I’m not sure I have anything new to say about BattleBit Remastered. On one hand, I’ve played close to 60 hours of it, bought copies for friends, and generally had a really good time with it. On the other hand, the game already has thousands of positive reviews, and hundreds of thousands of players. So my writeup feels like tossing a single match into a volcano.
BattleBit Remastered is falls into the genre of the “Massive” FPS. That is to say, the smallest maps and game sizes available are 32 players vs. 32 players. The largest games are 127 vs. 127.
BattleBit doesn’t have any features that feel outwardly revolutionary or genre defining. The thing is, this doesn’t really matter because it does everything correctly. Perhaps the biggest thing for me is that the game is incredibly well performing even at the highest player counts and game modes.
A Quick Story
Because of the high player count, it’s easy to assume that BattleBit is a game where a single player or group of players can’t have any impact. I don’t think that’s true.
One of my favorite moments was when I was playing on a winter map with only a single set of roads. Working with my friends, we managed to sneak around back, and seize control of a small outpost area. We then built a spawn point near the area, and set of barricades blocking only road to the other 75% of the map. This meant that vehicles couldn’t get past, and led to at least a dozen enemy vehicles including APC’s and tanks just slamming full stop into the hastily erected barriers, and letting us shred them with rockets.
It’s moments like this that make BattleBit feel great for me. Working with other folks to flank or block areas can feel really fun and meaningful!
Just Very Good
It’s hard to figure out the best way to praise a game for just doing almost everything very well. Maps are interesting and balanced, offering spots for both sniping and close range combat. The guns feel pretty good, with comparable stats and time to kill. No single class feels overpowered.
The game also has an effective party and squad system that just works really well. Players can just create a party when they log into the game, and then invite friends later. There’s no having to back out, no MMR, and the high player count means I’ve never run into the “Oops, we already have a full party” issue.
That’s not to say that I consider BattleBit to be perfect. There are some small things that are frustrating around loadouts and stats. It’s not possible to have more than one loadout saved for any class, which means that swapping weapons based on the map is a bit aggravating. I also find the body armor/helmet/backpack system incredibly confusing, as cosmetic variations of various items are intermingled with the stat changing ones.
But none of these issues actually impact the core gameplay: running, gunning, and getting shot by a sniper halfway across the map.
In Conclusion
BattleBit is also blessedly free of all the other bullshit I usually feel obligated to point out or excuse. There is no battlepass, no microtransactions, no in-game cosmetic store. The game is $20. You can buy it once and then play it with your friends for as long as you want.
If you like first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield, you can buy this game right now safe in the knowledge you’ll get your money’s worth.
Number 6 won’t shock you. It’s made out of cardboard.
I moved recently, and one side effect of that move is playing a lot more board games. So this week while I try to avoid destroying the computers at my day job, let’s talk about some of the board games I’ve been playing.
Note: I’ve included links to their BBG page, less because I think BGG is some incredible source of wisdom, and more because I think linking to an Amazon page is pretty useless.
1. Root
Root is a 2-4 player asymmetric tactics game. It also has one of the most interesting problems I’ve ever seen in a board game, and that problem is that it is very cute.
No, really. The game is incredibly adorable, and that’s a problem because I think a lot of non-board gamers would look at it and go “Oh wow, that seems friendly and approachable.” A lot of hardcore board gamers would look at it and go “This didn’t cost $600 on Kickstarter, contains less then 50 plastic models, and doesn’t model industrialization in the 18th century. Get it out of my sight.”
Then you open the game up, and realize it has 3 rulebooks. A quickstart rulebook, an example and setup rulebook, and a rulebook simply entitled “The Law of Root” and references to things like section 9.2.9.
Long story short, Root possesses a level of depth and complexity that is very much not telegraphed by its adorable art.
I think my favorite thing about it is how different the factions are. When I played, it was a game where everyone else played Civilization, while I played Diablo, running around gathering loot as the Vagabond.
I really want to play more Root. It seems like a really interesting game.
2. Clank: Legacy
Of all the games in this list, Clank: Legacy is the one most likely to get a full writeup at some point. That’s because I’m playing through a full campaign with a friend, and we’re six games deep.
Clank is a movement based competitive deck builder where you build up your deck while adventuring around a board. As you do so, you collect items that get you victory points, and then try to escape with a valuable artifact.
Clank: Legacy takes that and adds a bunch of events and twists into the mix, as well as doing a bunch of the standard legacy stuff (using the legacy model to provide scaffolding, letting you put stickers on the board).
I’m enjoying playing it because I like the Acq-Inc theming, but I do wish the game itself was slightly more co-operative. There’s so much to search out and discover, but it feels like playing “optimally,” especially at two players, forces games to end incredibly quickly. This ends up being a detriment to the legacy system because you don’t get to explore much of it!
3. Potion Explosion
Potion Explosion has marbles. And unlike Gizmos (later on this list), it actually does a lot with them. It’s a variable set collection game, and the primary mechanic is pulling marbles from a central dispenser.
There’s a sort of match-3 element present as well, where if marbles of the same color touch after a match, you can pull and add all of those marbles to your pool in addition to one you pulled out. I’m not doing a great job of describing it, but it’s very fun, and actually takes advantages of the physicality of the marble dispenser.
4. Worldbreakers
Worldbreakers describes itself as “a tactical card game set in alternate 13th century Asia.” I only played one game, and the structure felt very much like an LCG in the vein of something like Netrunner.
The big selling point for me would be the game’s relative mechanical simplicity, and count up structure for victory, where you win by scoring points as opposed to running your opponent out of life.
I won my game, and liked it enough that I’d play again. I’m curious to see how tactical and meaningful the choices are when I have a greater sense of the cards and their abilities. And also when I have to play an aggro into control deck matchup, as opposed to the other way around.
Note: I’m pretty sure Worldbreakers was a KS exclusive, with a limited pre-0rder for a second KS run. So getting a copy of this is probably quite difficult. I’d suggest finding someone else who already owns and just playing with them, or trying to find someone who would bring it to a convention.
5. 7 Wonders
I liked 7 Wonders, but I don’t have too much else to say on it. It’s a tableau builder with a pick and pass drafting mechanic (like Magic drafts or Sushi Go).
I’ve always liked drafting games, I enjoyed 7 Wonders, and I’d probably play it again for its mechanics. But I wouldn’t say I was enthused by it. The theme is just sort of your traditional “build a thing wow.”
On the other hand, 7 Wonders is already so well known I’m not too worried that my one lukewarm take is going to any real impact on it.
6. Gizmos
So Gizmos is a resource management engine builder.
There’s a big marble machine thing in the middle, but honestly, I’m not very impressed by it. They could have done the exact same thing if the marbles were just a deck of cards.
I’m pretty lukewarm on Gizmos. It might be because I never got anything to quite work, but it just didn’t feel very fun to play, and the marble components felt unnecessary to the actual mechanics of the game.
A few months ago I mentioned in my Granite Games Summit writeup that one of my favorite prototypes at the event was a deck builder with a working title of “Cubism.” I also noted that I didn’t really want to write about it while it was still in the prototype stage.
It’s been a while since then, but I’m happy to note that this week I can finally talk about that prototype. Mostly because it’s no longer a prototype, and it has a new final name: Avant Carde.
Avant Carde is a deck builder where players take on the role of collectors organizing shows of their artwork to score awards.
If you’ve played a traditional deck builder, you’re likely familiar with a lot of the base components of the genre. Players are given a (weak) starting deck that they make more powerful over time by using it to generate resources, and purchase additional cards to be added to the deck.
Where Avant Carde innovates, though, is in how it handles playing cards during a players turn, and also its scoring and buying system.
In something like Dominion or Clank, any card can be played in any order, though there might be advantages to doing things a certain way. Avant Carde is different.
Avant Carde has a something more akin to an Uno style chaining system. Once a player plays a card for their turn, the next card they play has to match the previous card in either color or number to continue the chain. At the end, they count up the number of cards in the chain, and any other abilities those cards might have, and that number is the amount of money they have to buy with.
This chain, for example, would generate 5 money for the player.
This leads to a really interesting balance where the more expensive and powerful cards can end up being a bit riskier to play if they aren’t in a color that you’re collecting.
Avant Card also has some interesting changes in how it handles the buying area. Unlike Ascension, where a limited pool of cards are available at any point in time, or Dominion, where everything is always available, Avant Carde splits the difference in a pretty fascinating way.
Another neat thing: The abilities in Avant Carde aren’t on the cards in your deck. Instead they’re on the cards you lay out above the buy row! This means you can change all of the cards’ abilities by just swapping out 6 cards.
You’re collecting cards numbered 2-7. Every number is always available, but the stack of cards for each number only ever has the top card flipped up and visible. And since the numbers come in different colors, even if you have the money to buy a high-cost card, it may not make sense to actually buy it if it’s completely off color, and would be hard to include in your future chain.
As tempting as that 5 might be, splashing into blue to play it could be difficult.
I’ve really enjoyed Avant Carde. It’s one of the few prototypes that I wanted to play every time I saw it over the last few months. I’m even more excited to see the final game. It’s a fascinating deck builder with some really neat mechanical innovations in the genre.
If any of this sounds cool, Resonym is currently running a Kickstarter for the game that you can check out.
Disclaimer: I am friends with the designers at Resonym, which is how I ended up playtesting it, but it’s honestly the best Resonym game I’ve played
Grim Dawn is an ARPG that is probably intended to be in the vein of Diablo 2. I honestly don’t know. I never played Diablo 2.
What I do know is that after 11 hours, 17 deaths, and one kill on the final boss, I do not recommend it. In fact, I actively loathe Grim Dawn. I have a lot of problems with the game, but upon reflection, I think they break down to two large gripes.
The Good Bits
Before I devote a large amount of time to eviscerating every other aspect of this game, I’d like to take a moment to say some nice things about Grim Dawn. Don’t worry, it won’t be long, because there aren’t very many.
I like how the game can run without an internet connection. If the apocalypse happens and I happen to have Grim Dawn installed, I’d have a reason to kidnap people to run in a giant hamster wheel and charge my computer.
I like that the game has auto-pickup for certain types of loot, like currency and certain crafting items. Not having to click every time I want to grab something is nice.
Fundamental Problems
Grim Dawn has two fundamental problems as an ARPG. Every other issue I have with the game is either the result of these problems, or caused by them, and they are as follows:
Movement is slow.
Skills are fundamentally uninteresting.
Movement speed in Grim Dawn is really slow. Like, incredibly slow. One of the few really interesting items I found in my 11 hours was a pair of boots that gave 17% movement speed. They also had the downside that if you got hit, you lost 20% movement speed. I ended the game with a pair of drawback free 11% movement speed boots, and 6% buff. The end result is that the game feels incredibly slow.
This matters because of all the problems that spiral out of it. Every quest is a fetch or kill quest that requires you to go out, find something, and then teleport back home to turn it in, so you’re going to spend a lot of time walking around.
Also, in terms of finding things, the maps are large, confusing, and generally janky messes. Sometimes if you click somewhere, you will be autopathed to where you need to go! Sometimes, you will not.
A fully zoomed out view of Blood Groves.
Maps cannot be overlaid on top of the game screen unlike in many other ARPG’s, adding to the difficultly of exploration. Instead, you’ll have to constantly open the map and check your location, or leave it open the middle of screen.
Finally, the GUI isn’t modifiable. Meaning that if you play on an Ultrawide, some HUD elements like pet health will be the in VERY far corner of the screen, but the map can’t be moved around and will always sit dead center.
None of this would be as big a problem, though, if you could move faster than molasses.
There’s also one other thing that prevents fast movement. Unlike Path of Exile or Diablo 3, there are no skills that offer mobility or movement in the base game.
This brings us to the other big thing that Grim Dawn doesn’t have: fun skills.
I wanted to try to make a summoner build, as I usually play Necromancers in ARPG’s. I do this so I can live out my deepest, darkest fantasy: being in upper management. I come up with high level strategic objectives (murder people for loot) and delegate responsibilities to my HMZ (highly mobile zombies) to fulfill them.
So how did that work in Grim Dawn? Pretty unimpressively.
I got through Grim Dawn on Veteran Normal difficulty using a total of 7 skills. Skills 1-3 summoned pets, but only one pet each, so I would just cast them each time my other pets died. Skill 4 was an aura, so I would toggle it on and forget about it. Skill 5 was a temporary buff, that I would just activate every 30 seconds or so, and skill 6 was a small orb that did poison in an AOE. Skill 7 was a swarming dot/right click skill.
But for those who are counting, there are only 2 skills I would use actively: the poison orb, and the buff. And only one of those had to be aimed.
By the end of the game, my character was less entertaining and satisfying to play than pretty much any Dota 2 hero or any build I’ve done in PoE. The skills just felt bad.
This led to a bunch of my other problems. Trying to find specific key locations or waypoints when you have to slog through tons of bad combat is annoying. Every boss fight being the same “poke, walk away, poke” for 3 minutes is annoying and boring. Speaking of which: what’s up with every boss fight (except 2) just being a dude in armor?
Also, this is the first ARPG I’ve ever played where I was enviously looking at the NPC’s and going “Wow, that skill seems fun, or at least more useful. Wish I could use that!”
Some Other Nitpicks
These are all minor, and frankly, they’re all the sorts of things that I would overlook if I had fun with the game. But I didn’t, so let’s complain!
Nobody has ever enjoyed back tracking to turn in quests. Lost Ark solved this for ARPG’s, and the solution very simple. I pickup the quest in Area A, Go to Area B, and when I finish, I turn in at Area C, the area I’m going to next. Stop making me backtrack.
Also, the quests!
These were all the quests I had unfinished by the end of the game.
I think that Grim Dawn is trying to do a thing where you have to really read the dialogue of each quest, and then carefully do it. This would be interesting if quests were ever anything more than “Kill the Dude” or “Find The Obtusely Hidden Thing.” But it means that if you don’t remember exactly what that quest giver said, good luck. Also the rewards are pretty shit, and you can’t hide individual quests on the UI.
By the final 75% of the game, I just stopped picking them up all together, mostly because I didn’t care about these people or the story.
Which brings us to the story. I think the story of Grim Dawn is trying to be all spooky and grimdark. It mostly fails. There’s only so many times a poor survivor can be all “Please, find my family/pet/Jays” and then you get there and they’re killed/eaten/creased before I stop caring.
Also, there’s some sort of “Actions have consequences” system, but I want to stress something: I don’t know who gives a shit about actions/morality in an ARPG. Presumably the same person who thought I’d read all that quest text. Most ARPG players I know would kill every NPC in the starting zone for a 5% item quantity boost. 5% exp boost? You bet your ass I’m decking Deckard Cain.
The story is also unsatisfying! You start out fighting monster group A, and then it turns out that monster group B is also here, and you have to stop their evil plans. And then you fail, and have to kill their resurrected god instead. So you do, but then the world is still shit. PoE didn’t have the greatest story in the world, but at least after you completed the story mode, there was a single map where everyone throws a great big party. (Also, Kitava’s head goes in the middle of table like a gorey centerpiece, which I’ve always enjoyed.)
Also, the enemies are boring. There are like 5 of them, and most of the bosses are just dude in armor, or a tentacle thing. There’s a whole section near the end of the game where you find a bunch of ruined pre-industrial tank things that have been tipped over and destroyed. For a moment you’ll be like “Oh, are we gonna have to fight one of those? Are we gonna ride one of those?” No, no we’re not. They’re just there to build ambiance.
In Conclusion
Back when I played PoE, sometimes after grinding for several hours, or trying to power through the game’s campaign to get to the rest of the game, I would reach a sort of fugue state. I would get tired, drained, lose interest, and feel like my brain was melting out of my ears.
Grim Dawn managed to make feel like this before the first boss.
There were moments of amusement, or interest, but they were few and far between. And they were massively outweighed by the thoughts of “I could be playing PoE/D3/Don’t Die, Collect Loot instead of this.”
I am $12 poorer, and have 12 hours less life, but you dear reader need not make my mistake.
Grim Dawn is 50% off on Steam at time of writing, but you can save even more money by not buying it.
PS: It’s possible that some of the DLC solves the issues I have with this game. To which I say, if it makes the game not garbage, maybe just include it in the actual game.
I enjoy playing Friends Vs Friends. I don’t enjoy its progression structure for unlocks, and I will complain about that in a bit. One person I played with called it “Play-To-Win” which is very funny way of putting it, and also felt kind of accurate. But let’s start with the good stuff.
Genre
1v1/2v2 FPS
Recommend? Y/N
Yes.
Price
$10. Deluxe Ed $18. No IAP.
Platform
PC
Short Version
Best as a party game with friends. Progression systems are a bit annoying, but not a deal breaker.
Friends Vs Friends is a 1v1 and 2v2 first person shooter with a pleasant low-poly vibe. The goal is simple: kill the other player before they kill you to win a round. Win 3 rounds before they do to win the match.
So now it’s time for the twist.
Before a game, you build a deck of cards. Using a card can give you a weapon or other equipment, buff you, debuff an opponent, or other wild and weird things.
Perhaps most importantly for the purpose of strategy, unused cards carry over between rounds, and it’s possible to see which cards the opponent uses. So if they pop a powerful weapon, give me a big head, and slow on me on me at the start of the round, I might decide it’s not even worth committing resources to try to win that round. Instead I might pool up cards, then try to push through on a future one.
The end result is a really fun blend of moment to moment resource management, and FPS skill. Time to kill is fairly high overall, with most weapons requiring a large number of hits. This is important because it gives you the time you need to decide what cards to use.
The most fun I’ve had with Friends Vs Friends is playing it as a sort of party game with 3-4 friends who I talked into getting it. It’s relatively easy to set up a private game, invite folks, and then just jump into it. Running around, yelling at each other, trash talking, and calling every single round winning clutch is great.
But some parts are not as great. So let’s talk about them.
Progression and other complaints
Deckbuilding in Friends Vs Friends is reliant on collecting cards. You buy card packs with a in-game earned currency. There are two types of card packs: basic and rare. Rare packs cost twice as much as the basic ones, and it feels like you earn currency pretty slowly.
The frustrating thing about the cards is that they use what I’ve come to think of as the “Clash of Clans” model. That’s the one where duplicates don’t give you more copies of the card to work with, they just upgrade the existing card’s power level. Which is not very fun, because it means duplicates of a rare card (instead of feeling special and improving your deck a lot) just give you a like 3% boost.
But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is quests.
There are daily and weekly quests, because of course there are, and they give much larger amounts of EXP than just playing games. This would be fine, except for one thing.
You can’t complete these quests in games withfriends, or anything that isn’t random online matchmaking.
And the random online matchmaking, suffers from two really big issues. First of all, it’s very easy to just drop out of a match after a loss. So you can expect to see a lot of canceled rematches. This in turn means a fair amount of time spent waiting for the next match.
To be fair, I would also probably quit after losing a match to someone at progression level 100.
Secondly, it just isn’t quite as fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable with a group of friends shouting at each other over voice chat, and with the ability to make a fair set of 2v2’s by balancing teams.
But grinding online is the best way to unlock more cards and money to play with, and also the only way to unlock the in-game cosmetics.
So the weird end result is that the best way to play a game called Friends Vs Friends is, in fact, to not play it against your friends.
Overall
I like Friends Vs Friends. The gunplay is fun, and it feels fantastic as a group game. Unfortunately for my group of folks, it sort of got its lunch eaten by BattleBit in the FPS department. But we were having a good time with it before that.
It probably would have been better if the quests/progressions/unlocks didn’t work the way they did, or there was more capacity to really deckbuild. As it is, it’s fun, but the deckbuilding is never about building cool combos. Ultimately deckbuilding is just a “Stuff as much good stuff as you can” sort of vibe.
Overall thought, it’s good! I just wish there was a bit more to it, and some tweaks to a few systems because it could have been great.
