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***NOTATION: THIS IS AN "ONLINE ONLY" GAME. That means that you must have internet, you must be connected to Trion Worlds servers, and you must have all patches required installed and up to date regularly on your console. Because this is an "Online Only game" I have to include the "server stability" by Trion Worlds Inc as part of this review, because this products functionality is BASED on the functionality of the servers from Trion Worlds and theirability to maintain them. END NOTATION***
--GAME INSTALLATION---------
-The Good: The game requires installation on your console. The game disc requires 5.1g of space. Installed games run faster and take less time on load screens. When logging into the game you are taken to a character load screen and sometimes a window with a countdown timer identifying your position in the queue and how long it will take for you to get into a server to play.
-The Bad: Trion Worlds has required "UN-installing" the game via one version of a patch for the game to function, and then required "RE-installing" the game via a separate patch for the game to function. Then done both repeatedly. This has lead to multiple failed patches, removing your ability to play the game and rendering the product you have purchased useless for hours, and even days on end depending upon a "roulette system" of obtaining a successful patch download. Trion Worlds community support for this is regularly non-productive. Contacting them on their official forums is also not productive... and normally any technical problems with the game is luck of the draw with the community having to figure everything out for itself without the help of Trion Worlds.
--STORYLINE--------------
-The Good: Starts off with a brief cut scene, and then a tutorial. The NICE thing is the cut scenes (cinematic events developed with the game engine) include your character in them. It includes what you look like, what you're wearing, and everything you have chosen as features when you develop your character in the "Character Creation" mode. The story line (without spoiling anything) is in my opinion gripping enough to keep you occupied and involved.
-The Bad: The game gives you the ability to play "some" of the story missions with friends. In order to achieve this the User Interface allows you to "group" with friends in the game and play that mission when launched together as a team by the "group leader". This function is constantly broken and constantly members of your group cannot see you, see eachother, and end up in an identical environment but in a separate world. This leads to people not being able to play mission together despite the menu having a "Join Phase" option that when selected will re-spawn your character hopefully in the same world as the player you cant see... more times than not just completely failing to function. This also fails to function in Episode Missions AND Side Missions.
--CHARACTER CREATOR---------
-You can pick from: Human Male, Human Female, Alien Male, Alien Female.
-Hair and hair color, Nose, Eyes, Facial structure, Mouth/Lips, Facial scars, Facial/Body tattoos... are all included in the character generator. The options available are enough to distinguish who you create, but are not vast enough to keep people from all picking the same "cool looking" hair style or "cool looking" tattoos. So keep in mind when creating your character that the one or two tattoos for the class your considering... alot of people may pick that too. There are four classes. Veteran, Survivalist, Machinist, and Outlaw. Picking one does not appear to have any "huge" impact on the storyline, nor does it appear to differentiate your in-game skills which develop later from a skill tree of WELL OVER 80 skills. The skills you pick can be leveled up more than once to increase their effectiveness. The skill tree does offer the ability to reset and rearrange it, although I have not done so yet.
-The Bad: A character class is relevant to nothing but the gun you start with in the game.
--WEAPONS-------
The Good:-Pistols and magnums, shotguns and sawed off shotguns, assault rifles and light machine guns, submachine guns and high magazine auto pistols, grenade launchers and rocket launchers and MORE... can all have up to 4 attachments IF you find the attachments for the weapons you like. Those attachments are: Scopes, Stocks, Magazines, and Barrels.
-Weapons also can be found or bought in the world WITH "synergy bonuses".
-Attachments go on weapons into Slots. Attachments can be found or bought in the world WITH "synergy bonuses".
-Both weapons AND attachments can be found or bought with elemental damages which apply to weapons.
The Bad: -Slots can be placed on weapons when you reach the required level. That required level changes based on Trions currentlt running hotfix or patch version. So if you have a weapon with no slots you can place slots on that weapon by paying a form of in-game money (Ark Salvage). This has become a problem, because through various updated patches the expense of placing slots on weapons has gone from more than double what it use to cost, on top of the fact that as you level up in the game, the costs to place slots goes up as well. The base stats on all weapons remain static and don't change no matter your level. The more you level, the more salvage is required to modify a weapon, the more you modify it the more it requires to BE "modified", and after achieving the max modifications of a weapon the changes made are literally and mathematically so small that they would go unnoticed if compaired to another weapon never modified at all. So the bottom line is the weapon modification system is completely a waste of time.
The WORSE: the items in this game known as "Orange Items" which would be considered as the "Most rare" are primarily obtainable by paying REAL money into a roulette reward system. Whether you are on the official forums, youtube, wherever... Trion Worlds has designed the game to clearly benefit those willing to pay real money and reward them with items in game that have "Bonus Statistics". These purchases are made with "Bits". "Bits" are bought with "Microsoft Points", "Microsoft Points" are bought with real money. These bonus statistics are so small and minute that when compared to weapons in game without those bonuses you would never know they exist. Im talking differences that are 1 tenth of a whole number. A simple example would be a gun with a firerate of 10. If you pay Trion real money you may get a gun that has a fire rate of 11.2 at most. The longer the game has been out, the more expensive Trion has made in-game costs. The higher the costs, the less you can do, the less you can do, the more inventory you have to carry, and for that they sell space via BITS so you can carry more. Its disgusting.
--GAMEPLAY--(Was fun, until Trion clearly stopped caring and got greedy).
-During the game dynamic events called "Ark Falls" transpire. Ark Falls are when pieces of major objects orbiting the planet fall to the Earth carrying with them technology that upgrades your weapons. Trion has INCREASED everything it costs in the game to "play" the game, and DECREASED the ratio at which what you need to pay in the game is obtained via their patches.... unless you buy it using real money.
-During gameplay you will regularly get kicked from Trions servers with notifications stating "Your connection to our servers has timed out".
-During gameplay you will regularly lose your ability to see your friends IN the game. The option/s in place to resolve this issue has not resolved it since launch day.
-During gameplay the current patches have devised a system by which you are forcibly stuck with an extremely poor UI and an overwhelming amount of items that are designed to clearly take up your inventory space, only providing you with an option to pay real money to buy that space via microtransactions.
-There is no ability to play the game "IF" you cannot SUCCESSFULLY achieve updating your console with the most current patches from Trion Worlds Inc. Normally a patch takes 2-3 HOURS to download (regardless of your connection speed Trion has set pre-set speeds at which your download is achievable from them). These patches, taking 2-3 hours each, transpire at minimum every 2 weeks. That's not including random server down times from server crashes, server maintenance, server resets, and randomly scheduled hot fixes for their servers that despite saying "will not interfere with your gameplay" on their main web page, disconnects everyone from their servers for up to 12 hours at a time.
This game "WAS", and Im saying "WAS" playable within the first 30 days of its launch date. But as of now, this game is regularly dysfunctional at best. I severely recommend you NOT buy this game. It was a purchase worth making when it first came out, but due to the current IP laws and how this developer has changed the functionality of this product POST-launch it is NO LONGER a game worth recommending. It saddens me when Developers take advantage of IP laws and manipulate a consumers purchase post-sale in an attempt to trap them into paying more money in order to utilize their purchase. Not only do I not recommend the game, I don't recommend the developer for any game they will ever make.
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I never really played any of Trion's games, not even Rift. So i was a little on edge when buying this game, mainly because it's an MMO...on the Xbox. But i decided to buy it anyway, 'cause i'm a risk taker, and live life dangerously. In any case, let's start by categories, 'k?Graphics:
They're okay, honestly. I hear the game isn't overly demanding on the PC, but on Xbox it looks alright. Now, we are talking about aesthetics here, the world around the character. The actual characters themselves lack emotion they're faces look stiff. And the animation in cutscenes could be better. The lip syncing is also off, not Dead Island off, but still pretty off.
Gameplay:
Some might call this game Borderlands, but in third person. That's really not too far from the truth. The game never really forces you into co-op, except for certain instances, and loot is nowhere near as common as BorderLands (and i want to stress this). Still it is fun with other people, specially in the Arkfalls.
Speaking of Arkfalls, the game has numerous events and side-quests. Some are meh, others are alright, but some events might happen too soon after one another. Arkfalls are pretty awesome though. You have two kinds: minor and mayor, the former which is usually a boss or the like.
The Gunplay, in my opinion, could be tighter. It feels like Mass Effect shooting and sense loot drops isn't too common, you might wanna customize your gun, which you can, but i'd still prefer more loot.
You have skills that you get from your EGO (which is like Cortana, but in the molecular level). You essentially have four "main" skills: Decoy, Stealth, overcharge, and blur. You can increase these skills, and i suggest you pick wisely (STEALTH IS AWESOME)
The game is also not very grind-y
Sound:
Nothing really stands out, the music is very ambient and kicks during battle. The Voice acting is okay.
Story:
Aliens come, humans don't like it, they fight, they reach a stale-mate, they live together, but the world is now very post-apocalyptic. It's the greatest story ever told sense The Pit and the Pendulum.
Verdict:
This game is a risk, and i went in expecting nothing. I got out pleasantly surprised. To most, this game will range in the 7-8 out of ten. And i concur, but this game is an mmo, it demands 10 gigs out of you, and it follows a TV show. So, basically, it'll probably have a lot of updates, probably. So far, i don't really know how the whole tv thing is going to affect the game and vise versa. If you feel like waiting and seeing how the game does, i don't blame you, but if you wanna go in now, i really don't see why not
12/10 IGN
"It's okay"
Best Deals for Defiance - Xbox 360
*UPDATE 04/12/13* I have to hand it to Trion, the company responsible for making this game. I received an email yesterday from them stating right at the top, "Let's face it, there were problems with Defiance at launch" mostly referring to the server issues noted in so many other reviews of this game. I'm guessing they greatly underestimated the demand for an MMO on xbox360, which was the platform that suffered the most from servers going down. I have a lot of respect for their admission of the problems and their commitment to fixing the issues for all their fans, on every platform. There were NO server issues I've noticed in a couple days now, and I figured they'd get it together soon. They also included some in-game gifts for my character as a way of saying "thank you for being patient" which was a very nice touch. More companies should take note of when to issue an apology and follow Trion's example.*Original review*
This is the first MMO I have really gotten into, I've never had a PC worthy of gaming so I stick to my 360. This review is only for the 360, not for any other platform.
There is a lot to like about Defiance, very interesting to see the tie in w/the TV show and how that plays out. I like the story, like the characters and love the environments in-game. I'm not even going to complain about the server issues, (sigh) or needing 10 gigs of storage as a requirement to play. What I will complain about are the little things that really should have been fixed before launch.
The first thing I noticed is the instruction book included with the game. It's noticeably short on any usable info whatsoever, the worst most uninformative instruction book I've ever seen. You get a controller map for what buttons do what, and that's it. For a game so detailed, we deserve more, esp. since you don't get a lot of explanation in-game about certain things such as weapon customization or in-game currency. It's been a little confusing as to which weapons can be upgraded while others seemingly cannot. (I.E., I have an assault rifle, have a magazine attachment for assault rifles, yet cannot upgrade said rifle. hmmmm)
Vehicle physics are poor, steering is tough and overall should be a lot easier to drive, esp. since the world is SO large you really need to drive more often than not.
my biggest complaint really isn't with the game, but the discourtesy of other players you encounter in your travels. Yeah, I know the idea is that it's an open world with all manner of interactions from all types of personalities, but I feel that the game could have been made better by having fewer interactions with random people coming along to "help" with your quest or side mission. The worst are the people who get in their cars and drive around at "arkfalls" (mass gatherings to take on a boss-monster) and run over the bad guys you're trying to shoot. too often I find myself losing interest in a mission due to there being so many people around, I feel like I can't make a meaningful contribution. what fun is it really to take an enemy's health down to almost zero, only to have some random guy get the kill with one shot after you did all the work? they could have limited the number of players at arkfalls, and opened another once the player limit was reached. also, put up obstacles to discourage the people from driving cars around the arkfalls, that really ruins the experience for many players. if you want to plow your car through crowds, go play grand theft auto. Trion should've taken into account that you cant count on others to play as intended and made the game more rewarding of an experience for those that don't have a huge party or clan. So often I find myself avoiding others so I can have more fun, and accomplish more on my own.
What saves this game ultimately is the core gameplay itself. I really enjoy the world created here, it's a lot of fun sniping bad guys, plenty of guns, plenty of character options, etc. You can make this game feel very personalized and I love that. There is great opportunity to play YOUR way...provided some random DBag doesn't come along and complete your mission for you or spin donuts at the arkfall. It's a solid 3-star game for me with 5-star potential. Hopefully after more time, players will be spread out over the map a bit more, and not be so concentrated in one area. It's good enough to stick with it for a while though, and could really develop into a serious addiction. It's already cut into my HALO playing time quite deeply. If you're on the fence and unsure, bottom line for me is that I don't regret this purchase despite my complaints. 4-star graphics, 5 stars for great music WITH the option to turn it off (I'm lookin at YOU HALO!!!)
and 5 stars for gameplay. 2 stars for explanation of in-game details, 2 stars for overcrowding at arkfalls.
Honest reviews on Defiance - Xbox 360
Well Xbox Live won't let me sign in at the moment, so I guess I'll write one of these real quick. I'm going to try not to go too in depth with this review, just giving my impression of the things that keep bringing me online and a few things that could be better.Trion got a lot of game elements right with this one. Here are a few I appreciate:
1) The arkfall events and coop missions are fun! I couldn't get into Rift, but I loved the idea of world events as implemented in that game. Defiance is a further refinement of this idea, these events are awesome in a third person shooter. If you've played instances in WoW (or the equivalent elsewhere), they're called co-op maps in Defiance you'll have roles to fill such as managing adds and healing, but I've generally seen people take on these roles organically as the mission progresses, since it is so easy to switch between guns and abilities.
2) Exploration and mini game participation is rewarded by completing Pursuits (achievements basically), you'll gain levels, titles, clothes, vehicles, etc. Its a nice change of pace after questing to be able to race in a time trial, do a scenario (shoot chickens with a pistol before the farmers scoop them up, kite a hundred mutants while blasting them with a shotgun, take on waves of aliens with a practically unlimited ammo machine gun, etc. etc.), and pick up sound recorded intel from exploring that reveals a little bit more about characters and the Defiance world in general.
3) Combat and Customizations galore... Turn on your damage numbers in the settings and take on waves of monsters or complete missions with your friends and compare your playstyle's effectiveness with the dmg/heal/kill/revive/death score at the end. With the combination of abilities, perks, guns, and gun mods there is a lot of experimenting to do.
Now a few things that could be better:
1) Inventory space blah! Yeah you'll gain inventory space as you progress, but starting off you're going to get mad at your bags. I ended up buying extra inventory space through a micro transaction. I got frustrated enough with a non critical game element that I paid more real cash for the convenience of not dealing with it... yes, they got me.
2) PvP meh... While they have worked out a lot of the issues from early on, we are still missing Freight Yard. It was similar to a Battlefield conquest game, where you capture control points on the map and have access to group vehicles complete with driver, gunner, and rocket seating a great map, but it hasn't been available since the first or second day. There is no "real" open world pvp. Sure there is the Shadow War where players can opt in for a scheduled battle, but its not the same as having dedicated factions and always having to watch your back while questing.
3) Honorary shout-out to your standard MMO launch problems.
Now that I can log into Xbox Live, its time to play. I'll keep you updated.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Defiance - Xbox 360
(Played on 360 for several hours)The idea is great and the gameplay is okay... That's where it stops unfortunately. For those of you that have played an MMO or a game such as Diablo or Borderlands you understand that story, character development, and loot are some of the biggest driving motivations to play a game. All of these are either lacking or completely gone.
Story? Ummm... Well go here and press "X" then kill a few waves, that sums up over 95% of the missions. I simply don't care about the story because there really isn't one and the plot holes are massive.
The character development is also garbage really. Most of the skills are useless and hardly ever used.
There is no difference between a gun you get at lvl 10 versus one you get at lvl 250. Yep, that's right... Now if you are very lucky you might get a rare drop (don't get excited) because the bonuses it adds are very minor, such as -10% grenade respawn when reloading a completely gun.
The concept is great but the execution is lacking. This game needed another year of development to fix bugs, add depth, and make a story worth playing. I would give this a 2.5/5 but that is not possible so I will be generous and round up.
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