Board Thread:Hype Train for GoF3/@comment-27056410-20161207191157/@comment-17969412-20161209073736

Initial thoughts on the game:


 * Oh boy. That download is...huge, to say the least.


 * I feel that the launch of the game isn't particularly strong. There are fewer ships that are in the current state of GoF 3 (21 ships at the moment) than there was in the base game of GoF 2 (40+ ships, not counting add-ons or any ship introduced afterward), which is alarming, to say the least. Out of these 40+ ships, only 4 made it into the new game, which I found alarming - they could have very easily added an extra 10 into the new game without too much hassle.


 * Premium economy is very slow to get started, and I have no idea if it ramps up in the late game. The issue is that they are using this premium currency for ships that should be able to be brought for IG money (and when I say this, I am talking about ships like the Aegir, which shouldn't be a premium ship no matter how good it is). I also find that the premium currency at the moment forces you to buy iAPs in order to have a chance at getting ships like the Bloodstar, which I particularly despise - I don't really like iAPs for currency.^


 * Credits become your nightmare really, really quickly. It isn't like GoF 2, where you start off earning nothing more than dust and immediately ramp up to god-like earnings the instant you get the simplest tractor beam. In GoF 3, the only complement I can say is that it's consistant, but alas, too slow.


 * Gameplay feels smooth, and the animations are less janky than they were in GoF 2. The handling in the ships are very, very nice, which is a huge improvement of the sluggishness of ships in GoF 2. The issue, though, is that the game doesn't particularly have that much sustenance in its combat. The turrets in the game make it so that battles require less skill to pull off. Sure, in GoF 2, late game weapons (in particular, the Raccoon) did make combat easier, but having turrets instead of fixed guns kind-of lowers the skill-cap of the game. Hopefully this gets patched so that the lead isn't as drastic as it is now, but currently...yeah.^^


 * Open-world is here, but it's missing elements. In particular, no space security means that travel is really uneventful. Pirate attacks are no-where near as frequent as it was in GoF II, which can be both a blessing and a curse.


 * There is no cargo in the game. Not only is it impossible to trade (A feature that was pretty broken in the game but tbh, it was very hard to capitalize on until the late game when you get the Khadar Drive and also find the Pan - Wolf~Reiser route), but it is also impossible to turn pirate and hunt down other ships to salvage their cargo components for money. This is especially important because salvaging other ships through the use of tractor beams made progression in GoF II possible, and didn't make it slow (and thus require iAPs). All players really needed were several good hauls in order to get the momentum for progression running. In here, the lack of such system not only makes progression considerably slower, but it also has a negative effect on the game's complexity.^^^


 * Graphics are amazing. The only small gripe I have with it is that some of the returning ship designs feel...alien, for the most part (Especially the Groza, with the removing of it's thick, semi-circle shaped wings), but this isn't really a fault, it's more of a personal taste.


 * UI is too cluttered. Needs work there. My main issue is that they like to stack buttons together. Boost, dodge, and fire are all assigned to the same button. Really triggered when I wanted to boost, only to find my weapons firing.

All in all, GoF 3 has some potential - it's not a complete throw-out, but it needs some drastic work done to match up with GoF 2. As it stands, it's not really worth investing that much time into the game.

It seems to me that they have taken a potentially grave risk by trying to add new game mechanics in order to match or compete with other companies, instead of expanding on the mechanics of GoF 2. In a way, Manticore feels like a completely different game to GoF 2, and not worth the initial sequel nor hype that it is led to believe.

Footnotes:

''^: Yes, GoF 2 does have an iAP system in which you could buy millions of credits, but the game got around it because progression was not limited by the introduction of two currencies. Plus, the game was relatively easy to progress through, in fact, I would argue that it felt TOO EASY to play through (Money is only an issue in the first 30 minutes in the game, where you are stuck with a Betty and no tractor beam). I did not find myself once going through the game needing an iAP, except to buy the add-on packs.''

''You could get 10 million in 5 trips through the Pan - Wolf Reiser route, let alone getting ludicrous amounts of money through loot pulled via tractor beams. What that means in practice is that you can get essentially any ship in the game within 30 or so minutes of just trading implants and organs, destroying any paywall that was present in the game (I had so much money that by the end, I didn't even need to spend another go of trading because I essentially brought every single ship, item, and even commodity in the game)''

''^^: Plus, the lead indicator is about as big as the enemy ship you are attacking. It's far too big and takes up too much of the screen, which somehow manages to trigger me really, really hard.''

^^^: I like complex games, so your mileage might vary.