs and issues with games, but Laser League is currently fairly well polished, with only one or two bugs noticed thus far after playing through the beta test and now early access. The bugs do not detract much from the overall experience, as they are usually brief and are not 'game-breaking' as such. Kudos to the devs for all the polish evident in this title and I have high hopes they will continue to refine LL as they go towards full release.