Recent reviews by Hexed

Free spooks for all

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villian"
..and boy Overkill could give Lex Luthor a run for his money in the villian department.

A very enjoyable narative driven game, the writing is decent but the game shines when you start to get involved with the stories many characters although they start out as boring stereotypes they bring out alot of depth the more you get to know them. The game also has alot of emotional moments which it plays on quite heavily, sometimes it's done well othertimes not so much. Ontop of that the ending can leave a sour taste in your mouth after you're done so you're either gonna love it or hate it.

All in all I would still recommend most people a playthrough of this if you are into a good story.
Uhh if I had to give it a number;

8 "hella's"out of 10.

Liked the first Killing Floor? Then you'll love this beast.

I've only played one game on the (currently) 3 avaliable maps and I have to say It captures the old Killing Floor style perfectly and then improves upon it. The atmosphere, graphics, animation and sound all work perfectly for the games setting. I've seen a few wierd AI pathing issues which can break the illusion but during the heat of a fight its not really noticable unless you're looking for it.

The gameplay itself is pretty much the same as any FPS horde mode game, although in KF2 at-least this time all the monsters have their own unique feel to them and almost have a personality. The weapons too now also actually feel like they should and behave differently and its great.

Then when you hear the roar of a fleshpound and a scrake in the distance you know to get your guns ready as It can be a fairly difficult game. At-least it was with just the 4 of us I find that this make the game feel less grindy for lack of a better word. You tend to get more caught up in the fire fights making sure you're covering your team mates backs and holding down in a tough situation and its a effin blast. Then there is the boss at the end of the last round who completely stomped us 2/3 times but he was still great fun to fight and a great breath of fress air from the patriarch from the first game. I'm fairly sure there will be other bosses and such buut Im just reviewing the alpha.

Speaking of which how is the current alpha sate? Well there arn't to many features at the moment with only 4 classes and a handfull of guns but that was kind of a given for alpha and the bugs are few to almost non existant with 0 crashes so far. (key word being so far)

8/10, A great way to kill a few hours with friends.

Still buggy, still boring, factions still suck, pointless micro transactions AND ♥♥♥♥ tons of script kiddies that make the game even more broken then the early access (mind you not much has changed anyway)

Tight gunplay, amazing maps, stupidly overpriced skins. everyone in the silver competitive match up is clueless or a smurf. 8/8 would r8 m8.

With the recent addition of the 0.60 update its glad to see some good progress made with DayZ, the game now not only looks much better then its prior updates but runs much smoother and feels alot more playable then it has previously. That said there are still a-lot of things that need to be worked out for this game to become a truely enjoyable experience.

Here are a few of the pros and cons of DayZ's current standing.

+ Visuals have been update dramaticly and it now has a much more atmospheric feel to the game rather then a plastic empty world.

+ Zombies actually exist in the world now, still not as well iterated as the Arma 2 variant but whilst wondering around major cities if you start to make noise you will be hunted down by zeds and its great fun.

+ Performance has improved a-lot with a steady 40-50 frames in cities and 100+ outside of them on a GTX 980 and an I5 6600k

Cons:

- Slow early game/loot abundunce, during the first few hours of your life in DayZ any real progression seems insanely slow running from building to building just for one can of beans it all feels way to tedious at the moment with low loot spawns and empty buildings.

- Lack of a real end-game, even after you have found yourself an AK and some military gear there is nothing left to really do besides kill people who are far less kitted then you. Any end game PVP is insanely rare and lack of a building mechanic leaves you just wondering around bored.

- Bugs 3 odd years on this game is still riddled with bugs, glithces and crashes

- Melee combat, trying to kill a zombie with an axe is just.. ugh.. its slow its clunky and 90% time it just feels horrible.

-Audio This kind of ties in with the bugs as the overall audio isnt too bad but there are alot of glitched sounds and example being zombie groans and gunshot locations sound like they are in a completely different location then its actual source.

Conclusion, If you have a-lot of paitence then there is a bit of fun to be found here now, and its actually in a state where its playable and feels like the updates are taking it back on track, I just hope more updates like the 0.60 come more frequently as it doesnt take long for the game to grow stale.

EDIT: As of 2018 they have shut down the ♥♥♥/asia server so there is only Europe and America remaining. Unless you live in these regions you are gonna have a bad time with latency.
Unless they add another Asia/Oceanic server (which is unlikely) I cant recommend this game.

APB is a rough gem, it has many interesting concepts and great ideas but its execution definately leaves more to be desired. The biggest complaint I see crop up however is people misunderstanding the core gameplay and it can be a steep learning curve. Alot of people come in expecting a GTA clone where you get to roleplay as cops or robbers. This is not the case at all, It plays more along the lines of a third person arcadey CS:GO with hyper competitive players. You are usually thrown into a mission with 4-6 players and the winner is determined by what team can devise the best stratagies to deal with the given objectives. The feed back when you shoot someone is minimal with a small blood spray to indicate you hit this leaves people complaining that their guns do no damage and people with rocket launchers are "pay2win hack3rz". I feel this type of gunplay handles closer along the lines of how Halo used to be played with a slower time to kill and more focus on stratigic engagements. It's not for everyone but I enjoy this style because it makes you think before you run into the open guns blazing expecting to kill everything your crosshairs pointed at.

My personal biggest complaint for APB is that its servers can make it increadibly frustrating to play if you live in the oceania region like myself then you're sh*t out of luck as of the time of writing this there are only 3 servers, US, EU and JP with my lowest possible latency being 190-250 to Japan. However if you live close to either of these 3 regions you will probably have better luck and this will be a non issue.

another complaint that props up alot is the "hackers" I cant speak for everyone but playing on the Japan server I generally run into hackers here less then most current big titles like CS:GO or PUBG (obviously the lower playerbase contributes to this too). Make no mistake you wil run into them on occasion and their tell is that they are generally the low ranks with 9+ win streaks or are getting 30 kills against high skill players. They aren't always this obvious but even so in my opinion if you have a decent team and some good communication you can shut down most script kiddies and if not just go make a cup of coffee and wait for the mission to end.

APB also features a marketplace where you buy in game items for real money i'd say that even being a free to play game it manages to balance out the economy for players well enough, you can generally get all the best guns fairly early on such as the "Ntec" or "HVR" easily enough without paying a cent you just need paitence to learn how/when to use them. The only real big miss with the market is the lootbox mechanics which Is a bad practice in any aspect. The marketplace itself really only sells is some niche weapons that are far seperated from the meta and are generally not viable in a competitive setting their only real advantage being that players can purchase "lifetime" versions of guns so they dont have to buy an assault rifle every week or so unlike the in game economy, even so a purchase from the pay2win market isnt worth it 99% of the time.

The biggest hook for APB (for me personally) is the insane customization, no other game lets you personalize your character to the extend APB does, where you can create your own outfits, tattoo's, cars, symbols and even music. With simple but increadibly robust creation suites, check my personal screenshots for some examples of this. It really lets you express yourself in this game and its great for artsy folk, even if you aren't an artist you can still purchase incredible creations other players have made to show off your avatar. It just gives the game personality that no other game ive found has been able to replicate and it really makes APB set itself appart in my eyes.

The last big thing that I love about APB is the dynamic mission system, once again unlike other competitive games (or even GTA) if you want to hop into a match you dont have to wait for 50 loading screens or wait in a lobby for everyone to join. Once youre in a mission district (the main servers) you just hit the K button and you'll be flung into a mission with the closest ranked people that are driving around the server with you. It makes for incredibly dynamic sitations where even with my stupid 2000 hours I still encounter missions that play out in ways that ive never experienced or expected before and theres just no fuss, log in, hop into a server and hit the ready button and balm youre in a game.

In conclusion this game just has a unique style that seperates itself from a simple GTA Clone, with competitive matchamking and dynamic missions in its open maps its just a unique experience and along with the character this game oozes with player customization it fills a tight niche that no other game has been able to fill