This review contains spoilers
Ended up having a weird love/hate relationship with Deathloop. I don't really like Arkane's previous works and by stripping the morality from this one allows for a much more freeform playthrough. You never feel shackled to playing the game in a particular way because you're trying to get a certain ending. You're encouraged to experiment with all of the abilities you have on offer at all times and you can come up with some really wonderful ways of despatching enemies.
I even really like the fact that the A.I. is basically terrible. The enemies are little more than fodder for you to take out in inventive ways. Everything about the game is pushing you towards finding your own preferred way of playing through experimentation, failure and success.
Despite the actual missions being fairly rote, the smart use of the 24 hour cycle that the game is framed around and the way the narrative slowly begins to unravel as you push further into it is really compelling and really hammers home the feel that you're a time-travelling super spy.
To stop things getting actually repetitive, rather than intentionally repetitive, there's a brilliant 'invasion' style mechanic where you can jump into another player's game and stick a proper spanner in the works of their best laid plans. It's an injection of pure chaos, turning what might be a fairly standard run through one of the game's areas into a tense cat and mouse battle. It reminded me of Spy vs Spy and I felt it could've been fleshed out further into the main focus of a game, although one no one would buy in the current gaming climate.
So, despite enjoying the journey, Deathloop doesn't really stick the landing at all. I didn't mind the ending, nor really care either way about the overall narrative. There comes a point in Deathloop where you suddenly become acutely aware that, despite all of the ways to manipulate the timeline and change events and the order they happen, there is only one "proper" route you can use to complete the game. When you realise this, realising that the creativity and freeform nature of the game so far has actually been smoke and mirrors, it loses a bit of the magic and I suddenly found the game feeling a bit of a chore to play, so I just pushed through to the ending.
I've gotten bored of writing this now. Game is fine. Multiplayer component isn't fleshed out enough to give it any legs after you've finished with the single player component, which is very one and done.
I even really like the fact that the A.I. is basically terrible. The enemies are little more than fodder for you to take out in inventive ways. Everything about the game is pushing you towards finding your own preferred way of playing through experimentation, failure and success.
Despite the actual missions being fairly rote, the smart use of the 24 hour cycle that the game is framed around and the way the narrative slowly begins to unravel as you push further into it is really compelling and really hammers home the feel that you're a time-travelling super spy.
To stop things getting actually repetitive, rather than intentionally repetitive, there's a brilliant 'invasion' style mechanic where you can jump into another player's game and stick a proper spanner in the works of their best laid plans. It's an injection of pure chaos, turning what might be a fairly standard run through one of the game's areas into a tense cat and mouse battle. It reminded me of Spy vs Spy and I felt it could've been fleshed out further into the main focus of a game, although one no one would buy in the current gaming climate.
So, despite enjoying the journey, Deathloop doesn't really stick the landing at all. I didn't mind the ending, nor really care either way about the overall narrative. There comes a point in Deathloop where you suddenly become acutely aware that, despite all of the ways to manipulate the timeline and change events and the order they happen, there is only one "proper" route you can use to complete the game. When you realise this, realising that the creativity and freeform nature of the game so far has actually been smoke and mirrors, it loses a bit of the magic and I suddenly found the game feeling a bit of a chore to play, so I just pushed through to the ending.
I've gotten bored of writing this now. Game is fine. Multiplayer component isn't fleshed out enough to give it any legs after you've finished with the single player component, which is very one and done.