I have zero patience for stealth tactics in supposedly freeform action games, so I decided to take Deathloop at its word that "a variety of gameplay styles are viable"--INCLUDING gunning everyone down in a berzerker rage and running around hacking people up with my machete. And you know what? It's not viable.
It's not that you can't succeed doing it, because... I guess maybe you could? It'd be a pain, but maybe you could. It's not viable because it's not fun. The gunplay in this game feels so leaden it's almost comical, and the AI just simply doesn't seem built to do anything other than run at you, creating endless situations where you're just crouched down picking off idiots who wander around a corner one by one.
Now, you might say that it's MY fault that I'm playing like that, but that's what I despise about this particular type of AAA game. If I'm not having fun it's my fault. These kinds of games want to have their cake and eat it too--to be highly scripted story experiences but also provide "open-ended gameplay" so they won't be accused of, dreadedly, being too linear. Oh, go loud or go quiet, go this way or go that way, use this gun or that knife, just don't blame us if it sucks! (Hilariously, every level in Deathloop begins with two branching paths leading to doors that open out to what is essentially the same part of the same environment -- a perfect metaphor for the "choice" these games are actually giving the player.)
Well, fuuuuck all that. I WANT linearity in my AAA games! I want scripted spectacle! I want level design so tight that going through the exact motions the developer expects me to feels organic, like I made the choice to do it when really they did. There are certain blockbuster games that achieve this, and it can be magical -- and it's almost always when they don't overextend themselves and just pick a few fun mechanics and stick with them through varying environments and with increasing levels of difficulty. You know, how video games used to be?
Deathloop embraces the opposite of this in every regard. It is so overeager to explain all of its little complications to you in tutorial form that it both bores and intimidates you. It presents these little open world-levels that should feel like playgrounds, claims you can do anything, and then lets you do essentially nothing cool in them beyond a) sneak around and kill guys, or b) shoot guys -- and in each case the presence of the other option dulls the enjoyment of the former.
Granted, I did not get very far into the game (3 hours or so) but what was supposed to be the big hook -- the reveal of Deathloop's grand conceit, that you would be playing the same day over and over, with different times revealing different objectives or different enemies in certain places -- did nothing but assure me that I was better off just cutting my losses and calling this one quits. It has all the style in the world, but it lacks so thoroughly in substance that the prospect of doing these same areas over and over with little changes here and there just seemed laughable.
Let's talk briefly about that style, though. I was intrigued by the story in this game, it does look good, and I liked Colt as a character. I think AAA games in general could take themselves less seriously, and need more original worlds exactly like the one on offer here (even if it does dip, at times, into slightly shallow Bioshock-worship territory). Its story and characters are things that Deathloop was, and should have been, genuinely commended for, and I would hope that its seeming failure to sell well doesn't discourage this developer, or others, from pursuing similarly interesting anti-conventions down the road.
The last thing I'll say is, it's possible that my deep foray into arcade games and 90's console games these past couple of years has just straight-up ruined me for something like Deathloop. I have re-learned something I knew so purely in my youth: that I like to simply turn on a game and start playing it and have fun. Everything that the industry, during the past two decades of increasingly competitive commercialization, has draped over that simple core -- complex stories and open world elements and rpg elements and rogulike elements and adaptive ai and endless lore bits you have to read and hand-holdy tutorials and the like -- is all just kinda, bullshit. How am I supposed to care about anything else -- any of all of the nonsense the game throws at you in the first three hours, and it is a lot -- when the core game, the shooting and stabbing of the guys, is not fun?
It's not that you can't succeed doing it, because... I guess maybe you could? It'd be a pain, but maybe you could. It's not viable because it's not fun. The gunplay in this game feels so leaden it's almost comical, and the AI just simply doesn't seem built to do anything other than run at you, creating endless situations where you're just crouched down picking off idiots who wander around a corner one by one.
Now, you might say that it's MY fault that I'm playing like that, but that's what I despise about this particular type of AAA game. If I'm not having fun it's my fault. These kinds of games want to have their cake and eat it too--to be highly scripted story experiences but also provide "open-ended gameplay" so they won't be accused of, dreadedly, being too linear. Oh, go loud or go quiet, go this way or go that way, use this gun or that knife, just don't blame us if it sucks! (Hilariously, every level in Deathloop begins with two branching paths leading to doors that open out to what is essentially the same part of the same environment -- a perfect metaphor for the "choice" these games are actually giving the player.)
Well, fuuuuck all that. I WANT linearity in my AAA games! I want scripted spectacle! I want level design so tight that going through the exact motions the developer expects me to feels organic, like I made the choice to do it when really they did. There are certain blockbuster games that achieve this, and it can be magical -- and it's almost always when they don't overextend themselves and just pick a few fun mechanics and stick with them through varying environments and with increasing levels of difficulty. You know, how video games used to be?
Deathloop embraces the opposite of this in every regard. It is so overeager to explain all of its little complications to you in tutorial form that it both bores and intimidates you. It presents these little open world-levels that should feel like playgrounds, claims you can do anything, and then lets you do essentially nothing cool in them beyond a) sneak around and kill guys, or b) shoot guys -- and in each case the presence of the other option dulls the enjoyment of the former.
Granted, I did not get very far into the game (3 hours or so) but what was supposed to be the big hook -- the reveal of Deathloop's grand conceit, that you would be playing the same day over and over, with different times revealing different objectives or different enemies in certain places -- did nothing but assure me that I was better off just cutting my losses and calling this one quits. It has all the style in the world, but it lacks so thoroughly in substance that the prospect of doing these same areas over and over with little changes here and there just seemed laughable.
Let's talk briefly about that style, though. I was intrigued by the story in this game, it does look good, and I liked Colt as a character. I think AAA games in general could take themselves less seriously, and need more original worlds exactly like the one on offer here (even if it does dip, at times, into slightly shallow Bioshock-worship territory). Its story and characters are things that Deathloop was, and should have been, genuinely commended for, and I would hope that its seeming failure to sell well doesn't discourage this developer, or others, from pursuing similarly interesting anti-conventions down the road.
The last thing I'll say is, it's possible that my deep foray into arcade games and 90's console games these past couple of years has just straight-up ruined me for something like Deathloop. I have re-learned something I knew so purely in my youth: that I like to simply turn on a game and start playing it and have fun. Everything that the industry, during the past two decades of increasingly competitive commercialization, has draped over that simple core -- complex stories and open world elements and rpg elements and rogulike elements and adaptive ai and endless lore bits you have to read and hand-holdy tutorials and the like -- is all just kinda, bullshit. How am I supposed to care about anything else -- any of all of the nonsense the game throws at you in the first three hours, and it is a lot -- when the core game, the shooting and stabbing of the guys, is not fun?