It finally happened! Almost an entire decade after Rocksteady released the execrable Arkham Knight, one of the worst games of the previous console generation, they're here with Suicide Squad. This is their comeback! An opportunity to restore their tarnished reputation, to be back in the good graces of Video Gamers worldwide, and-- Oh, oh whait wha oh shit. fuckl
[Note: I completed the main story and did a few of the missions after that. More on that later.]
Alright. You all know what the deal is here. This is a "live service," whatever the hell that actually means, looter-shooter. This caused a lot of backlash as soon as it was announced, and I'm here to say that it brings me no pleasure to tell you... It's good. In certain circumstances, anyway.
The game definitely makes a bad first impression. It begins with a pointless in media res segment, where you're forced to play as all 4 members of the Squad in sequence. The opening cutscenes feel awkward, like the rhythm is off. This becomes a lot better as you go, and I actually felt the characters were done pretty well. It's nice to have a proper King Shark for once.
The combat and traversal are fun, as long as you don't play as Harley Quinn. I mained Captain Boomerang, and he's incredibly engaging to use, once you figure out that the tutorial tells you how to play him wrong (don't teleport through the air, throw it at walls/floors then Dash to keep up speed). I was zipping around and blasting fools with shotguns throughout the entire game, and it never got old. Specifically, I appreciated that this game avoids the standard looter-shooter problem of making enemies damage sponges. King Shark is also pretty fun, as he has Hulk: Ultimate Destruction/Prototype style charge jumps. Deadshot has a jetpack, and is kinda boring, but functional. From achievement statistics, most people played as him. Unsurprising, but at that point if they're bored, it's on them.
Then you have Harley. She has a grapple and a sorta Spider-Man swing, but the grapple requires a ledge, and the swing has a long cooldown so you can usually only do 2 before having to land or grapple again. After trying her for a few missions, I refused to play as her anymore. There is probably some trick to making her not suck, but I never found it, and you're disincentivized to play multiple characters anyway. The ones you're not using do not gain any XP, for some reason. You would think they'd get maybe 25% of your total, to keep them from falling behind, but nope! Occasionally missions will mark a character as "psyched up", making them stronger and rewarding them with extra XP, and I switched to those characters when this happened. Still, at the end, when Boomer was level 30 (max), Deadshot and King Shark were around 10 and Harley was at 7 or so.
So here's the main issue. Completing the campaign results in a sorta non-ending, with an admonition to complete all these extra missions, repeating them over and over on higher difficulties, presumably to unlock the True Ending. And I'm not doing that shit. I suppose this is the "Live Service" aspect, as it is attempting to be a Forever Game, while we all know the servers for this are going to be shut off in a year. Until that point, it's really just a standard open-world game. Yes, it requires being online, ostensibly, but several times I just jumped back into the game from Quick Resume on the XSX, which usually disconnects online games, and it still worked. You can also pause the game at any time, which is nice.
A quick note on performance: Not good. It's kinda all over the place, but I will give it a bit of slack because there's often a whole bunch of bullshit exploding everywhere. I don't think it ever dropped to sub-30 FPS, but it definitely came close a few times.
I was fully prepared to give this a 7/10 until I reached the end and its Hamster Wheel of Mediocrity. So, unfortunately, I gotta drop this down to a 6. As long as you play as the true hero of Metropolis, Digger Harkness. Or Nanaue.
5 if you play Deadshot and 4 if you play Harley.
[Note: I completed the main story and did a few of the missions after that. More on that later.]
Alright. You all know what the deal is here. This is a "live service," whatever the hell that actually means, looter-shooter. This caused a lot of backlash as soon as it was announced, and I'm here to say that it brings me no pleasure to tell you... It's good. In certain circumstances, anyway.
The game definitely makes a bad first impression. It begins with a pointless in media res segment, where you're forced to play as all 4 members of the Squad in sequence. The opening cutscenes feel awkward, like the rhythm is off. This becomes a lot better as you go, and I actually felt the characters were done pretty well. It's nice to have a proper King Shark for once.
The combat and traversal are fun, as long as you don't play as Harley Quinn. I mained Captain Boomerang, and he's incredibly engaging to use, once you figure out that the tutorial tells you how to play him wrong (don't teleport through the air, throw it at walls/floors then Dash to keep up speed). I was zipping around and blasting fools with shotguns throughout the entire game, and it never got old. Specifically, I appreciated that this game avoids the standard looter-shooter problem of making enemies damage sponges. King Shark is also pretty fun, as he has Hulk: Ultimate Destruction/Prototype style charge jumps. Deadshot has a jetpack, and is kinda boring, but functional. From achievement statistics, most people played as him. Unsurprising, but at that point if they're bored, it's on them.
Then you have Harley. She has a grapple and a sorta Spider-Man swing, but the grapple requires a ledge, and the swing has a long cooldown so you can usually only do 2 before having to land or grapple again. After trying her for a few missions, I refused to play as her anymore. There is probably some trick to making her not suck, but I never found it, and you're disincentivized to play multiple characters anyway. The ones you're not using do not gain any XP, for some reason. You would think they'd get maybe 25% of your total, to keep them from falling behind, but nope! Occasionally missions will mark a character as "psyched up", making them stronger and rewarding them with extra XP, and I switched to those characters when this happened. Still, at the end, when Boomer was level 30 (max), Deadshot and King Shark were around 10 and Harley was at 7 or so.
So here's the main issue. Completing the campaign results in a sorta non-ending, with an admonition to complete all these extra missions, repeating them over and over on higher difficulties, presumably to unlock the True Ending. And I'm not doing that shit. I suppose this is the "Live Service" aspect, as it is attempting to be a Forever Game, while we all know the servers for this are going to be shut off in a year. Until that point, it's really just a standard open-world game. Yes, it requires being online, ostensibly, but several times I just jumped back into the game from Quick Resume on the XSX, which usually disconnects online games, and it still worked. You can also pause the game at any time, which is nice.
A quick note on performance: Not good. It's kinda all over the place, but I will give it a bit of slack because there's often a whole bunch of bullshit exploding everywhere. I don't think it ever dropped to sub-30 FPS, but it definitely came close a few times.
I was fully prepared to give this a 7/10 until I reached the end and its Hamster Wheel of Mediocrity. So, unfortunately, I gotta drop this down to a 6. As long as you play as the true hero of Metropolis, Digger Harkness. Or Nanaue.
5 if you play Deadshot and 4 if you play Harley.