R I V E Game Review Indie Game Reviewer
Swan Vocal
It'due south weird for me to say I'one thousand reviewing the last game from a developer. Two Tribes wasn't sold, nor is information technology shutting downwardly. Later on 16 years and a changing industry it but can't keep up with, the team is just going to cease. Rive is supposedly the last game information technology'll ever make, and in a way, I feel honored to review it.
Well, I would experience honored if it would just stop kick my ass for a moment.
Rive (PlayStation 4 [reviewed], PC, OS Ten, Linux, Wii U, Xbox 1)
Developer: Two Tribes
Publisher: Two Tribes Publishing
Release: September 13, 2016 (PS4, PC, OS X, Linux) TBA (Wii U, Xbox One)
MSRP: $14.99
Rive is a twin-stick shooter/platformer hybrid that harkens back to the days of my youth when I had a roll of quarters in my pocket every bit I stood in line for the Robotron 2084 auto. Set aboard a spaceship filled with cockroaches and deadly robots aptitude on destruction, you play every bit Roughshot, a scrap metal scavenger and pilot of the Spidertank. After finding yourself stranded on the ship, you spend the next half dozen or so hours blasting your fashion through winding corridors trying to escape so you can go home. The only other cognitive being on the vessel is Daryl Lloyd-Lancaster, the keeper of the ship and your main foil. Every enemy you run across was created by Daryl and it really doesn't want you to go out.
If that sounds a bit similar the malevolent A.I. trope we've seen endless times before, know that Rive never really goes that deep into the concept. Daryl is fine, merely it's no GLaDOS. Roughshot and Daryl have a lot of back and forth with each other, coming off as a bit of an intergalactic Oscar and Felix. They both have a book of one-liners, spouting off twists on well-known quotes and showing their amore for meta humor. It's all supposed to exist humorous, but none of it actually is.
Though the ship is interconnected, the game is divide into several levels. For virtually of it, y'all're working your fashion to and from the warp room which is too where you tin upgrade your Spidertank with new weapons and armor using the bolts you collect. Your master gun never changes, then I suggest y'all invest in these oft because y'all'll find out quite apace just how handy a agglomeration of missiles or a shotgun boom can be.
At that place are just a few dissimilar types of robotic enemies on the transport. Well-nigh of them will simply endeavor to crash into you while others shoot estrus-seeking missiles you tin can deflect. To survive, yous have to keep moving, keep jumping and keep your eyes open. Getting striking does a lot of harm and I often found my Spidertank pinballing across the screen as I bounced from exploding robot to exploding robot until the "You Died" screen would put me out of my misery. When not dodging enemies, I was trying to avoid the many stage obstacles also trying to kill me.
Y'all can brand your journey slightly more easy with the hacking characteristic. A few of the robots y'all face tin can be reprogrammed to fight aslope you. Some of these enemies are more useful than others and there was many a pinch I was able to exit of with some quick hacking. These allies don't last forever, either blowing up when you use them too much or later on a certain amount of time.
I suggest you lot get used to hacking as presently every bit possible because you're going to need all the help you can become to make it through this. Good God is Rive tough. Much of the game is trial and error, getting wiped out by a fast moving swarm of robots that y'all have to retrieve for when you restart. Have my word for it, you are going to dice a lot and the game volition mock y'all for it.
I'm torn talking about the difficulty in this or really any game. If I criticize Rive for being too hard, which I know many gamers volition observe it to exist, I'll be accused of just non beingness good at it. Merely I can't ignore how trying it tin be and it's stupid to phone call a game good just considering information technology'southward hard. For me, I constitute one portion of the campaign to be "as well hard," forcing me to switch to the easier way to go past it. Once I was articulate of it, I was able to switch back to the standard hard mode without ever having to effort information technology on piece of cake again.
Whether you notice the difficulty too much or just correct, in that location are 2 design choices that I found needlessly increased the frustration. The starting time is checkpoint system. Rive is extremely generous with its checkpoints. They occur often and appear in the centre of some of the swarms yous face. The manner the organization works is information technology takes a snapshot of the game the moment you pass a checkpoint. What this means is whatever immediately happens to you afterwards you laissez passer a checkpoint will most certainly happen once more when you reload. Multiple times throughout the campaign I would hit a checkpoint and and then be striking by some kamikaze robots. As soon every bit I restarted that checkpoint, I got hitting over again. I was usually able to get past this and move on, but sometimes there was no escaping injury or expiry. One moment in particular sticks out. I hit a checkpoint while I was in a pit with moving saw blades that I wasn't able to go out of. Every restart would bring decease no matter what I did, forcing me to carelessness that checkpoint and restart the entire level.
The second frustrating pattern has to do with the controls. As a twin-stick shooter, I had both my thumbs on both PS4 sticks for the entirety of the game. Jumping is initiated with L2 and I found the trigger to be too much button for such a vital role. L1 would accept been a better pick as it and R1 did the aforementioned matter, but neither command set-upward allowed me to change which button controls the jump. With and so much of the game relying on quick and precise jumps, I wish more options were bachelor.
Exterior of those two issues, I was okay with the difficulty, even if my success in those struggling moments was never all that rewarding. Information technology feels like it's organic to the experience and the pacing does offering moments of respite between the swarms of decease bots. The platforming segments were never as well difficult nor particularly well crafted, and most I got by in a single endeavour. I'm not going to think those parts of the game, but what I will retrieve are the instances where Ii Tribes really played with the concept. As yous are in space, there are many points where you're traversing a zero gravity surround, allowing you to only fly around freely and making the game experience a bit like Geometry Wars. My favorite segment locked my gun in the forward position and motorcar scrolled like a level straight out of R-Type.
For completionists, all I tin say is good luck. A single playthrough of the campaign netted me a handful of trophies with many of the remainders requiring absurd feats to collect. When you lot practise beat out the campaign, you lot'll unlock a speedrun fashion and a single-credit mode for the masochists out there.
As the terminal game Two Tribes will ever brand, the few remaining employees there tin hold their heads high with what they created. It'south not the best game in its catalog, and the difficulty volition be a turn-off for many, simply Rive leaves its marking as one of the more challenging games of this generation. Gluttons for punishment volition take no trouble eating it up, but others should satiate their appetite elsewhere.
[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]
Source: https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-rive/
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