I am at the "Find water" level, and am enjoying the game so far. But I have lowered my Lair score to 6 (from 7) at this point. It is clear that Lair is incomplete.
It's like someone walked into the office on a random Monday and told the developers to go home, and the release engineer to ship the game. It is pretty close to completion but there are still glaring bugs in the game play.
The bombing run mission is the worst level compared to earlier ones (which IMHO were pretty good).
For example, the targeting may switch targets in an unpredictable manner. There seems to be a lag in identifying targets occassionally. This can cause confusion when multiple enemies swoop past me in different directions. Sometimes while hot on persuit, the game allowed me to ignore the nearest creature. Then all of a sudden, I may get pulled back to that creature even after I passed it a second ago. And then the game seems to realize its mistake and refocus me back to my original target within a second.
The QA team did not have time to test the mission well. The level was built with a particular pace in mind, and the cut scene will play out according to some fixed timeline regardless of where you really are in the game. I was happily grabbing and destroying a tower when suddenly, a cut scene would show me picking up a bomb from the mantas mid-air. After the cut scene, I was already air-bourned from the tower. I had to do a 180 degree turn quickly to go back and shake the tower again. After 2-3 shakes, all of a sudden, I would be teleported/flying again and had to return to the tower for the second time to take it down. You get the idea.
The rest of the level is actually pretty interesting and fun.
I did not encounter these issues in earlier levels. The next level "Find water" is good so far. It can get frustrating because there is no map/radar to assist the search. F5 should at least allow the player to plant/drop beacons in the map to identify travelled paths.
It's a pity because I like the settings, the visuals and the play mechanics. They should have delayed the game for 2 more months to address these holes.
If F5 can't afford to fix it all the way, they should at least let the consumers mod it
The game will shine given more time.
It's like someone walked into the office on a random Monday and told the developers to go home, and the release engineer to ship the game. It is pretty close to completion but there are still glaring bugs in the game play.
The bombing run mission is the worst level compared to earlier ones (which IMHO were pretty good).
For example, the targeting may switch targets in an unpredictable manner. There seems to be a lag in identifying targets occassionally. This can cause confusion when multiple enemies swoop past me in different directions. Sometimes while hot on persuit, the game allowed me to ignore the nearest creature. Then all of a sudden, I may get pulled back to that creature even after I passed it a second ago. And then the game seems to realize its mistake and refocus me back to my original target within a second.
The QA team did not have time to test the mission well. The level was built with a particular pace in mind, and the cut scene will play out according to some fixed timeline regardless of where you really are in the game. I was happily grabbing and destroying a tower when suddenly, a cut scene would show me picking up a bomb from the mantas mid-air. After the cut scene, I was already air-bourned from the tower. I had to do a 180 degree turn quickly to go back and shake the tower again. After 2-3 shakes, all of a sudden, I would be teleported/flying again and had to return to the tower for the second time to take it down. You get the idea.
The rest of the level is actually pretty interesting and fun.
I did not encounter these issues in earlier levels. The next level "Find water" is good so far. It can get frustrating because there is no map/radar to assist the search. F5 should at least allow the player to plant/drop beacons in the map to identify travelled paths.
It's a pity because I like the settings, the visuals and the play mechanics. They should have delayed the game for 2 more months to address these holes.
If F5 can't afford to fix it all the way, they should at least let the consumers mod it
The game will shine given more time.
