M.A.S.S. Builder

While I did put this game down as recommended, I think that there are some issues that need to be addressed with the game as a whole. This game's mech customization is actually amazing, and you can put things wherever you want. There is a limit to the number of greebles you can tack onto one part, and I wish that I could add more, but for now we're just stuck with 8. I'm not sure if they'll increase this limit over time or if it's like this for the sake of optimization. Weapon customization is simple, but it does have an effect on how you'll be playing the game. Guns have barrels that will change what projectiles they shoot and grips will determine handedness, though it feels more cosmetic than actually useful in comparison to melee. I'm not sure if you can run a gun n' board or dual wield, but maybe you can and I'm just dumb. Moving on to melee, grips and blades seem to have a little more bearing on how the weapon actually works. Grip determines if you can use it with a shield or not and (I think) the style you use? I think the blade might change the hitbox on the weapon and helps to determine weight, which changes how fast and hard you can hit, though I can't really feel the difference. Armors (the base things you can stick onto your mech) influence you're mech's weight, which in turn affects defense (I think?) and how much fuel you burn (basically your stamina bar when using your boosters). It doesn't really feel like defense has any actual use though when enemies will chew through your health once your shields go down. There is also a tech tree, which is where the majority of your stats will come from. Yes, it does have an actual influence on how you play too. Some bonuses are very minor like more shield or speed while others allow you to do more specialized stuff like burn everything around you when you're boosting or regenerate ammo periodically. Now then, onto the issues. This game's combat is kind of just... There. It's serviceable, but you just have your basic enemies with a miniboss (or actual boss) sprinkled in there. Your mech's movement is very snappy and responsive, so there's that, but at times it feels like my camera and lock on systems are actively trying to kill me. Auto lock on can be turned off, but even then it feels like I'm being forced to hit the enemy furthest away from me... when I'm using a shotgun. I do hope they add an option that allows an auto lock on to the closest enemy for close range ranged combat (god that doesn't sound right). Enemies themselves are very generic. It's pretty much the same black glob with some white armor tacked onto it that will shoot, slap, or tank if it's just some grunt enemy. Individually these enemies are pretty weak, but in large masses (no pun intended), these things quickly form a death mob that will chase you to the ends of the earth to get their pound of steel. I cannot for the life of me play melee when I risk a very painful death by horde, and the lock on means I'm stuck focusing on one random enemy separate from the swarm chasing me in the background. Now, I did say that enemies were pretty weak individually, but unfortunately if you do manage to get hit, they deal a horrifically high amount of damage to your shields (and health if you have no shields left). Even basic grunts can take out a good 6th of your shield if they can land a hit, which means getting stuck in cramped rooms (I'm looking at you mission 22) can be an immediate death sentence for more fragile setups. Additionally, some of the areas in this game just suck. They feel very empty and barren, and while I do think they'll eventually add more to it later, for now you're stuck with these bland landscapes with little to look at. Then you have places where enemies have massive AOEs in a tiny cramped space, where locking on becomes a problem again. Lock on breaks off if enemies get behind a wall or other obstruction... which usually isn't an issue in the more open maps. But when you're stuck in a room full of support beams, suddenly I can't hit jack sh*t because they're getting behind these thin supports, which causes the lock on to stop and I have to manually lock on again. To add on to that, certain enemies have access to nukes that cover a lot of ground and deal a lot of damage. Normally, this isn't a problem, but again, when you're stuck in this cramped space with a death mob chasing after you, you're gonna find it's incredibly hard to catch a break and let your shields recharge when everything around you is exploding. The game has its issues and poor decisions, but hopefully these will be fixed later on or rebalanced.