Defragmented

Fun game, while the levels get a bit repetitive, the challenge is still good throughout. Hunting for good weapons ever level is fun, I found using the abilities tricky, though that may just be me.

Overall I liked Defragmented, but there are some serious negatives and it's not for everyone - in particular the art and music is in a nostalgic style which I enjoyed but not everyone will appreciate.

Good stuff:
- The tracker-style-techno music is amazing, maybe worth the purchase price alone. I transferred many of the tracks to my phone for my gym playlist.
- Level replayability is pretty good; you can choose the difficulty per-level and go back and give it a go on harder difficulties for new rewards. Getting higher rankings (i.e. finishing faster with minimal deaths) also gives more rewards.
- The 3 different classes you can choose from are quite varied in play style (basic tank, speed/stealth assassin, crazy battlefield-control techno-mage... thing).
- Lots of choices levelling up - each class has two skill trees which each have a powerful ultimate skill. You also get implants which boost various attributes and can be swapped out.
- Weapons are varied well in the Borderlands style - apart from the different types (pistol, SMG, shotgun, laser etc) there will be some within each type with balanced stats, some which are high damage but slow firing/reload time, etc. Also like Borderlands there are also unique orange weapons, some of which have unique abilities.
- Good pace of frantic gunfights vs stealth/planning.
- Choice of game modes from HP-soaking-RPG or fast high-risk-reward combat style.
- Semi-destructible environments and basic physics are well done.
- Some good Easter Eggs and secrets.

Good-and-bad stuff:
- The overall plot is good with a few twists, but the cutscenes are tedious, with hit-or-miss writing, lots of cheese and narm, bad and repetitive art. Half of the lines should have been left on the cutting room floor.
- The UI and art is deliberately very retro reminiscent of the late 80s and early 90s, which some people will like but some people find clunky and ugly. In particular the flat-shaded, low-polygon count models are not to everyone's taste if you aren't nostalgic for that sort of thing.
- Many good features of the engine are underused in the game design e.g. when you kill the last enemy on the map there will be a few seconds of slo-mo which would have been cool to have as a triggerable ability for at least one class.
- Many features are also underused in the level design - a couple of levels feature security cameras with in-game screens and moving vehicles but these aren't used in an interesting way, e.g. by using the cameras to let you observe the guards and stealth an objective. Remote-unlockable doors and neutral NPCs are also only used rarely and could have spiced up many other levels a lot.
- There are multiple endings but it is based on a choice at the very end of the last level, and only changes the final cutscene.

Bad stuff:
- Very short - it only took me a few hours to beat the basic game, and in total 15 to beat every level on the highest difficulty with every single achievement.
- Level objectives are very basic, either get to a certain point or wipe out all the enemies.
- There are really only 2 or 3 types of enemies in the game - soldiers who wield a varied weapon and come in flimsy and tough versions, and static turrets which shoot you if you walk in front of them. That's *all there is*.
- There are occasionally enemies which are reskinned as other factions, but aren't any different in abilities or AI. Some enemies will be assigned to wait at a certain spot and some will go through waypoints, but its really only fighting weaker humans, tougher humans, or turrets - no creatures, vehicles, enemies with special powers, etc.
- No boss enemies (not counting cutscenes). Did I mention the lack of enemy variety yet? It's the worst thing about the game.
- Camera movement is terrible. Often you get killed from offscreen from someone you never saw, but you had no idea you just wandered into their line of sight. The camera sometimes doesn't pan to track movement fast enough and then corrects suddenly so you lose track of where you are. This is especially bad for the assassin character when using their otherwise amazing jump-attack special ability, chaining it to bounce between enemies bounces the camera around confusingly.
- Controls for active abilities are clumsy - a better option would be the ability to map a specific 'quickcast' trigger key for each active, rather than having to press one key to select a new ability and then the ability trigger.

If I had just bought this game for the music, then I would have thought it was a terrific deal. This is the best album of futuristic electronic that I have ever heard. The soundtrack comes with the game, in a folder, so you can listen to it out of the game. I cannot get enough of it.

That said, there is also a game, too, which is pretty cool. This twin-stick shooter works great with ubuntu linux and supports game controllers. I found it somewhat difficult, but then I realized that the difficulty settings are meant to be adjusted, for experience point rewards, so there is a lot of reasons to redo missions. The in-game story is pretty good, although the actual cut scene animations -- well, the illustrations really do not match the game theme really but they are okay - not really necessary actually - I just skipped them.

All in all, I can see why there might be people who don't recommend the game play, but this is a game that you will need to have some patience. The tutorial does not explain everything, and there are a lot about upgrades that you need to figure out yourself. In the end, you might get turned off of this game, but I think it is totally worth trying for the price. I would recommend it to someone who liked twin-stick games with rpg-type skill upgrades and a cyberpunk theme... Or just someone who wanted a great electronic soundtrack.

Clunky gameplay, ugly graphics, bad writing.

Good music that doesn't fit in the game and its world, however.

If you want a good scifi twin stick shooter, take a look at Leap of Fate and Neon Chrome.

very long cutscenes where you have to read a comic book story that no one cares about only to play about 10 seconds of actual gameplay at a time. just get hotline miami.

so its like a rpg style version of Hotline Miami? i am not really into doing the details. it has a great soundtrack with synths. the way weapons are used feel a bit funny but other then that its alright.

It tries, but the gameplay is clunky.

I think the game is presented pretty poorly but it's a fun game underneath it all.

The gameplay is very much a cyber-hotline-miami with added rpg elements like items and skills. The weapon stats really make a difference as well so you have to pick your battles.

Besides that, the menu system isn't great and the controls are a bit flakey for a fast paced system but I like it all the same.

There is a high amount of replayability as well!

Nice. Very well done!! I liked that:-)

I tap my controller and the mouse will disappear and never come back.

Pros_________________________________________

Graphics while simple are effective.

Playlist is mostly great.

People in conversations emote appropreatly

writing is charming enough.

Cons_________________________________________

Guns with stats just makes all but the best guns feel cheap and sometimes useless spoilng the combat.

Camera, you gotta snap rotate it, hold to look further and even with the hybrid cam on its hard to aim.

conversation music drives me bonkers and unlike the into converations you can't auto skip the post mission ones.

picked up cash carrys on beyond death so money has no value. i got tired of cleaning the same level over and over, imagine fallout where when you die all the stuff in a level respawns but you still keep what you died with, a player will just farm or get tired of fiddling with the inventory all the time.

Fun but tough, the soundtrack is nice and the quality of the artwork during cinematics is quite high.

I like this game. It has many tropes common to arpg's: loot, leveling up, abilities etc..., but its combat is refreshingly different than most arpg's. I have not gotten too far into the story yet, but wanted to give it a positive review because the combat is so different.

Missions are brief, usually kill everyone or retrieve data. There are usually between 3-6 enemies per mission (so far). Just like in real life, no one in this game survives more than one or two shots. Instead of facing down hordes of foes spamming heal potions, the goal of every enemy encounter is to ambush the enemy, picking the approach that gives the best odds of surviving quick, brutal gunfights where even just one bullet can put you down. In fact, it is best to never take any opponent head on. Flanking, waiting for patrolling guards to turn around, and the element of surprise are essential for success.

It can be frustrating at first, but there seems to be no penalty for dying. Once I got used to the pace of the gunfights, I learned to approach each enemy tactically, using the environment to maximize my odds, and the game became quite fun.

In its current state, this game is not worth the asking price of €15. Granted the music is absolutely awesome and the game has a nice atmosphere to it, but the so-so cutscenes and the horrible UI make it feel amateuristic at best. That's forgivable. But the major gripe I have with this is that the camera controls are awful - what could be a fast and frantic shootfest is severely hampered by the constant struggle with the camera view. I've only played this game for twenty minutes - as soon as I encoured more than two enemies in one room, I gave up.

Obviously, this game is like a 3D version of Hotline Miami. But there's a good reason that the original is in 2D.

I'm happy to see that the developer is working so hard on this game, crunching out patches every few days and replying to reviews and comments. My message to you is to keep up the good work, focusing on the camera and the UI. And in the mean time you may want to consider making this game Early Access or alternatively lowering the price whilst making it clear to everyone that it is still under development.

I for one will be coming back to take a look every now and then.

Heavily Hotline Miami-influenced top-down action with some RPG-elements. Gameplay is not that fast-paced and requieres thinking sometimes of how are you going to use your abilities and proceed the floor. Killer soundtrack and nice artwork. Visual novel storytelling might be appealling for some players, but most of time it's just unrequired. Negatives are a bit obscured interface and cryptic camera controls.

It just took me 3 days to complete the story. I hope they will add more content soon enough and will let orange items drop from mobs from time to time.

Target Audience: 80s scifi fans who have a high frustration tolerance and a willingness to accept defeat over and over and over again.

First Impressions Video: https://youtu.be/K6GnhtuIPHs

Summary:
A game that wants to live in the 80s scifi lifestyle....and plays like a game that may have been made in the 80s. The game strongest element is its intriguing scifi storyline. While we've seen plots of government vs freedom before, the addition of the personal element into it is well done here, and it's not a simple good vs evil story line. The soundtrack complements this, and presentation wise, the game does a reasonable job. It's the gameplay that falls flat on its face. While you'd think it'd be straight forward, long lines of sight added to some enemies that can snipe you from afar makes a deadly combination that puts the frustration factor not only on high, but on infurating. This on top of some poor level design decisions that don't complement the gameplay in question either. See that's the key word in all this: Frustration. It's a game that can't escape that frustration, whether it be a bad accuracy system that goes against the small time to die game play, or literring the floor with movable boxes that impedes the players progress, and blocks his line of site. In the end, I all I wanted to do was walk away from the game, never to look at it again.


Lists:
My Positives:

• The 80s story themes do pretty well overall, as it does remind me of good government versus free will stories of the past. It's not just straight up good versus evil, there's detail and nuasence added to this tale.
  
• Sound track is pretty rockin, with good electronic music that fits what the game is going for in most cases. High action, and good fun all around.
  
• For the most part, the UI is clean and functional, minimal but giving you the information that you need.
  
• The ammo upgrade system is nice.
  
• The core gameplay rewards creative thinking, which is basically finding out how to exploit the AI.
  

• Design, Design, Design. There's a couple of mechanics that could work in this game, but when they get combined together, it's a disaster.
  
• Enemies have deadly accuracy, even with weapons considered to be close range (shotgun). Best clip is in the video where I walk through the door, and get blown away from an enemy off screen in one shot. Speaking of....
  
• The camera fights you as you won't be able to see what you need to actually fight the enemies at times. Combine that with some deadly accuracy, and you've got a situation where it's just not fun to get your ass handed to you. Especially when....
  
• The accuracy stat on guns was a bad idea in a game with such a short time to die, especially when enemies don't seem to be affected by it.
  
• Why the shit on the ground. It is one of the most annoying things in the fact that it can actually really mess with the mechanics of battle. Why. Why do this. Especially when you can actually hit that shit with your gun at times.
  
• Game needed better level design all around. While there's some variety, it doesn't play to the game strengths, especially with long corridors, or some kill zones that you can't avoid.
  
• Having numbers for abilities at the bottom of the screen without something relating the ability is an oversight.
  
• The game lacks punch, impact. Sometimes throwing a mine can get a cool rush of fun, but most of the time, you're doing the same thing over and over again.
  
[*] The AI is pretty dumb at times. Once I figured out that you can melee around corners....yeah the game became a bit easier. Not in a good way.

Gawd damn! I'm only an hour into it at the time of this review and the game's story is freakin' awesome! Esspecially since I'm just coming from a Ghost in the Shell binge.

The combat is a little lacking and some of the control binding don't make that much sense (if an update would allow us to map our own buttons that'd be awesome!)

That being said now that I'm getting a couple more weapons the combat is becoming more fun. You get to keep weapons as you go along, plus I've only been using a controller so I'm not sure if it feels better with mouse & keyboard.

And honestly the combat is way better than I thought it would be based on the trailer... The trailer makes it seem like a generic twinstick shooter but the guns sorta feel like they have "weight" since you do have ammo and the weapons do have a "clip/magazine" size.

I'll probably adjust the sfx to be a bit louder compaired to the music since I'm sure the sounds of the guns firing would help the guns have more "weight."

TL;DL: (short recap)
If you enjoy cyber-punk settings (similar to the original shadowrun) give these guys your $15 and enjoy the story.

The rpg elements are meh since they don't really seem to effect the game too much (so far only an hour in.)

The combat is pretty good, I'm sure as I get more weapons and use the abilities it'll get even better.

Side Note:
There's also an option to go semi-third person but it's really hard to aim with this mode active, this feature could make this a bunch more awesome but since this game is essentially just a top down shooter I'm not sure how much work they'd want to put into this I'd definitely want to see a real third person view working even if aiming was just side to side not up and down.

Edit:
As of patch 1.0.4 this game feels so much better.

The secondary camera I mentioned in the review is way more useful now you can use it to play the game and see what's down the hall.

Now that the enemies can't dodge your bullets it also doesn't feel like your shots actually do damage you're not just shooting into thin air.

I'd like to thank the team who worked on this game it's fuckin' awesome. Like there's a few things I didn't like on the ride through the story but the end was pretty worth it.

Looks like I only got 4hours of the game and I don't know if I'll re-play it (at least soon I probably will later on if they keep updating it like they have!!!)

The music and the writing however made me feel like I was in a cyber-punk universe fighting for something and that's worth $20 to me.

Mai Vermouth is a great name