Finished:
Mirror's Edge Catalyst
As part of my plan to finish as many as possible from 1 month of EA Origin Access, this is the first one i grabbed. Main reason was i couldnt finish the first game because of the anti-piracy system and just want to see if it any good 10 years after first game. Sadly no. I have so many issues with the game that I wonder if the game was much better back then or simply good because it was different compared to other game out back then.
Platforming in MEC is kinda putting thread into needle while drunk. I believe I died a lot of times simply because I wasnt close enough or the game doesnt have enough compensation for mistiming / misdirect a jump. Since many game already in corporate more friendly parkour (titanfall 2 specifically) so MEC no longer unique from gameplay perspective. The game do have some gadget upgrades depending after completing story mission but it didnt expand much traversal power in the hub. Oh, did u know that game have open world area inbetween story missions? I didnt bother to do any of them after finishing couple of side stuff.
Worse part of the game is easily the combat system. Maybe it was bad because i was playing with gamepad rather than KBM, but there arent depth in it all. I could wallrun and hit from air, but it is just more effective to dodge and attack ur enemy repeatly. This is part that bring the game from OK, to mediocre. I cant say much for story aside from evil corporation trying to take over the society and our MC trying to stop them. The End.
Playing:
1. The Surge
Say what ever you hated about the Lord of the fallens, gameplay wise it felt logical and there are tons of stuff / playstyle you can use in the game from the get go. The surge start without any story at all aside you are disabled and the rig allow the MC to walk around. Something bad happened and everyone went crazy and want to everything else.
Maybe because I went to go with heavy weapon and tanky build, that doesnt mean you cant balance the combat properly. The combo system is terrible with input buffer and you cant cancel the animation at all although you spam dodge button like crazy. Single rigged weapon is understandable very slow, but when you got super OP dash + attack that much safer than everything else, making the combat felt 1 dimensional. Additionally, somehow your dash in the game is super speed, almost ridiculous level when you compare it with attack animation speed.
Same goes to the enemy, at start of the game, the enemy are crazily aggressive when you reach their vision. Many of enemy able to dash attack you from a couple meter away and they usually have super fast recovery between attack. There arent much variety on enemy atm, but Im only 3 act in (total is about 6 act iirc). My only issue is probably the damage scaling in the game. Im using heavy armor, and yet light / fast enemy can hit 50% of my hp despite i was using 2 implants as well to improve my hp
The gear system is kinda neat for the implant system but gear variety very lacked. I only have about 2 full sets of armor and about 10 weapons with 5 different type. This is way less than TLoF and the game also discourage weapon switching because of the proficiency system. As for boss, I died a lot as usual. It is fun challenge to discover way / understand their pattern, but I can guaranteed you that the first boss is pretty ridiculous and unbalanced for such a boss with gimmick.
2. Opus Magnum
Nothing much to say aside it is a nice puzzle game about creating ur own solution with many tools available from the get go. There is story, but I simply dont care about it. But if ppl ask if i would pay money for this type of game? I wouldnt pay more than 2 dollar sadly. This is the best game for large community mods no doubt, but sadly i dont see how they can expand it on origin aside from sharing replay as gif.
3. Unravel
Simple straight forward cute platformer about "a thread creature" going to the right side of the screen while tackling simple puzzle along the way. I already play many games like this so I havent see anything new yet.