Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review was updated by me August 5, 2014. This is the only game review I have ever come back to Amazon for over a year later to update, because of the game's status of "free-to-play". The reason why I am updating this review is because regardless of the free-to-play status "YOU" the "CONSUMER" (just like me) need to be aware of the developer's immaculate disregard for your time, for your money, and for your efforts. Never before in a review have I ever been so compelled to update consumers. If you truely value your time, money, and efforts then please continue reading. You really should in my opinion even if you aren't going to play this game, because this is legendary status:HORRIBLE. THIS IS AN "ONLINE ONLY GAME". Regardless of its "free to play", you are required to have "internet", an "Xbox Live Account" (for this platform version), and will be required to accept an "End User License Agreement" every time you play this game. Because this product's functionality is BASED primarily on the functionality of the servers from Trion Worlds and their ability to maintain them. END NOTATION*** --GAME INSTALLATION--------- -The Good: The game requires installation (especially since its now FREE to PLAY). The game disc "DID" requires 5.1g of space. Installed games run faster & take less time on load screens. When logging into the game you are taken to a character load screen, sometimes a window queue and how long it will take for you to get into a server to play. -The Bad: Approximately EVERY TWO WEEKS since this game launched in 2013, this game gets an "update". That "update" or "Patch" is only obtainable at the speed by which Trion allows you to download it. From the very beginning over a year ago and to this very DAY this system HAS NOT CHANGED. You will turn on the game, you will be required to download an update. Your Screen will briefly display your update speed, then remove that download speed from the screen, and display and estimated time of 3.5 to 4 HOURS to complete downloading the "required to play" update. After the update completes you WILL receive a window on your screen stating "PATCH FAILURE". You WILL end up needing to do it all AGAIN, and in the interim you will spend a minimum of EIGHT HOURS downloading an update... every two weeks... with NO certainty it will EVER WORK. Leaving you with a game you cannot play until maybe two weeks later, until ANOTHER "update " is required, which with 100% certainty will FAIL after its first download that takes four hours, that you will then be required to try again and spend a minimum of EIGHT HOURS attempting to download an update... again. To date and the very moment I am finishing this review there have been 75 updates since launch of this game. That is 600 hours spent stuck downloading patches that always fail every two weeks. That is more time than Ive spent playing the game ITSELF. --STORYLINE-------------- -The Good: Starts off with a brief cut scene, and then a tutorial. The NICE thing is the cut scenes (cinematic events developed with the game engine) include your designed character in them. The story line (without spoiling anything) is in my opinion is enough to keep you occupied and averagely entertained. -The Bad: the game fails to allow you to play missions with friends 90% of the time. If you are lucky the "Join Phase" option MAY work. But more often than not you either get told "YOU have lost connection to our servers" or "Identification Failure" or "This is a notification stating blame at you and not this company who made this game". --CHARACTER CREATOR--------- -You can pick from: Human Male, Human Female, Alien Male, Alien Female. -Hair and hair color, Nose, Eyes, Facial structure, Mouth/Lips, Facial scars, Facial/Body tattoos... are all included in the character generator. The options available are enough to distinguish who you create, but are not vast enough to keep people from all picking the same "cool looking" hair style or "cool looking" tattoos. So keep in mind when creating your character that the one or two tattoos for the class your considering... alot of people may pick that too. -The Bad: A character class is relevant to nothing but the gun you start with in the game. The skill tree for any class you pick is the same skill tree every other class has. All Trion did was randomize the boxes in the skill tree around into different positions. So no matter what class you pick, everybody has the same things, LITERALLY. Nothing differentiates you from anyone else other than what you look like. Which by the way... what you look like is replaced with a default male figure in a puffy jacket when around more than 5 players. So at large public events it resembles nothing more than a michilin man mosh pit where hundreds of puffy jacketed figures are running around. Theres no individuality to speak of unless you are standing in front of less than five people. It's a joke... a bad one. --WEAPONS------- The Good:-Pistols and magnums, shotguns and sawed off shotguns, assault rifles and light machine guns, submachine guns and high magazine auto pistols, grenade launchers and rocket launchers and MORE... can all have up to 4 attachments IF you find the attachments for the weapons you like. Those attachments are: Scopes, Stocks, Magazines, and Barrels. -Weapons also can be found or bought in the world WITH "synergy bonuses". -Attachments go on weapons into Slots. Attachments can be found or bought in the world WITH "synergy bonuses". -Both weapons AND attachments can be found or bought with elemental damages which apply to weapons. The Bad: -Slots can be placed on weapons when you reach the required level. That required level changes based on Trions currentlt running hotfix or patch version. So if you have a weapon with no slots you can place slots on that weapon by paying a form of in-game money (Ark Salvage). This has become a problem, because through various updated patches the expense of placing slots on weapons has gone from more than double what it use to cost, on top of the fact that as you level up in the game, the costs to place slots goes up as well. The base stats on all weapons remain static and don't change no matter your level. The more you level, the more salvage is required to modify a weapon, the more you modify it the more it requires to BE "modified", and after achieving the max modifications of a weapon the changes made are literally and mathematically so small that they would go unnoticed if compaired to another weapon never modified at all. So the bottom line is the weapon modification system is completely a waste of time. The WORSE: - the items in this game known as "Orange Items" which would be considered as the "Most rare" are primarily obtainable by paying REAL money into a roulette reward system. Whether you are on the official forums, youtube, wherever... Trion Worlds has designed the game to clearly benefit those willing to pay real money and reward them with items in game that have "Bonus Statistics". These purchases are made with "Bits". "Bits" are bought with "Microsoft Points", "Microsoft Points" are bought with real money. These bonus statistics are so small and minute that when compared to weapons in game without those bonuses you would never know they exist. Im talking differences that are 1 tenth of a whole number. A simple example would be a gun with a firerate of 10. If you pay Trion real money you may get a gun that has a fire rate of 11.2 at most. The longer the game has been out, the more expensive Trion has made in-game costs. The higher the costs, the less you can do, the less you can do, the more inventory you have to carry, and for that they sell space via BITS so you can carry more. Its disgusting. --GAMEPLAY--(Youre lucky if it works. Youll feel like you won 25 bucks off a scratch ticket for five minutes IF the game functions without an issue) -During the game dynamic events called "Ark Falls" transpire. Ark Falls are when pieces of major objects orbiting the planet fall to the Earth carrying with them technology that upgrades your weapons. Trion has INCREASED everything it costs in the game to "play" the game, and DECREASED the ratio at which what you need to pay in the game is obtained via their patches.... unless you buy it using real money. -During gameplay you will regularly get kicked from Trions servers with notifications stating "Your connection to our servers has timed out". -During gameplay you will regularly lose your ability to see your friends IN the game. The option/s in place to resolve this issue has not resolved it since launch day. -During gameplay the current patches have devised a system by which you are forcibly stuck with an extremely poor UI and an overwhelming amount of items that are designed to clearly take up your inventory space, only providing you with an option to pay real money to buy that space via microtransactions. -There is no ability to play the game "IF" you cannot SUCCESSFULLY achieve updating your console with the most current patches from Trion Worlds Inc. Normally a patch takes 2-3 HOURS to download (regardless of your connection speed Trion has set pre-set speeds at which your download is achievable from them). These patches, taking 2-3 hours each, transpire at minimum every 2 weeks. That's not including random server down times from server crashes, server maintenance, server resets, and randomly scheduled hot fixes for their servers that despite saying "will not interfere with your gameplay" on their main web page, disconnects everyone from their servers for up to 12 hours at a time. This game "WAS", and Im saying "WAS" playable within the first 30 days of its launch date. I severely recommend you NOT invest ANYTHING in this game. It was worth time when it first came out, but due to the current IP laws and how this developer has COMPLETELY DESTROYED this product POST-launch it is NO LONGER a game worth recommending. Your time WILL BE WASTED. Not only do I not recommend the game, I don't recommend the developer for any game they will ever make. Buy DESTINY. Defiance over the last 15 months is a broken game that only crossed 500k units in its sales, and the developer turned everything in it into a MONEY SCAM. Literally. The game rewards you with things you cant use unless you BUY the DLC the reward is associated with. The items you can use become useless every two weeks via a patch designed to downgrade what you have and upgrade what you haven't bought with real money. If you don't believe me, go get the game. Go ahead... *shrug* Youll remember this review.