Game Review - Raiders of the Broken Planet

Nothing like a co-op PvE with a bunch of degenerate outlaw space thugs!

Hello everyone,

Before I start lemme just say I've been playing nothing more than shooters for quite some time now. Started with Destiny (Bungie), then switched to The Division (Ubisoft) and now I'm even following Warframe (Digital Extremes) these days. Having said that, I think Raiders of the Broken Planet could be the new kid on the block for these sort of games but, just like the new kid on the block, it still has a long way to go if it wants to make it in the shooter streets.

The Pros

I'll say it out of the bat, I like Mercury Steam! I'm a huge fan of the Castlevania franchise and I think they did an amazing job with the Lord of Shadows series (PS3). They know design, they know gameplay, they know story telling and that much is also true in RBP. The characters are all cool, badass, awesome beasts. The settings and environments are well refined and pleased to the eye and the story follows a familiar but unique set of mischiefs brought together for the greater good of the land. One could say this is the big bad cousin of Overwacth (Blizzard) with an attitude problem and  there's absolutely nothing wrong with that!

You just have to fall in love with this awesome badass art direction!

The gameplay is also something I quite enjoyed. It has a bit of Metal Gear (Konami) stealth, The Division cover system, Destiny tense moments, Wildlands (Ubisoft) third person action shooting and, above all that, a little bit of Devil May Cry (Capcom) melee action to top it off. At first, it was quite challenging to master all this but (since I was familiar with most of these mechanics) it didn't take me long to start just kicking ass all over the place with every character I could play. It was new, fast, brutal, explosive, cool stuff and something I hadn't felt on a game for quite some time now.

Unfortunately that's where it all stops...

The Cons

The launch of this game is something that I can only call a PR (public relations) nightmare! It was so bad that I'm only finding out about this game almost three months after it's release on PS4, Xbox One and Steam.

The premise starts off really well with the tag "free-to-play" but the only free to play you'll be doing in this game is the first mission. After that, the game asks you immediately to play for adicional content! Adicional content being four more missions for about 10$/€. Not only that, you get to play only four players (one of each faction) after that, to "unlock" or get more character or skins, payment is also required. As much as 60 $/€ per character!!! For something called "free-to-play", this alone is enough for someone feel tricked and leave the game.

But unfortunately (again...) there's more!

To "unlock" characters, you have to reach a certain faction level and then pay in-game currency to recruit it. You do this, of course, by playing missions. Problem is these missions give little to no money, same goes for factions/hero tokens to level up your faction/hero. But here's the thing... you don't always get a reward when you finish a mission!

One of the characters you can "unlock"... Good luck with that!

The game has a roullete system when you pick your reward so, sometimes if you choose the same reward as your fireteam mattes the system randomly chooses one to win that reward. So if you're grinding for money/faction/tokens and your teammates choose the same thing as you, you have one in four of making it with your loot.

But then you say "I'll just play solo then"... Wrong! The only thing you can win solo is money. Yes, it's more money but you can't play the same mission over and over on easy. The system blocks you after you played that difficulty level and forces you to play harder levels. And (here's the kicker...) for the same money you just won on the easy! So, you play easy and win 1500 and then have to play hard for also 1500. This absolutely kills any wish or desire to grind the game!

If a character costs 30.000. Each mission (in co-op) gives at best 500, meaning you have to do at least 60 missions, average 20 min that means 20 hours just for the money. Mind you, you didn't level up your faction, so that's another 20hrs to reach the faction level since you can only choose one reward! So in total 40hrs for one character! Taking into account the roullete factor... So let's say a month for character!

OMG I'm getting all that?!... Nope, not really. You have choose!

Even worse, the game only allows you to play co-op with other four players. If you can't find four more people to help you grind you can only dream about boosting up your character, much less get a new one! And if you manage to find a team, you have to deal with the Antagonist which can kill all your progress and you have to start the WHOLE MISSION OVER AGAIN!!!

All these progression/reward issues are what are actually killing the game now! Even if you pay for the chapters you're still getting murderer for your time grinding and that just makes every single player, even me, put the controller down and uninstall the game.

Advices to Mercury Steam

1. You have no player base! If you don't have a player base, you need to reward the player that stays in the game! if you were Blizzard and had a million dollars to hype up the characters and story of this game and then ask 80€ for it, you just might got away with it but you don't, so give the player the rewards he so desperately needs! He's paying for the chapters so that means he likes the game enough to try! In the end he's having to pay 40$/€ for a game that he still has to grind to unlock characters, why make it worse?! Give each player the faction/hero/money he deserves and make the blueprint he can win the random drop. No one will argue with this! No one is going to bitch about it if they at least get something to show for it!

A good example of the cover/stealth system by Alicia

2. There should only be four options to play:

Solo with faction/hero/money rewards

Co-Op 2 with faction/hero/money rewards - This is necessary cause you have so little people playing so just one more friend can make all the difference.

Co-Op 4 with faction/hero/money rewards - Just get two groups of friends and piece them together.

Co-op 4 + Antagonist with with faction/hero/money rewards - This last mode should be the hardest but also the most rewarding, being maybe the only way to get blueprints and here yes, the roullete could make sense!

3. The whole "going back to the start" thing?! Scrap that! Not even on Destiny - Wrath of the Machine Hard Challenge Raid is there a "go back to the start" mechanic. The only way I'll admit going back is if there's a nightmare mode with Antagonist. But you have to know you're going to get a new skin if you can finish it on the roullete! Even then, my faction/hero/money rewards have to increase exponentially!

4. Make use of the R1+L1 (PS4) mechanic! Currently, there's no way to heal a character if it's down. In The Division this is somewhat compensated with the Healing Link, make something similar for the player! If I'm down I don't want to feel like I'm being butchered in the Dark Zone by a group of Rogues. You're already wiping, and going to the start of mission at least lemme try and heal myself and or team!

Please don't let these kickass co-op moments die out!

Overall

Why?! Why Mercury Steam why?! Why would you make one of the most fun games I've played in years so unmerciless punishable for anyone who tries to play it?! This game has a huge potencial! I liked to play it more even than Overwatch. I loved the characters! I loved to kickass with other people and I even loved playing the Antagonist but please fix this game! Reward me for staying instead of always giving me reasons to leave.

So far the game has only released two of his four chapters in planning, I hope Mercury Steam can fix these issues really fast so that maybe, just maybe, when it's all done we can finally have one amazing looking fun action shooter!