I think the game looks very good myself and I'm enjoying the combat. I'm getting strong Mass Effect vibes from the gameplay. The only thing that I'm worried about right now is that it may end up being way too easy to grief other players in the Dark Zone.
Back to Splatoon then.
Alright I have done most of what there is to do in the beta. Its basically a ubisoft game with loot. You walk around a large map with loads of icons with activities to do. Some are kill people, some are investigations (hold a button down and watch a batman like recreation of a scene). Mostly you just fight and gather loot, level up and so on. There is a base hub and this is like AC where you have to build it up by doing specific missions in each tree of the base. Health tree will award you new health skills and so on. Basically there are a bunch of bars to fill, classic ubisoft, tie in RPG like elements with loot and it could be addicting.
I have fought some higher level enemies, battles degenerate to me constantly backtracking, holding up in a hole while I take a few pot shots. Gun variety is nice, enemies do have different types but not enough to really feel like true variety. Bosses are really big bullet sponges with crazy attacks. It is fun to shoot a grenade out of an enemies hand and having it blow up at their feet.
I did the one major mission available in the beta which takes you through Madison Square Garden, not as cool as it seems. You enter large rooms with waves of enemies and fight an annoying boss at the end who has his own waves of enemies. After that I tried out the dark zone which is the free for all area. Here you fight to gain the best loot but you can’t use it until you extract it in pre determined areas, you start a countdown and everyone can come to kill you to take your loot, its the PvP of the game. You can just help each other out as well. That area is fun as you don’t know what other people will do, its like a standoff. I have killed a few guys which makes you marked with a bounty so everyone comes to kill you. This is the most fun I had with the beta but even then its mostly just tied to this small piece of land where extractions happen.
The dark zone seems like a wasted opportunity. I see no missions at all, its just random walking and fighting groups of tough enemies. It gets boring really quick. Again this could all be due to the limited beta but I think we would hear about raid level events if they had it. Forget this being like destiny, its not, its not even close in quality. This is a TPS loot game mixed with the Ubisoft formula. Nothing in this beta makes me want to buy the game. I have yet to try playing in a group so I will do that and report if anything changes.
Yawn. I'm so disappointed, but not really surprised by the impressions. Typical tps.
Sounds meh.
https://youtu.be/rw8o5eOUuw4
All my interest in this game comes down to I like their previous game a lot: World in Conflict which is a fantastic game.
The part where it was being described as Ubisoft's Destiny always tuned me off.
A: Loot games by design are garbage
B: Destiny is mega garbage.
This game does not give a good first impression. Graphically its ugly, its around watch dogs level, honestly GTAV is more impressive. I have no clue what is going on though that can be a byproduct of the beta not starting at the start. I get missions from a random sweet old southern lady on a radio, "honey please rescue out pal from those raiders, thanks hun", so weird.
Worst of all the gunplay does not feel tight at all. Its gears of war, same kind of cover system but its really sticky sloppy cover. Shooting feels like you are firing a pea shooter because it is numbers based and not accuracy based. So you unload a clip on a guy and he takes it depending on his level. Yes shooting in certain spots has a different reaction, like shooting the legs or one guy had a tank which exploded when I hit it. But that satisfaction of a perfect headshot seems to be missing. Grenade throwing is kind of messy with you needing to hit left on the dpad to bring up the throw icon which then locks you out of your gun. There are secondary skills, I choose the sticky grenade, it has a cool down. I am not enjoying the combat.
The loot system seems very fleshed out. There are loads of categories for upgrades and new skills so it seems like building your character will be fun. So if I have to guess the division will hook you with that gameplay loop that makes destiny so addictive.
I do find myself wandering this large empty map with absolutely nothing to do for minutes as I reach some side quest or rescue quest. These are mindless kill dudes, protect thing from bad dudes, that kind of stuff, nothing special.
Destiny clicked the second I started playing. The gunplay was like "wow this is halo", hop into a strike and boom you are fighting bosses and getting into crazy battles. Awesome shit. I have done very very little but it doesn't even come close to the gameplay of Destiny.