Deathloop

Started this yesterday, seems quite a steep learning curve as far and has a lot of information thrown as you as well. But intrigued with the story so far.

What guns are good? Because I seem to be 1-2 shotting everyone with the machete at the moment. The only thing I have to concentrate on is getting in their face quick enough, but once I am, everyone is dead, dave.

I used a gold automatic and a gold shotgun along with my nail gun but, to be honest, I was shift and machete man towards the end. Zipping about the place lopping heads off left right and centre.

I was also quite a bit more Havoc latterly. Just enjoying letting things kick off and standing there soaking up all the hits as I mowed everyone down. Quite a change as the first 12 hours or so I was pure stealth, so it was good to be off the chain and muck about.

Yeah, that's the kind of shit that would genuinely see me sacking it off completely. I get irrationally infuriated when stuff like that happens. I'm also not sure I can quite get my head around not being able to save scumm in an Arkane game, let alone anything with an emphasis on stealth gameplay.

I'll definitely be picking it up later in the year, though. Maybe when it's at the c.£20 mark.

Meaty fluid?

I just do as much stealth as I can now and then whack out my shotgun or machine gun if they clock me. My only deaths have really come from falling into the water and missing jumps. It's all a bit too easy.

I fail at everything in this and I quite like it

Towards the end I was basically getting invaded by players constantly, including twice on my final loop. Quite stressful.

It's essentially not too far removed from dishonored. The loop is a narrative device as much as a gameplay mechanic. The levels themselves are, like dishonored, open enough so you can decide how to achieve a particular objective, but you're still going for an objective. I was pleasantly surprised at how structured it was and in all honesty, that's one of the reasons I loved it so much. I didn't want it so that I had to try and completely figure it out myself, I need direction. The game has an ending and there's a specific way to reach that ending, again, that was a plus for me.

Had my best run as Juliana last night. Got all 3 lives off a Colt player by sniper rifle, shotgun and grenade. It is a lot of fun assuming you get connected to a lag free game. But I do think I needed to unlock the sniper rifle and a couple of powers to be a true threat l. Her ability to duplicate as an NPC is a nice idea but ultimately pointless, no human Juliana player is going to do any of the NPC idle animations and to really stick as close to mimicking an NPC opens yourself up to the possibility of the other player one shooting you via machete and your attempt is done. Unless you're lucky to be drawn against the dumbest Deathloop players, it's a strategy you can only really achieve maybe once.

Tbh whenever I bothered with the invading I just used havoc to become invincible and then just shot the fuck out of him. Put trinkets on that drain energy and go to town

Finished it last night- previously I'd thought Psychonauts 2 would be my game of the year but I think this has just beat it. While the Juliana invasions are awful to begin with, once you get a few guns and powers yourself so you can fight back it really makes the game. There's not many 1v1 FPS games I can think of, outside the last circle in PUBG, and certainly none that have so many different options and variables. It's properly tense on both sides, outside of the times someone is just flat-out better and obliterates you.

The rest of the game is really great too- as others have said, a bit easy outside of the PvP parts, and it would have been nice to have a bit more lateral thinking required to solve the big puzzle, but all the individual bits along the way are really well constructed. There's exactly one 'fetch quest', where you have to get a recording of someone and take it to someone else, but even that's got a really unique spin.

And it's funny and interesting and looks really nice.

If any thread lurkers are yet to purchase this I’ve put my copy into the September For Sale thread at £45 posted. Hit me up if you’re interested.