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on: May 21, 2017, 10:57:37 PM
-I haven't been able to get into any multiplayer games so far this weekend.
Reactions from playing "In Shock" on Solo:
Several of the locations that the tentacles plant themselves are out of range for Lycus' gun. Generally, it seems that there's only one in range at a time. This can be a problem, because a few of the locations can only be hit from one highly exposed position. Given that his gun is underpowered at anything but point-blank range, it takes forever to kill the tentacle. Meanwhile, you're easily swarmed, flanked, and sniped.
I was able to complete that section with him, but it took a long time due to the constant crowd control, and avoiding getting zapped by the Beholder. There's a fine line between challenging and tedium, and I think the Solo missions are going to fall on the "tedium" side if they aren't well balanced. That would be a shame, because there's so much to like about the game, even with what little we see now. I think lots of people who aren't necessarily interested in the multiplayer would still buy the game if they know they single player mode is good.
I haven't been able to beat Dr. Kuzmann in Solo mode. I'm not sure how short-range combat characters are supposed to deal with him. He's aggressive and very powerful.
If you retreat, he's got his 'bomb attack,' and when you try to move out of the affected zone, if you're exposed to even one Bot, it can be enough to give you trouble. Then, the button prompts randomly pop up, and you're supposed to hit 4 or 5 buttons on the machine, or Shea dies. Every time I've played, Kuzmann is right in front of the machine, so it's an impossible task to complete.
When I heard him say something about his gun being jammed, I figured that was a prompt to attack, but the second I was out of cover, he blasted me. I've also tried melee attacking him, but that just got me killed, too. It's one thing for the difficulty to be up there when you're playing with a full team. When you're on your own, and stuck with one character, it needs to be scaled to an sensible level for the character you're playing with. Or allow players to switch characters within the match, so they can take advantage of different abilities.