Recent reviews by Archimado

I played Morrowind as a kid but never finished it because I was like 6 and was too busy playing Halo instead. I finally decided to come back and actually play it properly after almost 20 years. I was not prepared for how good it would be. I had alot of nostalgia for Oblivion, and saw it through rose tinted glasses for a really long time, where I kind of just ignored all of it's flaws. When I played Skyrim, I was older and didn't have that nostalgia and was able to see it for what it was. Morrowind, unmodded, completely shattered my Oblivion nostalgia, and is probably my favorite RPG now. Every complaint I've seen levied against the game for years is a complete nonissue. The hit chance mechanic is not a problem unless you go out of your way to make it a problem. Power attacks actually do enough damage to warrant spending the extra stamina to use them. Magic is fun and viable. Alchemy is absurdly powerful and is actually worth using. Enchanting is more than "[INSERT MAGIC DAMAGE TYPE] on hit for [INSERT ARBITRARILY LOW NUMBER] damage." Every skill has an absurd amount of trainers who can train you as much as you want, with the only restrictions being your attributes, their skill, and how much gold you have. It might also be the single most stable Bethesda game I have ever played, with my only crashes being from drinking potions until I had over 100,000 in an attribute.

This was a game that I was interested in for years, but held off on buying for a few reasons.

1 - For a large scale war game, the player count was worrying low for what you'd expect, according to monthly charts, averages less than 1000 players outside of a few spikes for most of it's existence
2 - People saying that the community was extremely hostile and filled with clans that would mass report you to get you banned
3 - The combat system, from the outside looking in, looks extremely awkward and off putting
4 - The logistics system appeared to be a time consuming grind that wouldn't produce results

But now, upon experiencing it for myself, most of these problems have been dismissed. The playercount is relatively high, but as I write this, it is climbing back down, which is the most worrying thing. I have seen very few mass reports, but in the cases I have, multiple witnesses have said that the person was griefing/stealing vehicles. The combat system is a bit awkward, but it is very easy to learn. As for logistics, this is probably the problem that was flipped on it's head the most. Logistics is a VERY minor grind, where your results can be seen, circumstances depending, within 10-20 minutes for sometimes massive results.

Probably the biggest appeal to Foxhole though, and the thing that had me interested from the beginning, is how the game handles it's VOIP. The VOIP is broken up into 2 modes, Local Voice Chat, and Squad Voice Chat. Squad Voice Chat let's you be heard by everyone in your squad, no matter where on the map they are relative to you. The Local Voice Chat is where the fun is though. By holding the talk button, you transmit your voice to a small radius around you. Anyone in this radius (Enemies used to be able to be heard/talked to, but as of when I started playing, this was disabled, which is sad.) This might sound very inconvenient, but it is extremely fun, and helps the game feel like an actual war. There will be circumstances, where you will have to ask someone to pass a message further down the battlefield. It also helps cut out the constant clutter of hearing dozens of people talking, unless you happen to be in a crowd of dozens of people, who are all talking, in which case, you kind of walked into that.

I said that the game feels like an actual war, and it does. If I had to compare this game to anything, it would be the Planetside series, both 1 and 2. I will admit, that I have never played the 1st Planetside, but I have put what I consider a decent amount of time and effort into Planetside 2. Planetside 2 has a problem with how battles flow because of how the spawn system works. When I regularly played Planetside 2, spawning cost nothing, there is nothing stopping you from running out right into the battle. In Foxhole, when you spawn in a location, you consumed a resource. You then need to pull your equipment, which consumes the weapon, and ammo. Then, you might need to pull miscellaneous equipment. All of these will be made by players, delivered by players, and used by players. The reason I mentioned Planetside 1, is because it supposedly had a system very similar. Where battles weren't dictated by which team got bullied into their spawnrooms, or just gave up, as in Planetside 2, but instead, by which team could best, manufacture, receive ,and utilize their resources. This helps the battles flow in a way that feels much more enjoyable than being stuck in a room while the enemy taunts you.

In the time I have played Foxhole as of writing this, I have enjoyed the game more than I have most games released in the past decade. There have been times where I have broken out into a sweat from the intensity, have felt my lungs burning from how hard I have laughed, and a sense of togetherness from communicating with the other players.

No language in human history, past, present, or future, will ever provide me with the words to describe how I feel about this game. The pain I feel from Tribes' fate has followed me every day, without failure, for the past 8 years. I have not had fun with any game since I first played this. They managed to make probably the single best FPS ever, and somehow, they mishandled it to the point the community had turned on them, and abandoned it the moment the MOBA genre became a success. Hi-Rez games committed a sin against God when they made this game, and snuffed out it's flame before it could bring light to the world. Goodnight, Sweet Prince. [VGTA] [VGTW] VGTG] [VGS]