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| Re: Mars: War Logs by Lizard_King 05/16/2013, 9:58pm PDT | ||||
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| I think I'm about halfway through. I find the combat much more reminiscent of Fable 2 or the underrated Rise of the Argonauts; the combat in both Witchers just doesn't work for me in terms of the flow between animations, execution and effect, and while they can clean up the writing from iteration to iteration, the can't fix the underlying structure of the sort of boring antihero wish fulfillment that was trite when Bob Salvatore was grinding it into shit back in the day. I give Mars the edge in story, as well, as at least it knows what it is and rarely wastes your time pretending otherwise.
If you go into it expecting a competently executed branching dialog action rpg, and manage to figure out the combat early, it's a blast. That's important, though; the stealth upgrades are going to let you trim off an opponent or two from most fights unless you go all in, at which point it's still pretty fiddly. In contrast, getting to the upgrade that lets you not get staggered by light hits, as well as the upgrades that let you dodge more effectively and toss sand more effectively get you all kinds of advantages that let you control the combat. The parry upgrades are also really vital early on, as are health and damage resist boosts. Really by act 2-3 you should be doing a lot more crafting to give you an edge, whether with hand grenades or just nailgun rounds, at which point you will still die on occasion but it will be pretty manageable. Technomancy is quite powerful, but it pays to specialize since you do hit at levels where you are only getting two points per level. I specialized in the blast but I think ultimately the lightning is probably the most effective in terms of putting people down and breaking guard; I alternate a point on that kind of thing and one on combat skills and they come along pretty easily. Giving your AI partner a set of cues that works for your approach is important. Having them attack your target is probably the easiest to manage, but I also like to have them pull enemies away and then oscillate between the two groups throwing dust and clobbering people left and right, while periodically shooting the greatest threat. In any case, the combat is a good time and the game doesn't punish you for playing to your tastes in terms of decisions. It's probably a bit frustrating if you're obsessed with min-maxing it, but it's pretty expressly designed to let you change your mind and the like as you go without giving you the ol' alignment bar to micromanage. Rise of the Argonauts was similarly competent although it had more going for it in terms of making effective use of somewhat overplayed settings and ideas. The game is ugly, and it's got some rough edges. But if you take it for what it is, it's probably the best non-AAA RPG I'll play for a while and a good deal at the sale price of 20-30$ or so. The story has some nice directions along with some real groaners, but I recommend it overall even though I was pretty skeptical for a lot of the first part. |
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Mars: War Logs by 04/29/2013, 2:26am PDT  How much like Witcher 2? NT by 04/29/2013, 7:13am PDT Re: How much like Witcher 2? by 04/29/2013, 7:57am PDT Re: Mars: War Logs by 05/16/2013, 9:58pm PDT |
