Recent reviews by =Vent

Avoid this game.

Remember when MOBAs got popular and then every game and franchise became a MOBA?

Remember when Battle Royales got popular and then every game and franchise became a Battle Royale?

Embark-Nexon decided that defining their own game was too much work and made the embarrassing decision to make this game into Search and Destroy, copying CS2, Call of Duty, Valorant, R6 Siege and more.

The genre defining game mode they developed and built the game around that took the idea of a FPS away from immediate contact killing to a more dynamic, strategy based arena style team combat reminiscent of battle royales, is dead. The multi-round tournament was the heart of the game. You didn't need to place first to win the elimination rounds, so you could plan to swipe second place at the last moment to secure your team a spot in the next round. Its major drawback was time. It took too long to start a round, too long to respawn, too long to start round 2, 3, and too long to load into a match (but that applies across the entire game, have fun with 3-10 minute loading screens). The game centred around being able to overcome your own shortcomings by being a team player. Not being the the best at spray control could be overcome by good movement, pathing, and team coordination. Using your gadgets cleverly and effectively you could manipulate the arena to your advantage, and outclass someone who in any other game could crush you mercilessly.

Seasons 2, and now 3, have shown that this game is run and managed by suits. They want a clone. They do not want do forge their own game and make it big, they want to be Fortnite and make big money on microtransactions. But why not just commit? The delivery of skins and cosmetics is shockingly slow. A major update after 2 weeks? Nope! Camo skin pack :). You built your game for big sponsors, so get big sponsors? Plaster the arena Razer, HyperX, Corsair, Coke! Do something! At least real sponsors would net you real money, instead of genuinely just wasting our time trying to get us to care about a fictional insurance company.

Seasons 2, and 3 stripped the game entirely from what it was at launch. The primary game mode is Search and destroy, 2 bomb, whatever you want to call it. They're rebuilding the game around that one game mode. Season 3's battle pass feels like "Hey, we wanted to be like Fortnite and license content from other IP, but we couldn't afford it, so here's vague pandering knockoffs :)!"

Gun balancing and feel is what has driven me away from the game entirely though. Every few *actual* updates, one of the "meta" weapons will have it's feel dramatically changed, or it will be nerfed. The FCAR (SCAR), has gone through 3-6 complete redos since the official launch. The throwing knives have been changed 3 times in the last few months.

For seasons 1 and 2, if you had the enough cringebucks in your account, you got a free bonus set at the start of the season (Cost of the bundle provided you with the cringebucks it cost), it was a genuinely cool, feel good thing. Season 3 makes you pay actual dollars for it as they have failed to monetize the game effectively (see, bad skins, extrordinarily long time gaps between new skins for a f2p shooter)

Fun

Unplayable LMAO

Default settings on a 3070 is 17 FPS

Changing settings got me a 31 that felt worse

An attempt to change settings further led to a crash on launch LOL

I wanted to like it but there really isn't anything special about this.
It could be a fun coop game to play if you can ignore the random jank

I didn't like any of the characters, and it made it difficult to care about anything that wasn't deliver x to y. The side quests are awful. Very few go beyond a fetch quest, or reward you in a meaningful way. There's 10 or so sidequests that you get from a job board that prevent you from looting normal crafting materials until you loot the exact same material with a different name several times. These side quests also usually don't have any dialog or real reward, they really are just filler content.
The freerunning feels both extremely clunky and fluid depending on what you are trying to do.

Combat is terrible. If you get grappled by one slow, a fast will beat you to death before you have the option to do anything. I was interested in the bow you get at around 30% completion, but it has an absolutely hilarious auto-aim that guarantees you will always hit them in the torso unless you're within a distance threshold to get a headshot, and occasionally it will force all shots to miss in the exact same spot.
The best rifle I got in the entire game was the very first one I got. That's fun and exciting. The whole game is like this though, at around 30% completion the weapon variety and uniqueness just stops. Late game just starts introducing random new zombies you see like once or twice (you probably find them in the city but I was really done with the whole thing at this point). Apart from the inclusion of dead kids, there isn't anything of note about the variety of the infected.

Talking about the ending

Ending parkour was just bad. I wasn't really a huge fan of it throughout the game, but it's extremely linear in this part. Bizarre that they worked in a grappling hook but cop out and don't let you use it in random parts of the story.
The ending is quicktime events. Surprised it wasn't a spongy bossfight

I don't know why this game is listed as a VR essential. It's genuinely one of the least functional, messy VR games you can get. It may as well me a sit down experience, because all the moving you will do in this is leaning slightly to avoid bullets, which can only hit you in the head. Throwing doesn't work. It just doesn't. There's no consistency, which is incredible for scenes that require you to throw to succeed.

This is the only game I've played that made me absolutely regret getting VR. It is actually that poorly made. I'm embarrassed for the team.

At the time of writing this review, the game does work on the Quest 2.
This kinda sucks. But it's a neat idea I guess. I am going to assume it's one guy making this, and give it a pass, but it's really rough.
It's essentially unplayable with VR controls. I don't feel like setting up my wheel for this, and KB is okay, but turning is rough. Other cars do not ever watch for you, so you'll get hammerfisted off the road if you go by a car that very rapidly switches lanes into you. It's not fun with cops on. They do practically nothing beyond swerving in front of you as you pull up on them. I have no idea what gets you points. Day/Night means that it goes from day to night every 10 seconds or so, which is irritating. Why is the windshield dirty?

It's so bad?? You have limited HUD options, the hud is dead centre of your fov. You can choose between walk/teleport or walk/jump but not both despite having enough extra buttons to do both? so you just can't get to areas without switching to jump.
Aim is centred off of your right eye, I think? It's hard to tell. The optional crosshair is like 20 degrees off to the right?
It takes Minutes of walking in a straight line to get to places, and you have to run back and forth to them. No sprint.
Sniper aim is laughably bad.
This is the most direct, fix no issues port I've ever played, in or out of VR

If you have a GTX 970, you might not be able to play it. The game will/might ping up to 3.67 GB of vram usage and instantly crash.

10/10 troll gift

Just play 2033 and Last Light. Forget this one exists.

-the tutorial/training wheels section of the game is literally an hour
-"this is boring" "what am I doing" "am I supposed to care about these people?"
-enjoyed the grim, hardcore surface missions in the first two? that's like, non-existent in exodus
-jumping physics may as well be a moon simulator
-they did not save the best for last, they saved the worst for last, so don't stay hopeful
-the pacing is horrendous, and the end of the game just kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ happens