Flexibility and reach *Minor SP* (Off-Topic)

by Nikko B201 , England, Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 16:32 (3983 days ago) @ SonofMacPhisto

I think it was a good start, and it was fun, but I was expecting more flexibility. As it is, the story pretty much plays out the same whoever wins the fights, and there's not much length to it to offset that (I played through the whole thing in 1-2 sittings). To be "perfect", in my undoubtedly flawed definition, it needs to either be meatier as a tradeoff for being less flexible, or more flexible as a tradeoff for being lightweight. There's not enough story in the campaign to justify the lack of flexiblity; it's not as if there's 20+ missions you'd need full dynamic dialogue and cutscenes for.

The gameplay, though, is exceedingly fun, and what story there is was well done. I especially like Blisk and Spyglass (I've had a thing for South African characters since District 9, no idea why), and the writing does seem solid. The cutscenes, although there aren't really any big ones like a "proper" campaign, are pretty well-done. I didn't see any clipping and the effects were great - two things I noticed a lot in ME3, which ironically despite being much more campaign-focused really kinda faltered on the cutscene graphics...so that's a point in Respawn's favour.

The ending of the Battle of Demeter confused me a bit. I mean, we all died, right? And then we didn't. I don't really know what happened there. I could see it if they'd mentioned some sort of DUST 514-style cloning gubbins the pilots use, but they didn't, so dying and respawning is assumed to not be a thing as far as the story's concerned...up until we apparently did it at Demeter.

Overall though, I think it's good. There are things that could maybe be done better, but it's certainly "good enough".
And that's my thoughts.