Recent reviews by CommanderCharms

343 proving that they aren't the people to run the Halo franchise for the third time in a row.

Game's alright but Torn Banner never learned their lesson about actually listening to their community. Soter Dave - one of their most dedicated players - was permanently banned for posting an April Fools video on YouTube poking fun at their poor handling of cheaters & hackers in the game. In the wake of his death, they suppressed any mention of him or any attempts at bringing light to the situation. The devs aren't worth your money or your attention.

Serious potential to fill the hole of Mordhau & Chivalry if it's able to get functional multiplayer and more settings for the AI.

The game is fun, but between Sony hardlining the developers into forcing PSN account linking and Arrowhead's own community managers being completely incompetent andas openly aggravating and mocking the community even before the PSN account BS, it seems it really was too good to last. Was fun while it lasted. Hopefully Arrowhead gets a new publisher and sacks their current lineup of community managers, then they'll be worth engaging with.

Just a waste of time in an excuse to pad out a narrative that Bungie almost forces me to not care about and lock even more content behind a paywall. Save your money for something else. Don't financially support these leeches anymore.

Pros

-Better customisation than any other Medieval H&S or Melee-focused game on the market

-Satisfying winning streaks (if you can get them)

-The parts of the community that aren't sweating nolifes are probably some of the friendliest people you'll come across in the genre

Cons

-Unstable server connections and blatant lack of protection from hackers

-While a lot of the competitive players left, the majority of the toxic level 100+ that torment new players are still there

-Literally zero development prospects, Triternion don't so much as have a roadmap anymore, to say nothing of the devs blatantly ignoring the advice of the community in favour of doubling down

-Gameplay balance is completely absent at times and even Frontline and Invasion can feel completely one-sided

-Borderline unrealistic grind rate to get to higher rank/price customisation



If all you're looking for is a Hack-And-Slash with goofy voice acting and goofier warriors to fight against, this is it. Unfortunately, given that Triternion has basically abandoned it to work on another project and there's still a large, toxic wedge of the community that thrives on making the game unplayable for new players, you might as well get Chiv 2 and have a lot more fun.

Gameplay was alright, barely serviceable at best. Brilliant open world with absolutely nothing to do and very little to keep you hooked. What a waste.

Let's get the obvious issues like the game being extremely poorly optimised and visually appalling on even the higher settings out of the way, because if anyone has actually had to play this game they're going to be noticeable right off the bat. The gunplay in this game about SHOOTING GUNS is absolutely trash. It's clunky, unsatisfying and barely salvageable, especially considering how lacklustre the actual content is for the gunplay. For context, I'm referring to the fact the game has an XP & Currency system that would require you to be constantly playing the game to access and buy every weapon in the game.

Not that it makes much of a difference even if you DO buy different guns, because where a game like H3VR thrived on having tons of weapons that differed very little outside of their categories and being able to customise them in all manner of goofy and unique ways, this game manages to make a total flop of it, with every weapon feeling more like a retextured and remodelled version of the one that came before, thanks largely in part due to the fact that the audio mastering for the weapon sounds is extremely poor and unpleasant on the ears. On top of this the attachments and optics systems, to put it plainly, are completely pointless because who needs increased accuracy or stability when you can just slap on an extended mag and spray the entire regional area of where your enemy is and you'll somehow get the kill?

On top of this the grappling/mounting gimmick with the gloves? Totally pointless if you're not climbing anything, which nine times out of ten you won't be unless you're playing on a mission that specifically requires you to use the gloves to reach an objective, they're not innovative or integral to the core mechanics of the game in the slightest.

So, to summarise, the gunplay is terrible, the unlock system is unnecessary, the audio mastering is nonexistent (seriously, just try playing ANY of the missions and try to identify what ANYBODY is saying without subtitles) and whoever looks at this almost 20GB install for a game still in early access and is probably just capitalising on the FPS VR genre without putting in the work to make the FPS part work in VR probably needs to re-evaluate what they can actually call a "game".

While it has its good moments, VRChat at the time of this review is little more than a barely-functioning, unoptimized social platform inhabited by a toxic whirlpool of crashers, model rippers and egotistical highschool-level drama. Between the Devs' Salem-style TOS, the lack of security for assets and models, the toxicity of the playerbase and the meme ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ culture that gave this game its relevancy being hunted off the platform by people who do nothing but sit in front of mirrors all day and brag about their generic, dime-a-dozen models, this game simply isn't worth the time to install nor the effort to make content for.

For a game that's primary purpose is for people to socialise and make content on what is meant to be an easy content tool (Unity), somehow, VRC's Dev team have failed at BOTH of these, with public instances being a free-for-all where anyone can crash you, DDoS you or steal your models, and their own Unity SDK requiring constant hoop-jumping, further limiting the creative liberty of actual content creators, many of whom are shifting to other platforms (notably NeosVR, which has its own litany of issues).

In saying all this, I cannot say I didn't have fun playing VRC : a lot of the friendships I made have greatly strengthened me as a person and I cannot imagine being without them, but to say it was all sunshine and rainbows would be a lie. The only reason I feel any compulsion to play this game anymore is to connect with those friends : most of whom I made not long after this game's inception, since a lot of the newer players have simply jumped on the bandwagon of popular streamers and influencers, hoping to get their own piece of the Internet Ego Pie. Outside of the social experience that my friends - not the game - has to offer, there's really no reason to keep an eye on what VRC has to offer anymore, because so far it has not given much more than grief and frustration.

TL:DR - The game is unoptimized, the players are toxic and your content is never safe from being stolen.

This game is very fun and extremely addictive but it does require a fairly high-end PC to play on the better quality and is very graphics intensive, but it compensates for this with excessive creation possibilities using the Eden Mission Editor in game, and the modding community is amazing and will provide just about anything that you want if it isn't already in the game.