So one terrible thing about the game and one great thing to balance it out.
It's terrible how transparent the repetitive open world design is in the various zones. It's so gamey. Structurally and in terms of tasks, every zone is the same. A balloon, 2 camps, a death run, some scarecrows, convoys, minefields. Build the maggot farm (4 parts), build the water storage (2 parts), build the survey crew (3 parts) etc etc - it's so obvious how they built this great looking, expansive map with different environments, and then didn't have the balls to leave things empty or switch things up, so they just designed one zone structurally and pasted that on the rest. They take so much care to separate the environments visually but then do absolutely nothing to separate them structurally and in terms of gameplay or progression. Huge, huge mistake and undermines the whole presence and believability of the world in a big way.
On the positive thing, and I've seen this criticised a lot, but I thought it was a big positive, is how Max animates and feels to control. It's heavy, laboured, believable. One of the most realistic run transitions and repeatable character jumps in recent memory. No fall damage is a concession, but his tumbling, stumbling, limping around after falls and hits do manage to drive home and sell Max's pain in a way that fits that universe. There'a a lot of criticism by players who are clearly used to completely superhuman characters (like Nathan Drake or Assassins or, well, literally every third person adventure character), but let it be known that I really appreciated the design decision that spawned his movement.
(He is still superhuman, of course, and the dissonance does rear its head with his combat prowess vs mobility wghen the game needs it vs his inability to climb unmarked terrain that he should be capable of traversing easily.) It's tough to nail, but I appreciate the attempt. I wish they would have had the courage to extend this kind of design philosophy to the open world structure itself.
I'm not sure if it's the same in murica dollarinos, I don't know if the game is 50 or 60 bucks or whatever.
