Bragr
Banned
18-hour playthrough. PC.
Good
- Awesome setting. There is a lot of cool 60's furniture, fashion, and style from that time period.
- Every level got a great level of detail. Brilliant even.
- The levels are the right size, I was a bit worried that the levels were gonna feel too big, but it's a smart idea to only have 4 levels that change during the day. This way, you don't need to remember the layout for too many areas, but the levels still change and offer new opportunities each day and time period.
- Cool weapons and good handling. My favorite is the gun that can reload while you shoot.
- The game does a good job of dripping information on the mystery that you are trying to unravel throughout the entire game.
- Residuum is a great idea, addictive to build up your arsenal.
- The gameplay changes drastically as you find new powers, Havoc made me feel like the fucking Terminator.
- They learned from Dishonored and Prey and stopped spamming every room with books and emails. Most of the notes are useful and lead to things.
- Brilliant direction of the player, the leads tell you specifically what to do, so you don't waste time looking around. And I like how they end each lead when you find what you need.
- I thought the groundhog day theme was gonna be redundant, but it's smart, it creates a great addictive gameplay loop and has a lot of high-level intelligent decisions in how it guides the player. Some brilliant game design is on display here.
- Cool multiplayer, even though it may not be as balanced as it needs to be.
- A lot of cool secrets and hidden areas.
- How the game paces itself and gives you what you want but not enough, is really well done. You always wanna find that next lead. Addicting.
- Tons of fun and creative ways to take out enemies, very fun to experiment and try dumb idiotic things.
Things I'm Hu-Hum About
- Some of the missions were a bit too fetch-quest like, when you just need a code for something, for example, and end up just running through a level, picking it up, and running back.
- Julianna becomes trivial at best once you get a few powers (in singleplayer of course).
- I wish I could equip more than 2 powers, I understand there are some gameplay decisions at play here, but I ended up not using them all because the ones I had were too useful for me, so I never switched them.
Bad
- The dialogue between Julianna and Colt is weird. They sound like unfunny comedians. I have seen people praise their dialogue, I don't get it.
- In fact, a lot of the writing is weird, some of those notes and audiotapes the visionaries keep around sound so absurd and childish. For example:
"CHARLIE YOU BAH BAH BLEATER."
"YOU CAN'T BLOCK ME."
- "What's my handle dipshit?"
- "Admin means I can do WHATEVER I want"
- "I AM EMPEROR OF ELECTRONS"
"FUUUUUUUU"
Yes. That is a real discussion from the game between two adults trying to be funny. Reminds me Borderlands.
- I think the game struggles in big action scenarios, you either get annihilated (rarely) or you find some odd little doorway or cover the A.I. doesn't know how to flank, and you just mow all of them down.
- It has the same dichotomy between stealth and combat as Dishonored. And some of the same flaws, as a combat game it has some small issues that add up, a lot of that involves the A.I. and the layout. Too many times I got away with running in, shooting a few of them then running out to heal, and just rinse and repeat. Felt cheap. That said, it does play well, the shooting is satisfying, it's vastly better as an action game than Dishonored.
- The A.I. can barely open doors, you just need to round a corner and they lose you.
- Early game is very tutorial heavy, the game is scared you might miss something and explains every little thing.
- That last rocket mission where you need to find the passwords felt like an unnecessary fetch-quest.
- I'm not a big fan of the ending, I ended the loop and got no answers to anything. I understand that there are many endings and all that, but I don't like it when games demand you either look at other endings on YouTube or play the game again to figure things out. The ending was frankly a huge letdown.
- You get extremely overpowered towards the end.
Conclusion
I thought I was gonna hate it, but I loved it, my favorite Arkane game. Sophisticated and smart.
Good
- Awesome setting. There is a lot of cool 60's furniture, fashion, and style from that time period.
- Every level got a great level of detail. Brilliant even.
- The levels are the right size, I was a bit worried that the levels were gonna feel too big, but it's a smart idea to only have 4 levels that change during the day. This way, you don't need to remember the layout for too many areas, but the levels still change and offer new opportunities each day and time period.
- Cool weapons and good handling. My favorite is the gun that can reload while you shoot.
- The game does a good job of dripping information on the mystery that you are trying to unravel throughout the entire game.
- Residuum is a great idea, addictive to build up your arsenal.
- The gameplay changes drastically as you find new powers, Havoc made me feel like the fucking Terminator.
- They learned from Dishonored and Prey and stopped spamming every room with books and emails. Most of the notes are useful and lead to things.
- Brilliant direction of the player, the leads tell you specifically what to do, so you don't waste time looking around. And I like how they end each lead when you find what you need.
- I thought the groundhog day theme was gonna be redundant, but it's smart, it creates a great addictive gameplay loop and has a lot of high-level intelligent decisions in how it guides the player. Some brilliant game design is on display here.
- Cool multiplayer, even though it may not be as balanced as it needs to be.
- A lot of cool secrets and hidden areas.
- How the game paces itself and gives you what you want but not enough, is really well done. You always wanna find that next lead. Addicting.
- Tons of fun and creative ways to take out enemies, very fun to experiment and try dumb idiotic things.
Things I'm Hu-Hum About
- Some of the missions were a bit too fetch-quest like, when you just need a code for something, for example, and end up just running through a level, picking it up, and running back.
- Julianna becomes trivial at best once you get a few powers (in singleplayer of course).
- I wish I could equip more than 2 powers, I understand there are some gameplay decisions at play here, but I ended up not using them all because the ones I had were too useful for me, so I never switched them.
Bad
- The dialogue between Julianna and Colt is weird. They sound like unfunny comedians. I have seen people praise their dialogue, I don't get it.
- In fact, a lot of the writing is weird, some of those notes and audiotapes the visionaries keep around sound so absurd and childish. For example:
"CHARLIE YOU BAH BAH BLEATER."
"YOU CAN'T BLOCK ME."
- "What's my handle dipshit?"
- "Admin means I can do WHATEVER I want"
- "I AM EMPEROR OF ELECTRONS"
"FUUUUUUUU"
Yes. That is a real discussion from the game between two adults trying to be funny. Reminds me Borderlands.
- I think the game struggles in big action scenarios, you either get annihilated (rarely) or you find some odd little doorway or cover the A.I. doesn't know how to flank, and you just mow all of them down.
- It has the same dichotomy between stealth and combat as Dishonored. And some of the same flaws, as a combat game it has some small issues that add up, a lot of that involves the A.I. and the layout. Too many times I got away with running in, shooting a few of them then running out to heal, and just rinse and repeat. Felt cheap. That said, it does play well, the shooting is satisfying, it's vastly better as an action game than Dishonored.
- The A.I. can barely open doors, you just need to round a corner and they lose you.
- Early game is very tutorial heavy, the game is scared you might miss something and explains every little thing.
- That last rocket mission where you need to find the passwords felt like an unnecessary fetch-quest.
- I'm not a big fan of the ending, I ended the loop and got no answers to anything. I understand that there are many endings and all that, but I don't like it when games demand you either look at other endings on YouTube or play the game again to figure things out. The ending was frankly a huge letdown.
- You get extremely overpowered towards the end.
Conclusion
I thought I was gonna hate it, but I loved it, my favorite Arkane game. Sophisticated and smart.
