I've been struggling with what to do with Hover for a while now. It's been an uncompleted member of my backlog and "currently playing" that's remained largely untouched while I've focused on other things over the past few months. I can't deny I think it's a FANTASTIC game with the best parkour mechanics since Mirror's Edge and a fun emphasis placed on cooperative multiplayer, but I currently lack the desire to actually finish it despite only having a few hours at most left to get through at this point, and the thought of continuing to leave it floating around on my to-do list until the urge finally does return while I attend to some of the other titles vying for my attention simply doesn't appeal to me. So after much internal debate I've decided to do something I typically wouldn't and move on from it entirely, but also still give it a review in the process.
Structured like an MMO, the (poorly told and lame) story takes you through a series of hub worlds filled with other players jumping about and NPCs offering a variety of side-activities. Just about every mission you'll encounter is of the on foot race, "Gameball" match (think basketball with more platforming), or "take this item here before the clock runs out" variety. All of which is usually set against a timer. To be honest that's probably why I'm stepping away from it. Being timed in a video game is a huge pet peeve of mine. This is something I do as a leisure activity, so while I'm not against difficulty altogether, the feeling of having to rush through challenges with little margin for error can be frustrating to me when I'd rather just work at a more relaxed pace with some room for flexibility. Especially since my hands aren't as accurate as I would like.
It's a design choice I can't fault too much though as it compliments the gameplay rather nicely. Fusty Game and Midgar Studio have created a really deep movement system and this approach forces you to master every subtle complexity of it in order to make the most out of your limited, yet rechargeable energy and pick the quickest path to your objectives. There is a skill chip-based upgrade tree that you can swap out to incrementally increase your stats that I'm sure can be used to create some insanely overpowered build, but the most effective way to power through this with as little effort as possible is to bring a few buddies along for the ride. Working together with pals can trivialize most quest types and it's made easy to do thanks to cross-play.
It's worth noting that without friends to team up with the whole online aspect feels rather superfluous as the setup doesn't really do a good job of encouraging randoms to play together. Everyone you encounter will be running around doing their own thing and the later sections of the game are almost totally devoid of life altogether. So this likely won't be the place you'll go to meet new people. I wouldn't say that's truly a serious problem however. In fact, despite my nit-picks, which are the result of personal preference more than anything, the only legitimate flaw here is it's tendency to crash every now and then. It's also reported that an achievement or two are bugged.
Honestly, the most fun I had in this was exploring each large, colorful map for collectibles as it allowed me to enjoy the exhilarating motion of its jumps, flips, and grinds without feeling pressured to perform under any sort of constraints. The devs have come up with a really great and original core concept that has the potential to hook a lot of people. I realize the fact that I'm abandoning the game before seeing it through to the end kind of makes my opinion and score both irrelevant and more than likely a little confusing ("he's giving it a 9, but couldn't bring himself to beat it?"), but dropping it completely without so much as a word after the amount of time I did put into it felt kind of wrong. I think Hover is actually something pretty special. I guess it's just not 100% my thing. At least not without a full crew of familiars to run with.
9/10
Structured like an MMO, the (poorly told and lame) story takes you through a series of hub worlds filled with other players jumping about and NPCs offering a variety of side-activities. Just about every mission you'll encounter is of the on foot race, "Gameball" match (think basketball with more platforming), or "take this item here before the clock runs out" variety. All of which is usually set against a timer. To be honest that's probably why I'm stepping away from it. Being timed in a video game is a huge pet peeve of mine. This is something I do as a leisure activity, so while I'm not against difficulty altogether, the feeling of having to rush through challenges with little margin for error can be frustrating to me when I'd rather just work at a more relaxed pace with some room for flexibility. Especially since my hands aren't as accurate as I would like.
It's a design choice I can't fault too much though as it compliments the gameplay rather nicely. Fusty Game and Midgar Studio have created a really deep movement system and this approach forces you to master every subtle complexity of it in order to make the most out of your limited, yet rechargeable energy and pick the quickest path to your objectives. There is a skill chip-based upgrade tree that you can swap out to incrementally increase your stats that I'm sure can be used to create some insanely overpowered build, but the most effective way to power through this with as little effort as possible is to bring a few buddies along for the ride. Working together with pals can trivialize most quest types and it's made easy to do thanks to cross-play.
It's worth noting that without friends to team up with the whole online aspect feels rather superfluous as the setup doesn't really do a good job of encouraging randoms to play together. Everyone you encounter will be running around doing their own thing and the later sections of the game are almost totally devoid of life altogether. So this likely won't be the place you'll go to meet new people. I wouldn't say that's truly a serious problem however. In fact, despite my nit-picks, which are the result of personal preference more than anything, the only legitimate flaw here is it's tendency to crash every now and then. It's also reported that an achievement or two are bugged.
Honestly, the most fun I had in this was exploring each large, colorful map for collectibles as it allowed me to enjoy the exhilarating motion of its jumps, flips, and grinds without feeling pressured to perform under any sort of constraints. The devs have come up with a really great and original core concept that has the potential to hook a lot of people. I realize the fact that I'm abandoning the game before seeing it through to the end kind of makes my opinion and score both irrelevant and more than likely a little confusing ("he's giving it a 9, but couldn't bring himself to beat it?"), but dropping it completely without so much as a word after the amount of time I did put into it felt kind of wrong. I think Hover is actually something pretty special. I guess it's just not 100% my thing. At least not without a full crew of familiars to run with.
9/10
FallenGrace
2 years ago