Brigador: Up-Armored Edition

idk if its just depression, but i cannot concentrate on this game, i acknowledge it is great though

Welcome, Brigador! This is your vehicle, this is your contract. Kill, blow up, destroy, get paid. Buy better vehicles, buy better weapons, repeat. I've always thought the idea of being a mercenary, a "free lance", was pretty cool and whats cooler then doing it inside of a big mech, right? Brigador is a pretty cool game, even if it has some issues, but with how good it looks and how fun the Freelance mode is... I think it makes up for its short comings. +Both the graphics and the art style itself is wonderful. Everything looks very detailed, even from this top down perspective. The audio itself is very good as well, especially the music. +Tons of variety in what to use. Vehicles, guns, maps, play styles... You can stealth through things if you want which I didn't expect would be possible in a game centered around destruction like this. +The Freelance game mode is where this game shines for me. Choose a pilot, choose a vehicle (tanks, mechs or anti-gravity vehicles), choose your guns (from lazers to mortars to a .50 cal. Yes, of course they're still in use), choose an ability (smoke screen, EMP...), choose a map and kill everything. The more you destroy and kill, the more money you earn. The higher level pilot/weaker vehicle you have the more you'll gain at the end of it all. You can leave early but you won't get as much money if you had stayed throughout the entire mission, doing every objective. The longer you stay, the harder it gets. And if you die? You'll gain a fraction of the total money you made during that run. Use your money to buy new vehicles, new pilots, new guns, new maps. +I liked the world building a lot. One of the things you can get with the money you earn is information, text about the factions, the vehicles, the guns and their history and so on. Normally I'm not the biggest fan of reading walls of text back to back to learn some lore but in here I thought they were written in a really fun to read way that I didn't mind it at all, I liked it. +Lots of settings to customize your playthrough. Invincibility, infinite ammo, go wild just remember it disables achievements. +/- The destruction itself is 50/50. On one hand, when you hit something that explodes god does it look good and if there's several explosive things, like gas stations, next to each other and they all explode as a chain reaction from a single bullet hitting them... Its great. But buildings and walls can be annoying instead. They don't get destroyed immediately, depending on the damage they may crumble first. Unfortunately its very hard to see at times so you might start walking on a crumbled building, unable to move forwards and just walking in place until it gets enough damage to be fully destroyed. +/- The campaing, unlike the Freelance game mode, is meh. Its either too easy or too difficult. You either wipe the floor with the enemy or lose in the first minute and there's no in between. The story seems cool but when thats the gameplay experience, its not so fun. Freelance seems better balanced then the campaing. -I'm a fan of the tanks and the mechs. Their controls were a lil awkward at first but you can easily change how you want the game to behave in these vehicles in the settings so I put both of them into tank controls essentially where my W is forwards, A is turn the hull of the tank/body of the mech left, D is right and S is backwards and my mouse independently controls the turret. Its good, it worked well, even if certain things could be improved. But the anti-gravity vehicles? Torture. Genuine torture. It didn't matter what I tried, just torture to use. -At times, it can be quite difficult to tell where you are exactly. This is made worse if you can't quite tell if the apartment building you're trying to walk through is fully destroyed or if its just damaged and crumbled and needs to be hit some more. These two points combined make the moving harder then it needs to be and it makes the shooting harder too. Your guns have a blue and red line for your primary and secondary weapons, showing you where you are aiming. The issue is that these lines go on for eternity. If there's a building or wall in your way that your bullets will hit you won't know till you shoot and you realize you're not hitting your intended target. It would help so much if these blue and red aiming lines just stopped when they hit something solid instead of phasing through it, as far as I'm aware there isn't a setting for this specific issue so its just how it is. -Movement and horizontal aiming issues aside, the vertical aiming can be quite difficult too. Its a top down game, even if its at this angled camera perspective where its more like a 2.5D game then a true top down, 2D game you know? So because of this you can sometimes overshoot or undershoot targets. While its not terrible in most of the guns, in mortars and indirect weapons that can shoot over walls and obstacles, it can start to be an issue trying to judge the distance between where you think your shells are gonna land and where they actually end up landing. It has its issues but for a quick time waster, its pretty good. In a discount, if you're looking for something quick, something to waste an hour or two with then this can be good for it. I wouldn't consider it anything more then that though.

好看但不好玩，斜45度射击游戏一般会采用指哪打哪的准星而不是瞄准线，更别提本作的复杂场景和Z轴设置，对上敌方的快速单位和反重力单位总是看得见打不着，由此面杀伤武器成了最优解。但别用曲射的，弹速慢不说那个瞄准线更是分不清朝向，非要玩的话直接上305这种能盖四分之一屏幕的重量级。 操作也挺蛋疼，机甲坦克的转向是按地图方向而不是车体方向，加上正面装甲最厚移速最快的设定需要频繁的调整朝向。解决方法要么上车体和炮塔一块动的反重力载具，要么干脆请出用不着在乎细枝末节的超重型单位。 敌人有朝声音方向汇聚的设定由此延伸出三种打法：近距离靠敌人掉的护盾和弹药以战养战；中距离稳扎稳打；远距离炮击；至于动力机甲和小车的打带跑由于环境复杂经常卡属于图一乐配置。不过以上这些只适用于战役，因为战役装备是固定的经常有特别清奇的配置，附加关的四位更是谔谔，本身关卡就难手里还是个半残，你们叛击士是不是有点New Type仂？自由契约倒没这顾虑，上最厚的甲扛最重的炮一路炸过去完事，不过还是建议直接F1开发者菜单把钱干满完事。 剧情的话战役几行字还都是叛击士合约没什么看头，设定倒是全乎但都扔在采购界面需要花钱买（这也是我推荐直接改钱的原因），看完的感想嘛……伟大领袖就就我、我们希望伟大领袖回来。求求你们搞点极权罢，疯狂麦克斯和非我族类也太哈人仂。但凡乌鸦和太空族沾点人索罗诺布列的平民也不至于成天念叨着：“生活很难，但比以前好。”而伟大领袖死后每个阵营都想在索罗诺布列分杯羹，这下生活算是彻底没了。 额外的：乌鸦我是真服了，“无政府工团主义”这么些个字呢恁就占个“无”是罢，能不能少嗑点颜料燃料多往人这方面靠靠？几个阵营就数你家最抽象，单位描述都已经到黑色幽默的程度仂。别家抵抗组织黑点再多头上还有个极权政府顶缸，你们呢？人伟大领袖玩化武整出舆论事故后好赖明面上是不使了，你们这自爆小人从头用到尾可真是一点顾虑都没有，而且穿着和红十字等同的黄色雨衣。嗯造平民这块你们还真是遥遥领先嗷。

Fell in love with this little game long before I even knew that for some reason it spikes the cortisol of left-wing chuds, which in fairness seems to be a very recent phenomenon. If some of the devs hadn't allegedly been le heckin' bigots a few months ago or whatever they're being accused of, these "people" would be eating this game up the same way they do with all the other synthwave, amoral dystopia, cyperpunk retroslop that they typically gush about/appropriate. In fact that seems to be exactly the case, as many smearing the devs have dozens of hours, meaning they were having fun until they were mugged by the reality of not every indie dev being a wholesome chungus. In any case, these kvetchers comprise a tiny fraction of an otherwise enthusiastic playerbase and should be given little thought beyond what I've said so far. There isn't much else to say except that it's relatively simple gameplay-wise, and pretty small in scope, you'll likely do everything of note in a few hours. If you enjoy it, and can master the movement and gunnery, it's very satisfying and replayable. On sale, it's definitely worth it, perhaps not so much at full price. I'll mention "Mech Havoc" as being a similar/inspired game for those who like Brigador.

I am ready for deployment to the inner sphere. Please deposit cbills in my mercenary account in case I become deceased. We will defeat the clan invasion and uphold shalun law. Remember, an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred.

Cannot support a horrible person at the studio.

The game ran once on a Macbook Air M1 (after having to follow multiple discussions on how to get it working, as the dev will "look into it at a later date" from many years ago), and crashed after the first mission with no achievement awarded. I could not get it to run again, even after uninstalling and reinstalling the game. The game ran on the Steam Deck, except after the same first mission (I got the achievement this time!), the selection would keep moving down and could not be moved up again. I deleted it from both devices and won't be returning. I would urge extreme caution on future games from this "developer".