Tips for any new players: make note of all IPCA Techs you grab if you're going for completionism. These unlock a special weapon in the postgame but there's no way to track which ones you already grabbed.
Anyway, I really enjoyed my time with this game. The gameplay is pretty fun, with nice gun play that's decently visceral (though not at the level of something like RDR2 at all, but better than Far Cry for example). Playing on Survival I, the early game is particularly fun to me as I was forced to use stealth and every trick I had to kill my enemies. For example, drawing a nearby horde to an enemy camp and making the Freakers and marauders kill each other while I watch. It's a bit less interesting later on though, as I became so powerful that I just ran around shooting everyone and everything, but it's still fun. Enemy AI for humans is particularly fun to mess with, but they're not as smart as they try to appear. The bike is great though it starts out rough, fun progression there. Not much I can complain about other than wishing the game went harder on survival elements than it does.
The open world is perhaps where I have the most issues with the game, when it comes to gameplay. It's a great map with lots of unique locations and jack shit to do in them other than scavenge and kill Freakers and hostile humans. And you don't even need to scavenge much, because it takes a while to get good crafting recipes for pipe bombs and shit. Then you also have a small inventory space for each material, so I just barely bothered to scavenge. Oh and I should be clear, you only ever find materials. There's no meaningful weapons to find, only breakable melee ones. All guns and the like are unlocked through camps and story progression. There's also very few events in the world, so there just isn't much going on other than riding from point A to point B. Survival removes fast travel too, so I did a lot of riding. Shame because the map itself really is great and also looks fantastic.
Speaking of looks, the game just looks amazing, specially the lighting and faces (except Tucker and Rikki). Not much more to say there.
Now, story. I found it surpeisingly good, having expected an excuse plot at first. The characters are great and believable and Deacon is a great protagonist. He's such an ass for so long that it really made me enjoy seeing his character development. The third act and finale of the game are particularly amazing, though the cliffhanger post-game stuff is sad since a sequel was rejected by Sony. I would really enjoy seeing a sequel that irons out the kinks like the empty open world and continues the story.
Anyway, I really enjoyed my time with this game. The gameplay is pretty fun, with nice gun play that's decently visceral (though not at the level of something like RDR2 at all, but better than Far Cry for example). Playing on Survival I, the early game is particularly fun to me as I was forced to use stealth and every trick I had to kill my enemies. For example, drawing a nearby horde to an enemy camp and making the Freakers and marauders kill each other while I watch. It's a bit less interesting later on though, as I became so powerful that I just ran around shooting everyone and everything, but it's still fun. Enemy AI for humans is particularly fun to mess with, but they're not as smart as they try to appear. The bike is great though it starts out rough, fun progression there. Not much I can complain about other than wishing the game went harder on survival elements than it does.
The open world is perhaps where I have the most issues with the game, when it comes to gameplay. It's a great map with lots of unique locations and jack shit to do in them other than scavenge and kill Freakers and hostile humans. And you don't even need to scavenge much, because it takes a while to get good crafting recipes for pipe bombs and shit. Then you also have a small inventory space for each material, so I just barely bothered to scavenge. Oh and I should be clear, you only ever find materials. There's no meaningful weapons to find, only breakable melee ones. All guns and the like are unlocked through camps and story progression. There's also very few events in the world, so there just isn't much going on other than riding from point A to point B. Survival removes fast travel too, so I did a lot of riding. Shame because the map itself really is great and also looks fantastic.
Speaking of looks, the game just looks amazing, specially the lighting and faces (except Tucker and Rikki). Not much more to say there.
Now, story. I found it surpeisingly good, having expected an excuse plot at first. The characters are great and believable and Deacon is a great protagonist. He's such an ass for so long that it really made me enjoy seeing his character development. The third act and finale of the game are particularly amazing, though the cliffhanger post-game stuff is sad since a sequel was rejected by Sony. I would really enjoy seeing a sequel that irons out the kinks like the empty open world and continues the story.