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The Ascent |OT| As Above, So Below

mxbison

Member
Side quests are straight up broken. This is one area that they needed some play testing. I assume the small team couldn’t fit that in the budget.

Yeah seems this game could have really used some more dev time. From what I've read the Coop is also pretty broken but I haven't tried it.

The world is incredibly well built, but maybe putting a little of that time into other areas would've made a better overall package.

Great job for their first game though and I'm sure they'll improve those areas in the next one.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Played some of this on pc gamepass.
This is the most generic thing I've seen in a while. I am speaking about art style and even more about gameplay.
Would it be a sin to drop all this light rpg bs, huge, confusing hubs and quest systems and just make a better simple but fun twin stick shooter?!

And technically it looks good but it's a a bit too much going on. Sound is the opposite. There is just bass and it feels like half of the sounds are missing. And the battle music already is starting to sound like a meme to me.
And I get huge stutters when explosions happen.
I can see it is a good game but also I can't imagine how little games the dev must have played to make game this generic feeling. I feel bad for saying this.
 
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Fess

Member
This is like the most well-crafted cyberpunk world ever in gaming and I never thought I’d see a twinstick shooter reach this level of visuals, it’s up there exchanging blows with the best imo. And from such a small team! Hats off!

Took some quick video captures on XSX




Easy boss fight
 
Finally got some proper weapons and powers, homing rockets aug and strikebreaker minigun with an energy shotgun maxed out. Shit goes properly boom now.

I have to say though, using reversed voices as alien language is lazy beyond belief. Really breaks the immersion.

Also realized that this game really reminds me of Crackdown. That’s a positive.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Man, your little smiley-face AI assistant is a really dark character. Love it.

Still pushing forward in the game, at lvl 21 now and they've dumped all sorts of different weapons, mods, and augs on me. There's really a lot of variety in how you can play. It's interesting to get stomped by a boss segment repeatedly, then you switch up your armor and go with different augs/mods and weapon loadout and totally blast their fucking faces.
 
Tired of spider mech killing me so I took a break by running around the map collecting all the components and opening all the boxes that I could at level 17.
Got doors and chests to ice level 2 and can hack everything except ATM.
Hoping the Enforcer gun would drop or be available to buy but I’ve not seen it yet. The Lv24 enemies in ‘The Edge’ use what look like The Enforcer so maybe it will drop there.
Me too, I was level 14 when I started against it and it says it's level 9 and I can't even get it half way beaten before it kills me. I've also had bugs where my gun wouldn't fire no matter which one I used and when I originally went to fight the spider mech and the cut scene ended there were 8 or so of them instead of one lol.
 

Fess

Member
I wish there was a probotector mode with robots and no civilian kills and gore. I want to play but now I have to wait 10 hours until the kids are asleep before I can play it.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Played some of this on pc gamepass.
This is the most generic thing I've seen in a while. I am speaking about art style and even more about gameplay.
Would it be a sin to drop all this light rpg bs, huge, confusing hubs and quest systems and just make a better simple but fun twin stick shooter?!

And technically it looks good but it's a a bit too much going on. Sound is the opposite. There is just bass and it feels like half of the sounds are missing. And the battle music already is starting to sound like a meme to me.
And I get huge stutters when explosions happen.
I can see it is a good game but also I can't imagine how little games the dev must have played to make game this generic feeling. I feel bad for saying this.
That was the selling point to me since i don't really buy pure twin stick shooters.

I love exploring, taking quest, discovering cool shit, having a plot and side-characters, developing my build and having such a gigantic and well crafted hub.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Some tips for people with troubles (with the game, not like "your mother dropped you head first on the ground when you were little" type of troubles)

Sometimes you wanna use a taxi to get to a quest destionation but when you open the taxi menu, you don't see the yellow\green thingy that indicated you the correct zone, so what you have to do is open the map, zoom all the way out and check manually where the green\yellow thingy is (when this happen it's usually in archeology warren zone) and then use the taxi to reach that location.

play at least the first 6-8 hours before doing most side-missions, you get more weapons, augs and unlock the locations where many sidequest are, so you are not gonna waste time trying to reach a zone that is not available yet (like with the steroid mission).

you can escape from high level enemies, sometimes you can encounter groups of enemies with a much higher level than you during a low level side mission but you can escape from them, they stop chasing you after a while.

Upgrade your weapons but don't waste too many upgrades on them until you are absolutely sure that you wanna continue to use them, i had my weapons on level 3 for a long time before deciding what to upgrade, level 3 is enough to fuck up everything for a big part of the game if you are not complete shit with the genre, and i'm playing on hard.

different type of damages matter, ballistic for humans, energy and especially digital for robots, and still not sure about hybrids and big guys, fire most probably.
the damage numbers change color based on efficacy, red you are using the worst type of damage, white is normal, yellow is the most damaging type.
Since digital weapons are pretty rare but also the strongest against robots, at least 12 hours in where i am now(basically only the first shotgun is digital) it's a good idea to buy the aug that transform every damage from your weapons to digital type, it's called I\O something.
always try to have at least 1-2 weapons for type of damage.

buy the snipers (both) when they are available (i'm pretty sure that you can't find them very easily from enemies or chest) and always aim high with these, you can basically use them as snipers or shotgun since the damage for single round is very high and you kill most trash enemies with 1-2 hits.

Always shoot while aiming high, you do more stagger damage (and sometimes more raw damage) so you can stop melee attackers more easily when they are close, but remember that some enemies can crouch and avoid your bullets even if they are far from cover (also the little fellas with the granade launcher).

Buy the plasma beam aug, it's kinda op.

Explore the locations, open the map and look for all the chests, the map is confusing yeah, but most of the time you just have to walk in the general direction of the chest to see it or to understand how to reach it.

You can use the hacking to open doors, chests, make turrets friendly (the yellow led circles on the ground), to hack med pack stations or other stations and later to get money from atms, if you explore enough you get hacking upgrades faster and that's useful because in some chests\doors you can find costly augs or skill points and shit.
You can check in the menu what type of ICE you can unlock for doors, chest etc. (sometimes you can open an ice 2 door but not an ice 2 chest)

Try to have one piece of any armour\weapon, sometimes some boss can deal a particular type of damage and you can mix the inferior armours to have more protection against that type of damage, same for weapons, i had to use old not upgraded weapons against a boss that was resistant to everything.

Don't always buy everything, most weapons and augs can be found by exploring and opening chest or from sidequest.

buy or find the aug that transform your roll into a teleport, it makes moving a bit faster.

Put ability points in evasion, having a long cooldown between rolls is probably what kills you the most.

Put auto aim on high, no shame in that since it's very weak and you still have to aim manually every time so bit of help is nice, also put some points on aim.

With high damage weapons (like the snipers) at level 3, you can fuck up enemies that are 2-3-4 levels above you, don't have fear to engage from time to time, you can discover cool shit in some indoors locations with a couple of enemies inside)
 
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asocirev

Member
Me too, I was level 14 when I started against it and it says it's level 9 and I can't even get it half way beaten before it kills me. I've also had bugs where my gun wouldn't fire no matter which one I used and when I originally went to fight the spider mech and the cut scene ended there were 8 or so of them instead of one lol.
The first time I faced the spider mech the game bug spawned 8 of them too!!! That fight is hard enough with one, I got destroyed. I’m only 1 or 2 main missions past this but everything has been easier.
 
Me too, I was level 14 when I started against it and it says it's level 9 and I can't even get it half way beaten before it kills me. I've also had bugs where my gun wouldn't fire no matter which one I used and when I originally went to fight the spider mech and the cut scene ended there were 8 or so of them instead of one lol.
Spidermech was the first boss where you actually have to evade and attack, evade and attack. It's punishing if you make a mistake but I didn't find it too difficult.

Definitely a fun game. Been enjoying my time with it and its been a refreshing game after playing about 120 hours of GoT. Definitely recommend it to anybody. Looks awesome, plays great, definitely had some bugs (for some reason, you cannot collect all the Codex and for some reason sometimes there won't be any enemies on the map for a few areas but thankfully going to the menu and reloading fixes this). Highly enjoying this game.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Got an achievement for having lots of money.
I spent most of it to reset my skills and then upped my health and energy all the way to 20 each. With some to spare for weapon handling.
Maybe now I can defeat that spider mech. But I'm stuck at work.
Game may have it's issues and bugs but I'm going to finish it. It's just too good to drop.
 

Desless1

Member
Got an achievement for having lots of money.
I spent most of it to reset my skills and then upped my health and energy all the way to 20 each. With some to spare for weapon handling.
Maybe now I can defeat that spider mech. But I'm stuck at work.
Game may have it's issues and bugs but I'm going to finish it. It's just too good to drop.

He, my first encounter with the spider mech, it bugged out, and got two of them to kill.

But proper fire res on armor and energy weapon, and they melt.

Just wrapped up the last boss. Pretty satisfied with the game. Give it a solid 8/10.
It was somewhat buggy, but now game breaking. But map design and such should not be this complicated.

Hope for DLCs.
 
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Spidermech was the first boss where you actually have to evade and attack, evade and attack. It's punishing if you make a mistake but I didn't find it too difficult.

Definitely a fun game. Been enjoying my time with it and its been a refreshing game after playing about 120 hours of GoT. Definitely recommend it to anybody. Looks awesome, plays great, definitely had some bugs (for some reason, you cannot collect all the Codex and for some reason sometimes there won't be any enemies on the map for a few areas but thankfully going to the menu and reloading fixes this). Highly enjoying this game.
Once I got the augment to make all of my damage digital it helped a lot, I used that along with one of the rocket launchers and took him out before he had taken half of my health. I know there are several ways to go about it but doing it but the hit and run without the digital damage augment was almost pointless for me, those damn "babies" jump way too far lol
 

Hey Blinkin

Member
Am I doing something wrong with the
Astrosmasher
?? It simply doesn't work for me. I can occasionally get it to fire one round, but otherwise it does nothing when I pull the trigger.

Nvm, I just figured out you have to hold the trigger down. Duh.
 
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Bartski

Gold Member
The Overwhelmer weapon is really OP, I am not using anything else for now, it shreds enemies quickly.
ovewhelmer is the best, my favorite weapon I did most late game with. The stuff you get as a reward for side missions is bonkers, there is a very special type of an endgame minigun I got to +10 but I'm not gonna spoil it.
 
Some tips for people with troubles (with the game, not like "your mother dropped you head first on the ground when you were little" type of troubles)

Sometimes you wanna use a taxi to get to a quest destionation but when you open the taxi menu, you don't see the yellow\green thingy that indicated you the correct zone, so what you have to do is open the map, zoom all the way out and check manually where the green\yellow thingy is (when this happen it's usually in archeology warren zone) and then use the taxi to reach that location.

play at least the first 6-8 hours before doing most side-missions, you get more weapons, augs and unlock the locations where many sidequest are, so you are not gonna waste time trying to reach a zone that is not available yet (like with the steroid mission).

you can escape from high level enemies, sometimes you can encounter groups of enemies with a much higher level than you during a low level side mission but you can escape from them, they stop chasing you after a while.

Upgrade your weapons but don't waste too many upgrades on them until you are absolutely sure that you wanna continue to use them, i had my weapons on level 3 for a long time before deciding what to upgrade, level 3 is enough to fuck up everything for a big part of the game if you are not complete shit with the genre, and i'm playing on hard.

different type of damages matter, ballistic for humans, energy and especially digital for robots, and still not sure about hybrids and big guys, fire most probably.
the damage numbers change color based on efficacy, red you are using the worst type of damage, white is normal, yellow is the most damaging type.
Since digital weapons are pretty rare but also the strongest against robots, at least 12 hours in where i am now(basically only the first shotgun is digital) it's a good idea to buy the aug that transform every damage from your weapons to digital type, it's called I\O something.
always try to have at least 1-2 weapons for type of damage.

buy the snipers (both) when they are available (i'm pretty sure that you can't find them very easily from enemies or chest) and always aim high with these, you can basically use them as snipers or shotgun since the damage for single round is very high and you kill most trash enemies with 1-2 hits.

Always shoot while aiming high, you do more stagger damage (and sometimes more raw damage) so you can stop melee attackers more easily when they are close, but remember that some enemies can crouch and avoid your bullets even if they are far from cover (also the little fellas with the granade launcher).

Buy the plasma beam aug, it's kinda op.

Explore the locations, open the map and look for all the chests, the map is confusing yeah, but most of the time you just have to walk in the general direction of the chest to see it or to understand how to reach it.

You can use the hacking to open doors, chests, make turrets friendly (the yellow led circles on the ground), to hack med pack stations or other stations and later to get money from atms, if you explore enough you get hacking upgrades faster and that's useful because in some chests\doors you can find costly augs or skill points and shit.
You can check in the menu what type of ICE you can unlock for doors, chest etc. (sometimes you can open an ice 2 door but not an ice 2 chest)

Try to have one piece of any armour\weapon, sometimes some boss can deal a particular type of damage and you can mix the inferior armours to have more protection against that type of damage, same for weapons, i had to use old not upgraded weapons against a boss that was resistant to everything.

Don't always buy everything, most weapons and augs can be found by exploring and opening chest or from sidequest.

buy or find the aug that transform your roll into a teleport, it makes moving a bit faster.

Put ability points in evasion, having a long cooldown between rolls is probably what kills you the most.

Put auto aim on high, no shame in that since it's very weak and you still have to aim manually every time so bit of help is nice, also put some points on aim.

With high damage weapons (like the snipers) at level 3, you can fuck up enemies that are 2-3-4 levels above you, don't have fear to engage from time to time, you can discover cool shit in some indoors locations with a couple of enemies inside)

Nice tips, thanks. Most of those I/we have organically found as we play.


Shame the coop is bugged at the moment, our team of 3 has had two nights where we've abandoned the game due to things not working e.g. game desyncs and nothing happens, enemies that freeze and become invulnerable, one teammates gets disconnected, the host game crashes to Xbox dashboard etc. We played about 20minutes last night and after 3 attempts went to play something else. Hopefully some stability patches are inbound, it would be a shame to have this game overshadowed by connection bugs for coop.
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
Nice tips, thanks. Most of those I/we have organically found as we play.


Shame the coop is bugged at the moment, our team of 3 has had two nights where we've abandoned the game due to things not working e.g. game desyncs and nothing happens, enemies that freeze and become invulnerable, one teammates gets disconnected, the host game crashes to Xbox dashboard etc. We played about 20minutes last night and after 3 attempts went to play something else. Hopefully some stability patches are inbound, it would be a shame to have this game overshadowed by connection bugs for coop.
I'm enjoying the game in solo, never even tried the coop (and i think the game is also balanced for solo).
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Oh i'm sorry, i don't put much weight into a controller gimmick...like we all did for 30 years before dual sense was even a thing.

Is this the new mantra of some people in here? Everything is better because of dual sense?? Jesus fuck we are in for dark times fellas :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
Always better to lean into your strengths and downplay your weakness’s.
 
Because Ratchet and Clank and Returnal have the benefit of the dualsense where every gun literally feels different on the controller.

I mean i'm having fun with this game, but environmental destruction doesn't even make up for how garbage cover shooting is with a controller. Nvm making the guns feel more impactful than those PS5 exclusives.

Saw this post late but disagree when you have paddles on a controller etc. I run an elite 2 controller and the paddles are set as evade and crouch/cover. Of course then you have raised shooting (left trigger) or use augs 1 & 2 (bumpers) as well from there. I don't ever have to take my thumbs off the movement or aiming to accomplish anything except basic d-pad functions, which are never during combat anyhow.
 
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Phase

Member
I'm about 5 hrs in now and while it looks amazing I'm starting to get bored. Combat engagements are largely the same outside of a few bosses (e.g. the mech) I hope they vary the environment a little more.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I'm enjoying the game in solo, never even tried the coop (and i think the game is also balanced for solo).
I mean if you die a lot the game seems to knock the difficulty down. The spider boss when I was cruising had 2 spider bosses spawn in. After I died it was only 1. Later on with the one story mission with a timer, if you die too much the enemies aren't as overwhelming. I really think the game takes into account how you are progressing. Maybe that's just me though.
 
I feel like I'm in a rut with this game. The whole map system sucks and the game seems to have wild difficulty swings. Traversing it all just doesn't seem fun. Constantly overwhelmed. I want to like it more but I honestly can't even tell you what the hell the story is about. Nor do I care about any of the characters. It's good looking game for sure though. It's losing me fast.
 
I feel like I'm in a rut with this game. The whole map system sucks and the game seems to have wild difficulty swings. Traversing it all just doesn't seem fun. Constantly overwhelmed. I want to like it more but I honestly can't even tell you what the hell the story is about. Nor do I care about any of the characters. It's good looking game for sure though. It's losing me fast.

For me I'm just after a good time getting bigger guns and blowing shit up as a squad, if there's some tactics involved then great (in place of just mindless shooting). I doubt I'll revisit the game after we finish it but do all games have to be a massive time sink? I'll be happy with 10-25 hours of solid gameplay. I'm probably at 3 hours so far.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Made it to Stimtown At level 19.
Completed that level 5 side mission that has been impossible to do from the start of the game. 😜
Is it possible to reset gun upgrades? I’m going to assume not without restarting.
 

Fess

Member
This game looks so good! Easily one of my favorite games this gen regarding visuals. It’s like the first time a game world looks like people are actually living in it, all the junk and debris littered on the ground and the rough and scraped materials etc, it’s all coming together perfectly.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I mean if you die a lot the game seems to knock the difficulty down. The spider boss when I was cruising had 2 spider bosses spawn in. After I died it was only 1. Later on with the one story mission with a timer, if you die too much the enemies aren't as overwhelming. I really think the game takes into account how you are progressing. Maybe that's just me though.
I don't think so, at least on hard, when i was stucked i just had to perfect my play, the damage output and received was the same.

The multiple boss are a bug, i readed that one guy had 11 of them.

P.s. the music in this game is fucking great, especially in those 3 min encounters.
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
I'm about 5 hrs in now and while it looks amazing I'm starting to get bored. Combat engagements are largely the same outside of a few bosses (e.g. the mech) I hope they vary the environment a little more.
there is enough variety of locations, even a big one later in the game.

But it's still space gritty cyberpunk at the core, you are not gonna see jungles or mountains, just various locations of the city.
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
I'm at level 30, at the Menshen quest which I believe is near the end of the game, so I decided to do every side quest I could find and gathered every loot in the world, I have one chest left which I cannot get to, I think it's blocked by a side quest I haven't unlocked yet, because of a bug maybe?

I think I have every weapon in the game now, some things are really wicked, and some are so powerful that make the late game encounters so easy you don't have to cover or dash anymore.

Does anyone know how much longer the game takes or is it the final mission?


Some basic RNG system for rarity and stats on loot, a proper map, and better balancing could have really done a lot for this game.

The lack of RNG loot is what I like a lot, that's what I also loved all the years back in the first Diablo, that consistency of every walkthrough. There are still unique guns in the game that you find only once in the world or via a side quest, but whether you'll be using those guns and will want to upgrade them to higher tiers, it's entirely up to you, and I always love when I'm given a choice and I'm in full control, rather than being left for the mercy of luck and either get an OP gear early on that will carry me through half of entire game and make it boring (like it happened for me in The Division), or struggle for hours in every encounter due to some low tier shit. Let alone wasting time for grinding for a good loot, the world is already huuuge for the implemented solution, if people would have to go back and forth aroud this massive levels no one would ever finish the game.


Is it possible to reset gun upgrades? I’m going to assume not without restarting.

You can only reset the player's skills. But don't worry, you'll get plenty basic/advanced components throughout the game, more than you need really. Just be sure to leave the superior components for late game when you know for sure which wrapons you'll be using, because those are very very rare.
 

mxbison

Member
The lack of RNG loot is what I like a lot, that's what I also loved all the years back in the first Diablo, that consistency of every walkthrough. There are still unique guns in the game that you find only once in the world or via a side quest, but whether you'll be using those guns and will want to upgrade them to higher tiers, it's entirely up to you, and I always love when I'm given a choice and I'm in full control, rather than being left for the mercy of luck and either get an OP gear early on that will carry me through half of entire game and make it boring (like it happened for me in The Division), or struggle for hours in every encounter due to some low tier shit. Let alone wasting time for grinding for a good loot, the world is already huuuge for the implemented solution, if people would have to go back and forth aroud this massive levels no one would ever finish the game.

I don't remember exactly how it was done in the first Diablo, but that game definitely had exciting loot and The Ascent doesn't IMO.

You just find duplicates and a new weapon every now and then (if you haven't bought that one in the shop already) which isn't necessarily better than your old weapon, probably worse since it's not upgraded. Apart from the armor to get higher resistances it all feels kinda meaningless, I don't even bother checking my new loot more than once every 2 hours or so.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
I was having a nice session, but now I'm having a hard time with the end of the game. Not sure of this, but I think I've entered into an unbeatable scaling loop. Each time I die and come back, the enemies are getting increasingly more difficult. I'm tuning my build and dishing out more and more damage, but I feel like I'm getting wasted faster and more intensely each time.

I almost beat it the first couple passes, now I get fucked hard even when I'm tuned in. Like I fooled around early with using the Pocket Mech and I'd get swarmed and I could blast them and keep moving. Over a few deaths they started pinning me and killing me in the mech. Even little shits. No option for difficulty on Xbox or GP PC. I'll try again tomorrow, but sheesh. What the fuck.
 
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Concern

Member
Really like the game but its a quite buggy mess. Plenty bugs which I have to die or restart the game to continue.

Anyone here not have any bugs?
 

Fess

Member
Really like the game but its a quite buggy mess. Plenty bugs which I have to die or restart the game to continue.

Anyone here not have any bugs?
Are you playing on PC? Steam or Gamepass? or Xbox? Series S, X or Xbox One?

The Gamepass version on PC is quite terrible on my rig, don’t know what’s the problem but the framerate goes into 1-digit fps at times.
I’ve been playing on Xbox Series X instead. Some minor framerate stutters but mostly fine. I get audio bugs though, ambient noises, can be bullet ricochet, ruffling clothes, stuff like that. They repeat until I enter a new area, like an elevator.
 

Concern

Member
Are you playing on PC? Steam or Gamepass? or Xbox? Series S, X or Xbox One?

The Gamepass version on PC is quite terrible on my rig, don’t know what’s the problem but the framerate goes into 1-digit fps at times.
I’ve been playing on Xbox Series X instead. Some minor framerate stutters but mostly fine. I get audio bugs though, ambient noises, can be bullet ricochet, ruffling clothes, stuff like that. They repeat until I enter a new area, like an elevator.


Series X. Nothing as far as stutters but bugs where right stick stops working, or can't move at all, audio bugs, black screen loading into elevator, and even became invisible lol.

Enjoying the game but damn lol.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Really like the game but its a quite buggy mess. Plenty bugs which I have to die or restart the game to continue.

Anyone here not have any bugs?
I've had 2 bugs. I had a weird repeating audio glitch that went away when I quit to main menu and reloaded the game. Then once my guns wouldn't fire. Reloaded. Didn't lose any progress luckily.
 

Concern

Member
I've had 2 bugs. I had a weird repeating audio glitch that went away when I quit to main menu and reloaded the game. Then once my guns wouldn't fire. Reloaded. Didn't lose any progress luckily.

My audio sounded muffled for awhile and after adding some skill points, luckily it fixed itself.
 

Fess

Member
Series X. Nothing as far as stutters but bugs where right stick stops working, or can't move at all, audio bugs, black screen loading into elevator, and even became invisible lol.

Enjoying the game but damn lol.
Invisible for you or for the enemies as well? Could be useful! 😜
 

oldergamer

Member
For me I'm just after a good time getting bigger guns and blowing shit up as a squad, if there's some tactics involved then great (in place of just mindless shooting). I doubt I'll revisit the game after we finish it but do all games have to be a massive time sink? I'll be happy with 10-25 hours of solid gameplay. I'm probably at 3 hours so far.
I think 10 - 25 hours is an unrealistic expectation for 99% of indy titles that are not open world or procedurally generated levels. This is probably a 5 - 8 hour game tops.
 
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