So no-one else has made ones guess it's over to me.
Bungie's reboot of the old single player sci-fi shooter series but as a Live Service Extraction shooter coming to compete with Arc Raiders.
So I played the server slam so my thoughts:
Not a fan, it felt good gunplay wise but a lot of the quests felt generic like go here kill X number of enemies or collect Y number of a certain items I got to the point of unlocking the weird anarchist faction who finally gave me a different mission which was to run round smashing windows.
It felt very lacking in actual enemy variety sure there are different classes of the faction but they just feel like tougher or ones with different weapons with only the biohazard organism things or the mech enemies in this. This is bungie man who with the first Halo gave us the Flood with it's varies enemies and the covenant which had the Hunters, the Grunts and the elites. that felt more varied than what Marathon brings to the table.
I did like the attempt at a narrative I saw but as this is a live service it's not really going anywhere yet.
The UI and UX were awful, so many menus so clunky ( I was playing on PS5) and not well explained. For example you have your stash section and the next tab over in the armoury. Your weapons aren't in the armoury, that's the weapons shop to buy new guns your guns are in your stash. another example on PS5 because you can choose to take ammo stacks and health kits etc but if you don't want to take a full stack you have to select the number with using the left and right on the Dpad to change the number in the stack, except if you put up or down on the Dpad it moves to a different items. There is no take 1, take half a stack take full stack method it's whole stack or select how many of the stack you want.
Balance wise in the beginner area I got wiped with the rest of my team twice by stupidly high level teams that somehow were still able to get in the beginner area and had more shields and fully kitted out guns one lot parched all on a cliff with sniper rifles near the exit point. I also didn't feel good later when some-one tried to pick a fight with my team outside the beginner area and we wiped the floor with a team 2 levels below us. You get killed your stuff gets looted and you might end up back at using a free kit
Visually it's a mess from the environmental colours that just seem random it's not like Labs are green loading areas blue etc and the other visuals during loading feel like the kind of filler stock footage used to pad runtime in indie movies of like ant colonies or seasons changing etc. Most of the time loot feels random, like sure you can get biomass from infested areas but it's not like you go to the electronics lab and are more likely to find diodes.
Now before I get "You're just salty you were outclassed"
After playing Marathon I've picked up Hunt Showdown and man you die quick in Hunt and often early on and will be up against veterans but in that game it feels a lot more like tactics matter and like it's a lot less gear dependent. Sure some dude with a sniper rifle can pick off your team but then if you manage to get a flank on them your 1 headshot with a basic rifle takes them down. gear feels more like options or making the killing easier not faster with more balance as Sniper rifles are all single shot reload ones while you can have mid range repeater rifles. Also in Hunt the enemies feel more varied and the missions while all track down and kill one of the monsters they feel district as do the enemies you encounter getting there. Also killing other players in Hunt is more about bounties and currency than just looting people as sure you can take the nice expensive weapon and items but you can sell them they get marked as contraband which you can keep and deploy with but can't be sold for cash.
Bungie's reboot of the old single player sci-fi shooter series but as a Live Service Extraction shooter coming to compete with Arc Raiders.
So I played the server slam so my thoughts:
Not a fan, it felt good gunplay wise but a lot of the quests felt generic like go here kill X number of enemies or collect Y number of a certain items I got to the point of unlocking the weird anarchist faction who finally gave me a different mission which was to run round smashing windows.
It felt very lacking in actual enemy variety sure there are different classes of the faction but they just feel like tougher or ones with different weapons with only the biohazard organism things or the mech enemies in this. This is bungie man who with the first Halo gave us the Flood with it's varies enemies and the covenant which had the Hunters, the Grunts and the elites. that felt more varied than what Marathon brings to the table.
I did like the attempt at a narrative I saw but as this is a live service it's not really going anywhere yet.
The UI and UX were awful, so many menus so clunky ( I was playing on PS5) and not well explained. For example you have your stash section and the next tab over in the armoury. Your weapons aren't in the armoury, that's the weapons shop to buy new guns your guns are in your stash. another example on PS5 because you can choose to take ammo stacks and health kits etc but if you don't want to take a full stack you have to select the number with using the left and right on the Dpad to change the number in the stack, except if you put up or down on the Dpad it moves to a different items. There is no take 1, take half a stack take full stack method it's whole stack or select how many of the stack you want.
Balance wise in the beginner area I got wiped with the rest of my team twice by stupidly high level teams that somehow were still able to get in the beginner area and had more shields and fully kitted out guns one lot parched all on a cliff with sniper rifles near the exit point. I also didn't feel good later when some-one tried to pick a fight with my team outside the beginner area and we wiped the floor with a team 2 levels below us. You get killed your stuff gets looted and you might end up back at using a free kit
Visually it's a mess from the environmental colours that just seem random it's not like Labs are green loading areas blue etc and the other visuals during loading feel like the kind of filler stock footage used to pad runtime in indie movies of like ant colonies or seasons changing etc. Most of the time loot feels random, like sure you can get biomass from infested areas but it's not like you go to the electronics lab and are more likely to find diodes.
Now before I get "You're just salty you were outclassed"
After playing Marathon I've picked up Hunt Showdown and man you die quick in Hunt and often early on and will be up against veterans but in that game it feels a lot more like tactics matter and like it's a lot less gear dependent. Sure some dude with a sniper rifle can pick off your team but then if you manage to get a flank on them your 1 headshot with a basic rifle takes them down. gear feels more like options or making the killing easier not faster with more balance as Sniper rifles are all single shot reload ones while you can have mid range repeater rifles. Also in Hunt the enemies feel more varied and the missions while all track down and kill one of the monsters they feel district as do the enemies you encounter getting there. Also killing other players in Hunt is more about bounties and currency than just looting people as sure you can take the nice expensive weapon and items but you can sell them they get marked as contraband which you can keep and deploy with but can't be sold for cash.
