Post by Jägerbomber on Apr 18, 2016 14:22:23 GMT
Completed my 2nd playthrough in Challenge Mode yesterday. Both on Hard actually.
The feel of the game in general is pretty decent, though the micro weapon upgrades as well as the new card collectables are very rapid throughout. Even though there's so many of them, you most likely won't get them all the cards until half way through your second playthrough and won't even get all your weapon upgrades by the time you complete the 2nd run.
However, there are some major complaints to be made. My number 1 here is pretty much always going to be; I don't like humor and writing of the guy who has written the games since the beginning of the Future series (PS3 games) and the movie coming out in a couple weeks. The entire thing all the way through (except for Mmmaybe 2 unexpected jokes) is written like it's like your grandfather (or more like older uncle) trying to be hip with the pre-teens. The entire damned thing... I believe it even manages to nearly reference this fact twice itself a couple of times in the game. The younger kids (under 10) will love this, but for anyone older there's nothing here for. The pre-teens might cringe and there's nothing here for the adults other than the fact there's no reason anywhere to be upset by anything their little kids might have heard.
2nd biggest complaint is that, it looks amazing, yet there are many moments throughout that scream lack of polish, and in some cases it's downright painful. The number 1 for me I think has to be the grind rails. Why? Because you have to somewhat tap your joystick in a direction and X to jump to a different rail and you CANNOT be holding the joystick in a direction for more than half a second (maybe less) or you will not jump in that direction and will just jump and slam into what's in front of you on your current rail. And even then it's fiddly as hell. You being able to lean left or right anytime on the rail? means nothing. Even though it's still there, it means nothing. You have to tap the joystick and X and hope to hell that it actually works. It's actually way more frustrating than it sounds. You can get a better handling of it eventually, but it still sucks really bad, making what's supposed to be a pleasant fun railgrinding moment painfully frustratingly miserable. Then there's the camera angles several times seeming to completely ignore that you actually need to see the gaps in the rail that you need to jump over. And the swingshot has some issues as well (throughout the game). Generally if you activate it at the top of your jump of the rail or off another swingshot, it simply won't work. You have to wait a moment while falling for it to activate. And another thing on the rails with the train cars coming at you - You can jump OVER I think every single one...
And even though it's a tad tricky, this is actually easier than changing rails to dodge it because of how frustrating changing rails actually is.
Next up on side events with bad controls is the hoverboard races. The handling actually almost tries to be how it was in the original - you actually steer sharper jumping and in the air than you do on the ground. Strange, I know, but that's how it worked, and it actually worked in the original. Here, the ratios of the different amount of steering you get with being on the ground and in the air just don't feel good. It's frustrating enough to be an unpleasant experience. On top of that, in the 2nd track there's 1 pretty tricky spot to take the 2nd shortcut. The last jump you need to take is inconsistent and unpredictable as hell. To get through the shortcut properly, you actually aren't supposed to jump yourself off the jump, just let it jump you, but maybe a 3rd of the time or more, it just drops you. And it sucks... That and you can get wedged for a moment in the shortcut tunnel and have to jump yourself out. In both races, the first 2 laps don't mean anything, as long as you have about 3 boosts loaded at the end of the 3rd lap and you take the 2nd shortcut in the 2nd race. Even then the timing that the 2nd place AI gets is (as far as I have figured out so far) is a microsecond less than what you can possibly get to win. Have 2-3 boosts and don't mess up that last section and last shortcut on the last lap and you're probably good to just barely blast by the other guy at the last moment. But it's still extremely frustrating for those other reasons. Oh yeah and, I haven't completely figured this out yet, but another hugely frustrating issue here that I found is that there seems to be deadspots in the steering and your joystick. I don't know if this is actually happening in the handling of these events or it's my left joystick having major issues or if it's in fact my fairly new joystick grippers (not well designed for the PS4's concave joysticks) causing the issue. I noticed similar joystick issues in the menus of Destiny recently, but I don't know exactly what it is yet. But whatever this problem was became a major issue in the most crucial parts of the races. I had to actually actively try to avoid the deadspots in my joystick or the handling and nervously work around them while trying to take a perfect line around a corner at the end of the 2nd race, among other places. And when the deadspot hits, you're screwed.
And then there's the flying ship battle moments. Not all that much to say here except for some silly and bad design. Shooting restricts your speed and steering hugely, but not anything else that's going on, I don't think. I would concretely say that it hurts your ability to aim more than it helps, but steering without shooting isn't great either. And the HUD elements are a confusing visual mess for several reasons, especially for your first play. It's just not nice...
And then... There's the bugs... Biggest one for me, on Gaspar, the lava planet, there's a Gold Bolt under a shield with pressure pads to deactivate. I died after after hitting the pressure pads, the shield went down, but the bolt was just stuck there... After returning, I could stand right in the middle of it, but it would not give it to me. I could even leave the planet and return and the shield would be down and it would not give it to me. I had to return to it in my 2nd playthrough in Challenge Mode (since it carries most of your stuff over) for it to finally deactivate the pads again so I could get it to work and give it to me. Had I had this happen in Challenge mode, I probably would have had no choice but to start the run (or actually both runs) completely over for that 1 Gold Bolt. BUT... I've actually already gotten Insomniac to fix it in their coming patch.
Whenever that is...
And then there's the enemies getting stuck while back behind a doorway forcefield that you can't go through and aren't supposed to be able to shoot through. They get stuck on geometry back in the hallway that you managed to blast them back behind. And you can't proceed until they die. However, of course I had to see if you could actually manage to get stuff through the forcefield, which you can. If you use one of the bomb gloves, like the Bouncer or the Glove (Agents) of Doom and throw them at the bottom corner of the forcefield, some of the agents or bombs will spawn on the other side of the forcefield to kill him. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times in my 2 playthroughs. If other people weren't going to figure that out, they would have had to jump off something to suicide and start the battle over again. And in Hard mode, that sucks pretty bad...
I also had a dropship get stuck underneath a platform that's on tall stilts that you're walking on on one of the planets, but the ship is so large that sticks up through the floor with its bottom gun down below so it was easy to take out.
Then on Pokitaru, the island resort planet where you're escorting the guy, there's a spot where one of the crab enemies can drop through the ground, blocking your escort progress because the guy won't continue until you kill all the enemies. Luckily, it only drops below the ground barely... but still far enough that you can't see it. First, after some confusion, I had to locate it with Mr. Zurkon who would start firing at it. I don't think he could hit it, but I could actually wrench slam it and kill it through the ground. (The Wrench slam actually has a pretty decent area of effect now. And the slam is actually more effective against small enemies than swinging is now, which is a little odd.) The funny thing is... I might be wrong, but I might have had this same exact thing happen in this same exact spot once in the original!
If that's true, it makes me wonder if they actually worked off of the same models of the worlds from the original...
I say that, but a varying range of about half of each planet has the same layout as the original. The other half or so is dropped and generally changed to something else. I mean my nostalgia can say I prefer the original, but I can't accurately say which version of the worlds are better at the moment. But some I definitely preferred the original and miss what is missing. And the new stuff generally seems like a smaller portion than what it replaced. Some planets feel like they're missing quite a bit and take a very short time to get through or across, especially if you have a decent weapon. (Batalia for example. And Novalis as well, but there's actually kind of a story reason for that though...)
Ugh, but Batalia though... Cora... Cora..... A new character. Her voice acting is soooooo bad! Not once does she sound like she's talking to another person. She sounds like she shouted out her lines once and they took it. Every one. I have no idea how rushed they were with that point of the voice acting, but they certainly could have been rushed, with the lack of polish this thing got. I have no idea if she's better in the movie, but I worry...
And her and the other new male character, who I don't even remember the name of, both have sound like they were taken straight out of Wreck It Ralph, or maybe current Cartoon Network is more like it. I don't know if you'll know what I mean, but sigh... They honestly aren't used much in the game, but I fear for the movie...
But really... Despite the many complaints I can have about it (and many justifiably), it's a pretty decent experience when it's not frustrating. Also, I wouldn't suggest you bother with setting it to Hard, because it can be pretty dang hard. I don't know everything that they changed to make it hard and I'm curious to know if enemy bullet speed is part of it and not just enemy damage towards you and enemy health. And, which has pretty much always been the case, there's 1 normal weapon or so (not including the RYNO because that's a given) that does a huge amount more damage than the others do. And also because of that, it upgrades much faster as well. Why they've always had that be the case, I don't know. Has it always been intentional?
I can't say...
But I guess, overall, what I can say is that it's still a pretty decent experience (again, when it's not being frustrating), but it is older uncle trying to be hip "funny" rather than actually funny. Drek's new voice actor actually isn't as bad as I had feared, but I still miss the old one. Then again, his voice might not quite have fit with the newer tone of the game, but I'm not a huge fan of the newer tone... so meh. If you know how the first game, or actually first series goes, there's some interesting new twists that happen that are moderately surprising, however really, (very mild spoiler)
And I would say that the $40 price tag was a nice surprise, but it shows... in polish and in various other ways.
The feel of the game in general is pretty decent, though the micro weapon upgrades as well as the new card collectables are very rapid throughout. Even though there's so many of them, you most likely won't get them all the cards until half way through your second playthrough and won't even get all your weapon upgrades by the time you complete the 2nd run.
However, there are some major complaints to be made. My number 1 here is pretty much always going to be; I don't like humor and writing of the guy who has written the games since the beginning of the Future series (PS3 games) and the movie coming out in a couple weeks. The entire thing all the way through (except for Mmmaybe 2 unexpected jokes) is written like it's like your grandfather (or more like older uncle) trying to be hip with the pre-teens. The entire damned thing... I believe it even manages to nearly reference this fact twice itself a couple of times in the game. The younger kids (under 10) will love this, but for anyone older there's nothing here for. The pre-teens might cringe and there's nothing here for the adults other than the fact there's no reason anywhere to be upset by anything their little kids might have heard.
2nd biggest complaint is that, it looks amazing, yet there are many moments throughout that scream lack of polish, and in some cases it's downright painful. The number 1 for me I think has to be the grind rails. Why? Because you have to somewhat tap your joystick in a direction and X to jump to a different rail and you CANNOT be holding the joystick in a direction for more than half a second (maybe less) or you will not jump in that direction and will just jump and slam into what's in front of you on your current rail. And even then it's fiddly as hell. You being able to lean left or right anytime on the rail? means nothing. Even though it's still there, it means nothing. You have to tap the joystick and X and hope to hell that it actually works. It's actually way more frustrating than it sounds. You can get a better handling of it eventually, but it still sucks really bad, making what's supposed to be a pleasant fun railgrinding moment painfully frustratingly miserable. Then there's the camera angles several times seeming to completely ignore that you actually need to see the gaps in the rail that you need to jump over. And the swingshot has some issues as well (throughout the game). Generally if you activate it at the top of your jump of the rail or off another swingshot, it simply won't work. You have to wait a moment while falling for it to activate. And another thing on the rails with the train cars coming at you - You can jump OVER I think every single one...
And even though it's a tad tricky, this is actually easier than changing rails to dodge it because of how frustrating changing rails actually is. Next up on side events with bad controls is the hoverboard races. The handling actually almost tries to be how it was in the original - you actually steer sharper jumping and in the air than you do on the ground. Strange, I know, but that's how it worked, and it actually worked in the original. Here, the ratios of the different amount of steering you get with being on the ground and in the air just don't feel good. It's frustrating enough to be an unpleasant experience. On top of that, in the 2nd track there's 1 pretty tricky spot to take the 2nd shortcut. The last jump you need to take is inconsistent and unpredictable as hell. To get through the shortcut properly, you actually aren't supposed to jump yourself off the jump, just let it jump you, but maybe a 3rd of the time or more, it just drops you. And it sucks... That and you can get wedged for a moment in the shortcut tunnel and have to jump yourself out. In both races, the first 2 laps don't mean anything, as long as you have about 3 boosts loaded at the end of the 3rd lap and you take the 2nd shortcut in the 2nd race. Even then the timing that the 2nd place AI gets is (as far as I have figured out so far) is a microsecond less than what you can possibly get to win. Have 2-3 boosts and don't mess up that last section and last shortcut on the last lap and you're probably good to just barely blast by the other guy at the last moment. But it's still extremely frustrating for those other reasons. Oh yeah and, I haven't completely figured this out yet, but another hugely frustrating issue here that I found is that there seems to be deadspots in the steering and your joystick. I don't know if this is actually happening in the handling of these events or it's my left joystick having major issues or if it's in fact my fairly new joystick grippers (not well designed for the PS4's concave joysticks) causing the issue. I noticed similar joystick issues in the menus of Destiny recently, but I don't know exactly what it is yet. But whatever this problem was became a major issue in the most crucial parts of the races. I had to actually actively try to avoid the deadspots in my joystick or the handling and nervously work around them while trying to take a perfect line around a corner at the end of the 2nd race, among other places. And when the deadspot hits, you're screwed.
And then there's the flying ship battle moments. Not all that much to say here except for some silly and bad design. Shooting restricts your speed and steering hugely, but not anything else that's going on, I don't think. I would concretely say that it hurts your ability to aim more than it helps, but steering without shooting isn't great either. And the HUD elements are a confusing visual mess for several reasons, especially for your first play. It's just not nice...
And then... There's the bugs... Biggest one for me, on Gaspar, the lava planet, there's a Gold Bolt under a shield with pressure pads to deactivate. I died after after hitting the pressure pads, the shield went down, but the bolt was just stuck there... After returning, I could stand right in the middle of it, but it would not give it to me. I could even leave the planet and return and the shield would be down and it would not give it to me. I had to return to it in my 2nd playthrough in Challenge Mode (since it carries most of your stuff over) for it to finally deactivate the pads again so I could get it to work and give it to me. Had I had this happen in Challenge mode, I probably would have had no choice but to start the run (or actually both runs) completely over for that 1 Gold Bolt. BUT... I've actually already gotten Insomniac to fix it in their coming patch.
Whenever that is...And then there's the enemies getting stuck while back behind a doorway forcefield that you can't go through and aren't supposed to be able to shoot through. They get stuck on geometry back in the hallway that you managed to blast them back behind. And you can't proceed until they die. However, of course I had to see if you could actually manage to get stuff through the forcefield, which you can. If you use one of the bomb gloves, like the Bouncer or the Glove (Agents) of Doom and throw them at the bottom corner of the forcefield, some of the agents or bombs will spawn on the other side of the forcefield to kill him. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times in my 2 playthroughs. If other people weren't going to figure that out, they would have had to jump off something to suicide and start the battle over again. And in Hard mode, that sucks pretty bad...
I also had a dropship get stuck underneath a platform that's on tall stilts that you're walking on on one of the planets, but the ship is so large that sticks up through the floor with its bottom gun down below so it was easy to take out.
Then on Pokitaru, the island resort planet where you're escorting the guy, there's a spot where one of the crab enemies can drop through the ground, blocking your escort progress because the guy won't continue until you kill all the enemies. Luckily, it only drops below the ground barely... but still far enough that you can't see it. First, after some confusion, I had to locate it with Mr. Zurkon who would start firing at it. I don't think he could hit it, but I could actually wrench slam it and kill it through the ground. (The Wrench slam actually has a pretty decent area of effect now. And the slam is actually more effective against small enemies than swinging is now, which is a little odd.) The funny thing is... I might be wrong, but I might have had this same exact thing happen in this same exact spot once in the original!
If that's true, it makes me wonder if they actually worked off of the same models of the worlds from the original...I say that, but a varying range of about half of each planet has the same layout as the original. The other half or so is dropped and generally changed to something else. I mean my nostalgia can say I prefer the original, but I can't accurately say which version of the worlds are better at the moment. But some I definitely preferred the original and miss what is missing. And the new stuff generally seems like a smaller portion than what it replaced. Some planets feel like they're missing quite a bit and take a very short time to get through or across, especially if you have a decent weapon. (Batalia for example. And Novalis as well, but there's actually kind of a story reason for that though...)
Ugh, but Batalia though... Cora... Cora..... A new character. Her voice acting is soooooo bad! Not once does she sound like she's talking to another person. She sounds like she shouted out her lines once and they took it. Every one. I have no idea how rushed they were with that point of the voice acting, but they certainly could have been rushed, with the lack of polish this thing got. I have no idea if she's better in the movie, but I worry...
And her and the other new male character, who I don't even remember the name of, both have sound like they were taken straight out of Wreck It Ralph, or maybe current Cartoon Network is more like it. I don't know if you'll know what I mean, but sigh... They honestly aren't used much in the game, but I fear for the movie...
But really... Despite the many complaints I can have about it (and many justifiably), it's a pretty decent experience when it's not frustrating. Also, I wouldn't suggest you bother with setting it to Hard, because it can be pretty dang hard. I don't know everything that they changed to make it hard and I'm curious to know if enemy bullet speed is part of it and not just enemy damage towards you and enemy health. And, which has pretty much always been the case, there's 1 normal weapon or so (not including the RYNO because that's a given) that does a huge amount more damage than the others do. And also because of that, it upgrades much faster as well. Why they've always had that be the case, I don't know. Has it always been intentional?
I can't say...But I guess, overall, what I can say is that it's still a pretty decent experience (again, when it's not being frustrating), but it is older uncle trying to be hip "funny" rather than actually funny. Drek's new voice actor actually isn't as bad as I had feared, but I still miss the old one. Then again, his voice might not quite have fit with the newer tone of the game, but I'm not a huge fan of the newer tone... so meh. If you know how the first game, or actually first series goes, there's some interesting new twists that happen that are moderately surprising, however really, (very mild spoiler)
I think these feel like twists to speed you past the first 2 games in the series (2nd of which has a story that's mostly going to be skipped) to start with the 3rd game, if... what happens at the end of this game/movie causes the course of the 3rd game.
And I would say that the $40 price tag was a nice surprise, but it shows... in polish and in various other ways.
And the fans just went almost completely quiet... Did it really cool down that fast??....
). But also somehow (maybe) the composition and direction of the battle didn't seem particularly well or dramatically done I guess.
Oh, and I don't say this often, but I will never get tired of Nefarious' voice. Especially yelling. 
Also an appearance by the 2nd game I think.
And man, I think a Groovitron used against Quark would have been so much better... like it was in the game. It didn't even appear. HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN??!!!
I got them to fix it though. 
)
