Recent reviews by Pasky

Unfortunately this game had great potential, but it was rushed out the door with nothing much to show for itself and is a greatly disappointing mess. I bought the Khaos Kollection edition (which I believe contains all content that has and will be made) for £19.99, average saving of £50+, and I still feel shortchanged.

My review in short: Do not buy this game UNLESS it is on sale in the future for £10 or less. It's got enough highs to keep you entertained, but the lows really do sour the experience.

As I have been a MK fan since the 1990s I feel I should give a more in depth review to others who might be in the same position as me:

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN 5/5
Once again NRS smashes it out of the park, and I cannot fault how the game looks. The New Era looks exactly how it should, and the visual design of the characters and stages really pop. My only grievance is, given how similar the graphics are to MK11, that the facescans of the characters from 11 didn't carry over. Huge fan as always of the art direction. There was stuttering and drops in framerate, but I cannot speak to that being a problem with the game or my ageing rig.

MUSIC/SOUND 4/5
The musical scores really heighten the energy of both gameplay and cutscenes. The meaty SFX of the moves and the environmental sounds really pull you into the moment. However, some of the voice acting felt a little more hammed up/phoned in than previous titles. Megan Fox's performance was abysmal, her character's dialogue was easily the worst part of this already disappointing game.

GAMEPLAY 2/5
Off the bat the return of Fatal Blow is great, a much better system than the cheapening X-Ray moves from 9 and X. The pace of fights doesn't seem all that different to 11, although I am not a competitive player and may be less knowledgeable on mechanical details.
Cameo system adds a new element to kombat, giving players a greater choice of special moves and combos to execute. However, after playing for a short period of time it becomes clear this is a somewhat underbaked feature that only adds more bloat (now you have to remember the moves of all cameo characters to be able to counter effectively) seemingly at the expense of the main roster's movesets. The multitude of combos each character had seems to have scaled down, presumably to give the devs enough time to finish the Cameo characters.
Certain fatalities and Fatal Blows have been ported in from 11, and reuse of assets clearly demonstrates to me this title was rushed by the studio by publisher demands. Likewise the vast customisation options in 11 or even the larger array of skins in X seem to have been cut down for this game, with many characters lacking.
The Krypt was cut in favour of Invasions mode, which amounts to an overly simple boardgame with repetitive fights and frustrating opponents, all for little reward.
Microtransactions return with a vengeance in this game, not as in-depth with the Dark UX as MK11 but certainly tiresome to behold. Unsure what else to say about MTX when they're so ubiquitous now.
Finally the roster feels like a swing and a miss. It somewhat redeems many 3D era characters by giving them more interesting and rewarding movesets or stories, but I have mixed feelings about the included characters. However NRS has pushed the guest characters too far in my opinion, with many other reviews also wishing for a classic character's return in lieu of pandering to comic/TV/movie fans instead.

STORY 1/5
*PARTIAL SPOILERS BELOW*
Here I feel the greatest disappointment. The ending of MK11 provided a perfect setup to a soft reboot (which I'm not entirely sure the state of the setting around MKX warranted, but it at least managed to make it fun) and for the first half of the base game story it works really well.
The New Era characters really are sold to us and some end up being much more fleshed out than previous incarnations. I was quite enjoying seeing things play out in Liu Kang's New Era without the contrivances of time travel or alternate realities.
Unfortunately this more reasonably paced plot gets unstuck when the story decides it needs to return to the climax of MK11 and unleash multiple timelines, rendering all that characterisation utterly pointless and making me not care in the slightest about it anymore. For a small time where only two timelines are suggested to exist I was disappointed, but could buy into. Soon however, it all unravels into slop.
The Khaos Reigns expansion fares no better, with characters being plucked from random timelines and an even greater amount of confusion as to who's who and importantly confusion as to why I should care.
Given the really interesting and (for MK as a franchise at least) unique setup I was very disappointed. MK9 managed to handle rebooting in a really careful and well executed manner, and I'd have preferred to see something with that level of restraint. They took a swing and really missed, which is frustrating as it achieved a great first and second act.

OVERALL RATING 48/100

Give this one a miss.
If you are new to the franchise do not bother, despite signalling itself as a reboot this feels like a tired late instalment rather than a refresh. Try MKX or MK11 instead. If you are an existing MK fan, stick the games you already own.
I could only recommend this game if it drops below £5 at any point, maybe pick it up to breeze through the thin-on-the-ground content to tick it off your list then be on your way.
Otherwise, on balance, avoid it.

Having played MK1 at last, I have come back to give this a positive review. The Ultimate Edition of MK11 far and away is a much better and more enjoyable game than its sequel. For now, grab this as the go-to MK experience!

This is a real hidden gem! As far as I know no other game attempts to do what this does.
Imagine all the Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green etc etc horror RPGs, but you are the coordinator and handler responsible for putting agents on the ground to keep the horrors at bay.

This game is incredibly atmospheric and builds a linger sense of dread (despite the ultra limited UI) through some ingenious bits of design.

The incredibly unsettling music, the slow burn of the events unfolding piece by piece, the horror of the aberrations emerging as you begin to connect the dots (sometimes literally), and the unending time pressure to try and analyse the information before bankruptcy looms - or before the aberration escapes your dragnet! Even sending out a team to investigate feels fraught with tension, if your intel is wrong then you either waste a significant portion of your precious budget, or worse still your agents may perish in horrible circumstances.

All of this comes together to create a tense and eerie handler simulator that far outstrips the sum of its parts.

10/10, far and away worth the cheap pricetag.

perhaps the greatest price to enjoyment ratio of any game ever made this is a must have for any serious gamer or bean fan,

EDIT: I checked and it's cheaper than actual beans

What I expected:
-Pokemon with Guns
-Broken Early Access Mess
-Reductive Gameplay Loops

What I got:
-First true innovation in mon tamer genre in decades
-Fully playable and MASSIVE map
-Plenty of ways to play without being forced to grind any one thing

Honestly blown away by how well this has been executed. Has released in a far better state than Pokemon Legends Arceus, and as it's Early Access we know there's plenty more content to come.

Can recommend!

A terrible concept well executed. I'm not sure who it is for.

It's a competent Hero Shooter for sure, but it isn't very Gundam. You don't feel like an MS pilot, it doesn't feel like it could take place in any of the myriad Gundam settings. It's the same tired over overmonetised Free-To-Play as every other Hero Shooter.

I don't want to play a game that rewards daily and weekly challenges with unlocks that can be shortcutted with paid currency. I want to play a Gundam game. Not even a "sim", but something that lets me experience something akin to the fiction.

The fact BANDAI went for this rather than something like the Side Story 0079: Rise From The Ashes game they made for Dreamcast over 20 years ago really demonstrates they are really have a loose grip on the state of their IP management.

Together with the abysmal PC release of MSG:BO2 I cannot see Gundam fans getting anything of quality anytime soon.
Play this before the end of the month to see what you didn't miss out on, then bid it good riddance.

BANDAI if you're reading this, we want a Gihren's Greed remake in English. Or at the very least a cheap Gundam mod for Arma. Anything other than this.

I thought the first one was a real gem but this one went from 1 to 100 to 1,000,000 and it's great. Massively recommend. I am now unfortunately far too invested in The Room deep lore.

A really atmospheric and fun way to while away an afternoon. I've paid triple the price of this for escape rooms that are about a third as fun.

It's very good

yes pretty good. Mile wide, an inch thick, perfect podcast fodder. Shoop shoop fite pirates, noice.