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Suicide Squad game Closed Alpha participants can now talk about the game

ZoukGalaxy

Gold Member
This game is really a waste of everything: time, money, ressources and talents.

What a waste, nobody asked for this game and it's going to fail hard.
throw up trash can GIF by Feliks Tomasz Konczakowski
 


I know I'm in a small minority, but I don't outright hate what I've seen. The U.I. is absolutely a sore spot, but the idea of doing all that with some buddies does come across as appealing to me. I had a decent time with Gotham Knights myself so..

We'll see, I am in no rush to play this, so if it's bad, it's really no biggie to me.

 

MirageMew2

Member
I wrote a lengthy little review I’ll share:
I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. It’s clear there’s some degree of passion here but wrapped heavily in some of the weakest design trends of the last decade - everyone’s seen the giant purple zits but have you seen the giant purple zit tank? The giant purple zit force fields? If AIM in The Avengers got old after a month, I was over the Brainiac army in one weekend. The “weak point“ design could make a Zelda boss blush.

The amalgam of design influences is probably the most jarring aspect. After mucking about in the open-world, where you can actually switch characters freely like Marvel Ultimate Alliance, you might find yourself in a mission and this mechanic is suddenly prohibited. Certain characters can get hype or whatever and it’ll encourage a switch for bonus XP but that’s about all the switching you can do mid-mission, and not nearly as dynamic as it is in the open-world. I suspect it’s due to loot being instanced per character during missions, but this feels really restrictive.

There’s also this mind-boggling Rockstar-esque mission boundary where you can’t leave the proximity of an ongoing mission, which might make sense but given the games verticality and traversal based combat it was VERY easy to find myself triggering game over states by sliding just far enough for Amanda Waller to deem me AWOL.

Combat and traversal are tied heavily together and is a bit disorienting at first - you’ve got your shooting, counter shot, a melee, an airborne “ult” as well as a “Suicide Strike”, your typical superhero game takedown move. This was my first major disappointment in seeing just how tied to shooting everything is - fans of melee action in Avengers won’t find much in common here. When an enemy resists regular shooting, you’ll shoot a counter shot, and when the blue shield harvest prompt pops up you’ll push melee. Personally I found the actual mechanics tedious and visually repulsive - blue shield bubbles litter the ground in combat and yellow sniper glints from all sorts of directions will test your sensory overload for sure. My favorite character to play, Captain Boomerang, became especially egregious upon leveling up skills that introduced even more visual garbage like a literal slot machine hovering over the character’s head.

Lastly, the story and presentation at the very least kept me engaged well enough. A certain fan-favorite Batman mission treats you to the perspective of a goon being preyed on by the Caped Crusader himself. The writing is *very* James Gunn inspired, but I get it. Outside of the more story based missions there are a handful of mission types that retread familiar ground in the live-service space - Hordes, points, king of the hill, etc. if you played Avengers you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not the most inspiring and I could easily see myself strictly beelining the story if I can help it.

All-in-all as a fan of Marvel’s Avengers what I’d like to have seen more from this kind of game is a fleshed out power fantasy fitting the titular characters - suffice to say I’m unfamiliar with the version of Captain Boomerang that can run like the Flash, and maybe I missed the part in the films where King Shark uses a gun but otherwise it’s a solid attempt at a DC inspired Borderlands game.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
I've seen several videos of people talking about the alpha and the basic gist is that they're done with the game after about 2 hours.

Realize how fucking insane that is. Rocksteady spends almost a decade to create a GaaS LIIIIVE SEEEERVICE game that's supposed to last 18 months and people are fucking done after 2 hours. TWO HOURS.

A barebones, boring, trite, soulless experience across the board.

Rocksteady's track record has been impeccable because they poured their heart and soul into Asylum, City and Knight. But this fucking thing? Soulless. Vacuous.

Shout out to the devs in the trenches being forced to work on this turd for years.
 
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Kikorin

Member
Is going to have single player too right? In this case, I'll take it after the closure of servers.
 
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Luipadre

Member
I wonder if they gonna try to address the UI situation. Im sure they heard about the uproar by now. Game is out in 2 weeks so not enough time before launch, but maybe after release.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I wonder if they gonna try to address the UI situation. Im sure they heard about the uproar by now. Game is out in 2 weeks so not enough time before launch, but maybe after release.
I;m going to assume the final settings menu will allow HUD options. But maybe not.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I can almost guarantee that most of the talented developers who made the Arkham series are no longer at Rocksteady. Reminds me of Arkane with Redfall. Rocksteady will never be what they used to be. Sad
Thats the thing. Studio names are like branding and people assume a good studio brand means former great games mean great games forever.

It's like when people bring up Bioware, but those doctor founders left the company a million years ago. Nobody really knew what happened back in the day but when Konami made awesome 16 bit games and suddenly they turned into shit in the 32-bit era, I didnt know so many former employees who made Castlevania and Contra III etc... left to make Treasure until I read about it in the internet age. Maybe some mags detailed the transition from Konami to Treasure, but I missed it.
 

BlueLyria

Member
I'll hold off in completely judging before trying it at least once, but from what I've seen, the shooting looks kinda clunky, I saw that one clip from IGN I think and when you're aiming as Harley she just kinda slides around with her arm stretched out, without any other motion, looks very cheap, and there was barely any feedback for shooting.
Menus also look clunky, I hate the destiny/ ac valhalla menus.
 

Luipadre

Member
He has some good points



I think for many people this will be a one and done experience. The cutscenes and storytelling was great in the alpha and the gameplay was fun, but as a live service, i just cant see how it will work. It doesnt seem to have that kind of depth or replayability as other successful live service games do
 
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SyberWolf

Member
played the alpha, in short, it was not very good.
i got bored with it quickly.
dont waste your money on this.
this is a huge step down from the batman games.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I can't see anything redeeming about it. I see a vomit inducing UI, I see typical co-op GaaS tropes like bullet sponge bosses and weak points and a typical loot system.

Ofcourse, these systems have a right to exist and its unfair to unleash all frustration on this game but its kind of easy to see why this happens. First of all people are kind of tired of these tropes, Destiny is also drowning right now for example. Secondly the developer, Rocksteady, made GOTY contenders in the past. And after being AWOL for so long and this is what they come up with I understand the frustration. BioWare's Anthem was murdered in the same way.
 

Neon Xenon

Member
For me, the biggest problem I see with Suicide Squad is that the gameplay (movement, gunplay, abilities), isn't something I see myself sticking with for an extended period of time, and that's a problem given that this is the sort of game that asks for replaying and repetition on the part of the player.

But it's not just the gameplay that's turned people off, there's also the live-service stigma around this game that isn't going away any time soon; maybe that stigma shouldn't go away, given the parent company behind this game.

WH40K: Darktide, for its issues (I will say the game has had substantial improvements to gameplay since launch, hopefully, with more to come), has the gameplay to back up the replaying. The action is brisk, there's good melee and ranged weapon feedback (read: they  feel good to use), and the OST hits hard in the middle of that. And the voice acting is entertaining. Things like that can keep players coming back. I don't see that happening with Suicide Squad. There's nothing I've seen in any of the official gameplay showings that hooks me to the game.

I don't think Suicide Squad is going to be a terrible game, but it does look very, very, very average.
 
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Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Looks like I’ll get what I want out of it. A fun story romp then I’ll drop it. Boomerang main. Day one.

I’m gonna keep rocksteady alive with my $.
 

Neolombax

Member
I'm such a sucker for loot based games, that this game looks really appealing to me. Is the loot interesting at all in this game? Do the highest rarity items have gameplay changing effects? The reason I wasn't able to stick with Marvel Avengers was because the loot was boring. Everything boiled down to numbers in the end, and that's not interesting.
 

winjer

Gold Member
He has some good points



I think for many people this will be a one and done experience. The cutscenes and storytelling was great in the alpha and the gameplay was fun, but as a live service, i just cant see how it will work. It doesnt seem to have that kind of depth or replayability as other successful live service games do


We should remember that Skillup also enjoyed Marvel's Avengers and that was a major flop.
So his taste in games can have some serious misses.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
We should remember that Skillup also enjoyed Marvel's Avengers and that was a major flop.
So his taste in games can have some serious misses.

He's hardly objective in this video because he clearly states he loves Rocksteady and wants this game to be a success because he wants Rocksteady to be successful.

Then he proceeds to talk about how bad the game is for 20 minutes, with some "if the game wasn't a GaaS but a co-op shooter it would be pretty cool" commentary. Buddy, you can't say the game is okay because the imaginary, non-existing version of this game you made up in your head is okay.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
If anything SkillUp's preview is worthless.

He's basically saying this can't succeed as a persistent GaaS game, but its mindless shooting and story might be fun for 15-20 hours or so and then he likely puts it away forever. He wants it to succeed because Rocksteady.

This game is full price, against a lineup of pretty good games this period. Taking that in consideration and what the game tries to be, I'd say his preview is a resounding Don't Buy outside of a Rocksteady vacuum.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
We should remember that Skillup also enjoyed Marvel's Avengers and that was a major flop.
So his taste in games can have some serious misses.
SkillUp is honestly one of the very few critics that I appreciate and keep up with. I feel like he's the only one that comes close to my personal opinion on things. That being said, I think he's always had a soft spot for co-op shooters or similar games. So his reaction isn't too surprising. But the take away I got was, the game is pretty fun and has some redeeming qualities, however, the staying power and legs they claim the game has just aren't there whatsoever. Along with there being some mess too.

If people are excited about buying the game, cool. But I think it'd be best to wait for release rather than preorder. The mixed bag of reactions is so mixed that it just doesn't sound like a smart move IMO. Especially for a game that is basically going to be a GAAS and a lot of people said it was pretty fun, but they don't see how anyone could play it for several hours. Or they got bored of it pretty quickly.
 
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He's basically saying this can't succeed as a persistent GaaS game, but its mindless shooting and story might be fun for 15-20 hours or so and then he likely puts it away forever.
This doesn't sound bad to me though. Avengers had various problems, but if it would have been over earlier and had none of the grindy trophies, I might have enjoyed it overall much more. Everything after the story soured the experience imho.
If this has a clear cutoff from an endless MP repetition loop, no matter if GaaS or regular ass MP, and those characters actually are interesting for a nice amount of hours I might enjoy it more than I would expect now.
 

Ogbert

Member
I’ve watched about 10 minutes of gameplay.

It’s as if they’ve remade Anthem and added an obnoxious comic book wrapping.
 
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