The Post Game - Battleborn

Fun game with a low enjoyment ceiling. Recommended because I had fun with it for a while and it works, but repetitive PvE matches, poor PvP matchmaking / empty lobbies, lack of weapon modding and repetitive character leveling means it's not worth the full asking price.

Total size on my hard drive (base only, without the Season Pass content): 25GB.

Battleborn is a game of two parts: PvE and PvP.

PvE

First off, this is not a game for soloing. It can be done, but takes FOREVER. It's much better to try to find a match with other people. Unfortunately, this means the campaign is experienced in bits and pieces, frequently out of order. The story is episodic anyway, but any kind of sense to the story becomes hard to grasp. There's some guy Rendain who's trying to do – something – and our team of Battleborn, assisted by genius Kleese and the AI, Nova, are trying to stop him. Sounds good. The maps and levels flow well, the banter with Kleese and supporting characters is funny (the first few times), the graphics are colorful, and the combat has a good feel (wish sprint was faster, though Speed power-ups help). Bosses are suitably epic, but most enemies behave the same – and in many cases, ARE the same. PvE is best used to practice playing specific characters; expect it to get old fast – even with alternate dialogue for in-game transitions.

PvP

Several different modes with decent net-code – I didn't have many problems with lag (a few, but nothing catastrophic). There are the usual concerns (and complaints) about OP characters. Team-work and a balanced squad is rather more crucial than in other team-based games. Kill/death ratio has zero importance; work together to take down the enemy. If you try to go off on your own and rambo it, you'll die fast. Gearbox is still releasing new maps and characters at the time of this review, so there is some variety still to be had. The problem is that people just aren't playing Battleborn; the Steam “now playing” list indicates 800 people playing at once is a busy day. Out of the millions that log on to Steam every day, that's an incredibly small amount – and that's down from the 1,000 – 1,200 that showed up for a double XP weekend. This indicates that people do own the game, and play it for special events, but they have other things they'd rather play on a daily basis.

Ten people are required for PvP; if you don't have them, you can't start the match. Two is the minimum for PvE, but there's no drop-in / drop-out. Character skills are leveled up in the middle of the match. Press 1 to open the skill menu, press Q, E, or F to choose a skill, the skill is upgraded and the menu closes. It happens in mere seconds and works well. But the very next match, I have to level my character all over again. Obviously I'm supposed to experiment with new ways to play a character, but once you've figured out the best way to play a character, the in-game leveling just becomes annoying. Equipping the load-out doesn't activate the gear in it; the gear has to be activated by accumulating enough shards to do so. Shards are acquired by searching the area for deposits; sometimes enemies drop shards as well. This isn't a problem in PvE with three players or in PvP. In PvE with the maximum of five players, though, there just aren't enough shards to go around. Add to this that the better gear costs more shards to activate, and that it helps to spend shards on building turrets and such, and PvE becomes a mad rush for shards.

Gear can help with things like damage and shields, but it won't provide new weapons; all weapons are bespoke based upon which character you've chosen. I'm not sure if Gearbox was deliberately trying to make Battleborn different from Borderlands (“the weapon varieties were one of the most notable things about Borderlands, so let's not have ANY weapon variety in Battleborn”), but some simple weapon choices and alternatives would have helped add new ways to play beyond choosing a character. (Look at Mass Effect 3's multiplayer; simple as the multiplayer mode is, the number of weapons and the fact that they could be modified added simple but effective depth to the loadout). Instead, playing a specific way requires a specific character; it helps focus attention on the gallery of rogues Gearbox has assembled, but it felt limiting.

I didn’t have much of an issue with PvP balancing (Benedict was OP, but his reload speed was recently nerfed, largely solving the problem). I had no issue with Battleborn’s graphical optimization, either - I also didn't try to max out the graphics and blame Battleborn when the game started stuttering (reduce Draw Distance, Particle Effects and Ambient Occlusion for starters). The cartoony art style of Battleborn might lead you to think you can max it out (like I could do with Borderlands 2), but don't be fooled. Battleborn is very demanding when maxed.

Battleborn provides a good amount of entertainment, but needs more maps (both PvE and PvP), weapon customization, and a larger player base. Get it at 75% off or more so you don't feel too bad if / when you tire of it. Sounds harsh, but there really isn't that much to Battleborn.

The Post Game - Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a linear third-person shooter whose atmosphere and story attempt to redeem the frankly clunky combat. The game proceeds in six episodes (with two additional DLC episodes that are now included for free). Worth a purchase on sale if you enjoy a combat-driven interactive movie, but there's not much replayability (unless you're a collectibles and achievements fanatic).

Alan's wife, Alice, gets “taken” by a mysterious “dark presence.” The entire game is spent trying to release her from its power. Alan is frequently lost, operating on whim, and not really sure of how to proceed. A writer himself, he begins researching old legends of Cauldron Lake and the power that words written there seem to possess. This is really the best part of the game, as the labyrinth of creation and created and how to balance what is desired with what is needed leads Alan down an increasingly dark path (pun intended). As he discovers, he is not alone in his knowledge of the lake's mysterious power, nor the first to suffer from it. The supporting cast are varied and colorful characters, several of whom have their own history with Cauldron Lake.

The atmosphere is suitably dark and fog-swept at times. Most of the game happens at night, so turn down your room lights and crank the audio to catch the ambiance (the sound design is superb). The setting is a unique one: the woods and small town atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest. The ambiance is captured nicely, and the woods have thick foliage and dark shadows. Old logging and mining gear abounds, providing just the right touch of historical nostalgia and rusty menace. The buildings and architecture are a mix of rustic, country-style structures (built sturdy to withstand the harsh winters) other more attractive, modern structures designed to impress tourists (Cauldron Lake Lodge). The great music score is the icing on the atmospheric cake: moody but melodic, it catches the feeling of solitude at night-time haunted by the supernatural.

A supernatural that is made perhaps more terrifying by the clunky combat. Shine a light at enemies to burn away the darkness, then shoot them with whatever weapon you have to hand. It works well enough, but feels loose and sloppy. The weapons are few, but do feel different: revolver, shotgun (regular and pump-action), flare gun, hunting rifle, flares, and flash-bangs. That's it. They're not all available at the same time, and at the beginning of each episode, Alan only has a flashlight and a revolver. So, no matter how good you were with saving up your gear, thinking there might be a big battle coming up, once the episode ends, you'll lose it all anyway. The enemies offer little variety. You've got the standard hatchet-throwing “taken”, the big “taken”, the fast “taken”, and random flocks of crows that fly out of the sky and attack Alan. Sometimes random objects (like cars, tires, dumpsters) will become possessed and attack Alan. With so many creatures that dwell in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, I expected there might be a boss fight with a bear or a pack of coyotes, but no.

None of these drawbacks would matter if the total experience offered by Alan Wake were more than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, it isn't. I enjoy it because when I first played it years ago I had no idea that video games could handle narrative in this fashion. I'll always have a nostalgic appreciation for it and it just kills me to provide a mixed recommendation. But if you want more than story and atmosphere, look elsewhere, because you'll be sorely disappointed by everything else. If story and atmosphere suffice, though, get Alan Wake right away.