Welcome to Thunderdome

Do you like Dark Souls? I hear a LOT that if you like Dark Souls, you'll love this game.

It's the future or space...I think future...and shit has gone south. You're some dude wearing an exosuit (think Aliens or Archer, but leaner and coming in many flavors) who is trying to figure it all out. Now get out there and hand to hand everything you see and grind.

In fact, it should be called The Grind and that's not really a bad thing. You will redo levels a lot and die a lot.

The game is pretty and it's fun to fight, although there is a learning curve. You'll probably, like me, forget initially to target enemies. Eventually, you'll realize that to farm them, you'll need to target certain parts, armored or not.

Why farm them? Because gear needs to be found, built, and then upgraded. you need parts and scrap to do that.

There's also secrets. Lots of them. Many things you can't access, even in the early level, until you are a higher level.

Worst part is the game desperately needs a map or an arrow to guide you to current mission objectives. Oh, and OSHA clearly had no input on making the levels because there is a lot of unsafe shit.

This is an in progress review.

.... Archer exosuit?

OoooOOOOooooohhh.

I'm still playing this game. Probably because I take nights off to do school work, play Rust, play D&D, or watch flicks.

It's still fun, but I'm hitting that "ok, the end is near, get here already" point. It's weird because that's fighting with the completionist side of myself who wants to go back and grind some more to get better armor, weapons, and a higher level.

Still a very pretty game, but the level I'm in right now is massive and confusing. A map feature would be very welcome.

Finally beat it. Turns out that me being a completionist, I was sort of handicapping myself and making the game go on longer than necessary.

Worth it though, look how majestic I am!

The story is still light, and I want to say Sci-Fi cliche, but the game is pretty, options for armor and weapons are varied, combat can be fun with cool kill moves, but it can get repetitive. The final level is also annoying as it's rather confusing.

Honestly not sure this is a game any of you would play normally. If you watch a game play video and it looks interesting, try it out. If not, don't. It's a big game, so I'd say $15 and lower would make you feel good about your purchase. Maybe even $20 if it's up your alley.

Oh, and there's a haunting song that is playing in the medbays that has earned its way into my playlist. This version has "cleaner" sound than the one in the game, which makes it less creepy, but trust me, it's haunting when you're alone in the medbay.

DLC coming.

I do NOT understand the business model at work here. Why are you releasing a DLC for a game that's been out since early 2017 and whose sequel is so close to being released that there are already game play trailers out for it?

I would 100% have bought this when I beat The Surge, but I've since uninstalled it.

Although, looking at it, the theme in no way whatsoever fits the original game's setting and story.

I was going through Humble Bundle keys and realized I have an extra key for this game.

Stranger already owns it and it's not on anyone's wishlist.

So read my review and go watch trailers for it on Steam. If you really want it, I will give it to you. I assume Gordon will be the most interested as he seemed to like the idea of putting on an exosuit and fighting.

I will say that going back and reading, I liked it more than how my review makes it sound. It's very immersive. Just remember that there's a learning curve.

Leisher wrote: Stranger already owns it and it's not on anyone's wishlist.

I do?? must be from a Humble Bundle purchase. Maybe i'll check it out.

Keep in mind its a grinder. You'll be running through levels more than once, but damn it's pretty and immersive.