I want to preface this review with a complimentary statement to the developers. Your character design is quite great and quite honestly the number one reason I had interest in the game initially. With that out of the way, I have to say that while my initial first few hours of the game were mixed to positive, my experience quickly devolved into seething rage and noticing glaring flaws inI want to preface this review with a complimentary statement to the developers. Your character design is quite great and quite honestly the number one reason I had interest in the game initially. With that out of the way, I have to say that while my initial first few hours of the game were mixed to positive, my experience quickly devolved into seething rage and noticing glaring flaws in the gameplay that utterly ruined my experience.
Let me start with the core gameplay mechanics, shooting and melee. The shooting in this game is mediocre at best with various weapons feeling alright, and others feeling as though a wet newspaper would be more effective, while others still are leaps and bounds better than anything else offered. This frequently makes the game feel as though you are aiming through pudding, with sluggish and often inaccurate motions from your character that only get compounded on by poor network connections. Compounding onto this is the fact that the characters are designed very differently, with the fifth council making ranged combat almost a joke outside of a headshot from the resident sniper (shotguns and high power magnums being a choke even on headshot to them).
As for the melee, the system is inherently broken and favors ganging up to the point that in some cases you will get locked out or murdered immediately upon action. For those unaware, the game uses a rock/paper/scissors system of melee, with punch beating grab, grab beating dodge, and dodge beating punch. Where this system falls apart is with host advantage causing punches to beat one another favoring the host, even after the host has already received one or more punches. This is compounded further when fighting two opponents, as if one punches and the other grabs, you will die without question because you can't simultaneously counter both.
Moving on to map design and objective presentation, the maps are colorful and offer some level of verticality, but often lack depth beyond running in circles and awaiting the necessary action, to become available. The maps frequently feel like they were designed for 4v4 multiplayer gameplay in layout, with a co-op shooter placed atop them, causing numerous instances of locked out positioning due to AI running out in waves, or in the case of the antagonist, getting locked out of spawns because the Raiders know your spawn points. There are numerous times that I played where I felt that had they taken a few pointers from other successful co-op shooters, they might find themselves reworking the map designs and layout.
Before I close out, I do want to discuss the game's monetization method. The developers have created what I consider a fair "try before you buy" method of selling their game, with access to every level being available to consumers without paying a single dollar. However, every level is only accessible for a large sum of in game currency and for a limited time. While this does sound bad for a free to play game, the designers have stated they are not intending Raiders as free to play, but instead free to try. So I do have to praise them for their up front statement on the subject. I also have to praise their decision to make each "campaign" only $10 at the time of writing this review.A fair cost for a game that is in development as each campaign is released.
In closing, I can not recommend this game in it's current state. many weapons feel under-powered, with melee being a dice roll that can end in a single button press that hardly feels like a fair gamble if the ping of the match is even remotely high. The antagonist mode detracts from the co-op experience in my opinion as it is rarely a fair and balanced fight on the part of both sides and more frequently a steam roll for one side or the other, causing frustrations, rage quits, and matches ending before they truly began. I wish I could like Raiders of the Broken Planet more than I do, I truly do, but with the game in it's current state of design, I can not say that it is good.… Expand
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