Huh, it's like Deus Ex. Half Life and Portal made a baby.
I like having a demo available. Makes me think of Nier, which i also picked up. Because there was a demo first I got to try and saw I'd enjoy it.
I hope things go back to having demos again, i've missed that!
Portal?
Anyway it plays exactly how I feared from the initial game play demos, like a bad 'shock clone.
+ story itself seems interesting and with avellone on board I'm sure it'll be the best part of the game
+ you can see your legs!
+ there seems to be a lot of slots for suit upgrades, that combined with the skill trees, psi powers and weapon upgrades make it more of an RPG than I was expecting
+ GLOO gun is a good idea... in theory
+ I like how it hands neuromods/skill points out pretty generously
+ choosing between a male or female protagonist was a nice surprise, a unisexual name is a smart way to save on some VA lines
+ floating objects that are actually mimics still amused me by the end of the demo
+ switching simulation rooms is really neat although I imagine that won't be as prevalent during the main game, if at all past the first 35 minutes
+ the way materials work with recycling and fabricating is really neat and I love how it's done through the in-game visuals
+ some of the hidden paths are pretty neat
+ the part where you leave your apartment with the wrench was really well done
Now for the bad
- hacking is awful
- hacking a friendly turret has no rewards like giving it a health or damage bonus, yet it'll still shock you if you fail
- there is no reason a game in 2017 which has a large focus on shooting has gunplay that triggers my ptsd of fallout 3 and bioshock 1
- there's supposedly stealth options but it's very undercooked/half baked, disappointing coming from Arkane
- there's no weapon upgrade slots for the wrench?! There's like 2 skills that increase its damage but no actual weapon upgrades
- speaking of weapon upgrades, they're all borng. Just stuff like decreased reload speed, more range etc. Iirc bioshock 2 especially gave you secondary uses for guns that made projectiles turn in to tripwires, added a double barrel to the shotgun, imbued bullets with electricity and the like. They also changed the visuals of the weapon unlike this game.
- the GLOO gun is a nice idea in theory but in practice platforming is a frustrating and messy affair and the fact that phantoms can still shoot while being hardened is baffling
- the difficulty seems all over the place, I had a full health turret that got like one shotted by a phantom
- the pacing seems like it'll follow the awful bio 1 style of "oh here I'm about to tell you an important story beat - oh wait something broke, go here and fix it" ad nauseam.
- graphics aren't as bad as people are saying in my opinion but it's also not a looker
- the fact that repetitive, blaring music pops up whenever an enemy is around is not only annoying, it's comical and destroys any tension the game builds up. If you told me it was a glitch I'd believe you
- input lag didn't bother me as much as I was fearing but yeah, the game still feels sluggish, and it's not even like it can fall back on weighty gunplay as an excuse
- mimics are frustrating to fight in that even if you know exactly where they are you still just swing wildly sometimes and pray, and yes the GLOO gun exists but constant weapon switching just for the introductory enemy is probably gonna get old quick
- the environments feel empty, and I know I know what it is but it still doesn't feel like a lived in place to me. All of the dead bodies seem to be posed in exactly the same way and it just feels static
- if the psi abilities are like plasmids and whatnot they should have gave you one before the demo ends because even clunky movement and gunplay can be looked over a bit with cool powers. As it stands I know nothing about the types of powers I may or may not be able to equip
- load times are pretty bad on ps4
- framerate isn't stable
- I bought the carry 1 skill and there's this weird distortion effect that happens every time you throw things that's just useless visual noise.
- color shading seems to change whenever a mimic is in your line of sight, I'm not sure if this is intentional?
It's gonna be a no from me dog.