MW 3 Review

After Treyarch proved that Call of Duty could be successful without the guiding hand of the series creators Vince Zampella and Jason West, questions arose to what Infinity Ward was going to do. And the answer came from a leak. A leak that revealed that the next Call of Duty was going to be Modern Warfare 3. Characters, Maps, campaign details, most of the mystery surrounding the game gone due to a series of articles published by game news website Kotaku. And not too much after that Modern Warfare 3 was revealed to world by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer games. To a big surprise. Did the combined might of two devs help in making this game even better than its predecessors? Well let’s find out this is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. <Intro>

Instability could be seen to be inside of the Call of Duty franchise Sledgehammer games canceled their third person action adventure so that they could help the understaffed Infinity Ward team to make their game. In addition to this announcement. A new program was announced. Call of Duty Elite a program that didn’t make it into the new generation of Call of Duty and I really haven’t figured out if there is a current iteration of it. But the elite program tracked ones stats when playing multiplayer. It had a lot of information for those who wanted it. And had some additional features for those who wanted to pay 50 dollars a year <includes the season pass>. On top of that they also announced their annual Call of Duty XP event. It’s kind of a Call of Duty con and it’s still going strong today.

But the thing is even with all this new stuff was the new Call of Duty good well I don’t know. I usually have an opinion about these games but Modern Warfare 3 is decent at the very least . I don’t have  that same nostalgia that I had for Call of Duty 1 or even Modern Warfare 2 as this was the first time I’ve played Modern Warfare 3.

So Modern Warfare 3 is a direct sequel to Modern Warfare 2 and part of the Call of Duty franchise. This comes with that usual baggage of being a call of duty game. Cinematic, follow the objective marker/ commanding officer is still in this game. The main question is did you like Modern Warfare 2? If yes then you’ll probably have at the very least no opinion on Modern Warfare 3.

You still got your set pieces but some of them seem to be set pieces. Some of the coolest moments I was just reminded of other parts of call of duty games.

This game also raps up the plot from Modern Warfare 2 and 1. It starts up right after the end of the previous Modern Warfare where Soap and Price go into hiding to lick their wounds. The US is still at war at home with Russia and Makarov is out to cause more chaos. Yadda Yadda plot. If you’ve played a modern warfare game you’d be right at home . I’d have to say that this one is the most coherent of the Modern Warfare games. It’s pretty clear what's going on. Doesn’t mean that what is going on actually makes sense. So basically the plot revolves around the Russian president and how he wants to put an end with the war with the US. Thing is Makarov kidnaps him and tells him to invade all of Europe which like why? I mean I thought with the last game at the very least Infinity Ward was trying to make the Russians the reluctant bad guys but no. Here they doing terrioristy stuff and killing civilians and just being total Ivan Dragos. I really wish that the plot or anything did anything to me but I really didn’t hate it nor did I love it.

But the real meat and potatoes comes in the new survival mode which is pretty cool. You fend off increasingly difficult waves of bad guys getting money based on how well you do. You spend said money on different weapons upgrades perks, and special air strikes. There’s a leveling system that unlocks said items to spend your money. As you do better on the maps you unlock new more difficult ones. This is definitely where I spent most of my time when playing this game.

There’s also a new spec ops mode as there was in Modern Warfare 2 but it’s not as good as the last one of course. The last one being this highlight real of Modern Warfare 1 and 2’s high moments. 3 just doesn’t have as many iconic maps and scenes.

And yeah here’s the most of a cop out of a review I’ll probably ever do. Yeah Modern Warfare 3’s campaign was just eh. It’s completely serviceable but there’s almost nothing noteworthy at all. I had more fun with the other modes actually.

So Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 went on to sell gangbusters. ( And no that’s not a movie about a bunch of cops killing gangsters). It sold 6.5 million copies on its first day alone only in the US and the UK. It went on to sell more than 26.5 million copies. (wistle, I mean I’d wistle but I can’t its too hard for me.) So yeah. Call of Duty was on top of the world. Not even EA who released Battlefield 3 2 weeks before Call of Duty was released could dampen sales wait huh.

So next eyes were back on Treyarch to see what would be going on. And Call of Duty made another great big leap into an new era.

Uncharted 4 Review

This is how Uncharted 4 starts and it sets the tone for not a fun action packed video game like the ones before it but a darker more introspective look into the fortune hunter. Even the box art and title suggests this. But what is a game but a miserable pile of pixels?  The Uncharted series has always been known for its memorable set pieces, Hollywood level storytelling, and beautiful graphics. And I could report that all of these and more are in the final game. But this is what hinders the final game. But Shaun you might say this is amazing and exactly what I want and yeah sure it might. The problem is that game is already headlining many game of the year lists and many people’s best game of all time. There’s a lot of marketing buzz words in what people are saying about this game. Like cinematic.   But hear me out and might be actually putting this game in this years most disappointing game like me. I ‘ll try to keep this first part free of spoilers.

I played this game in two 8 hour sessions and in that 16 hours I spent most of it rolling my eyes. I wished the game would just pick up its pace and actually give me something exciting. The thing is that there are no new mechanics early on in the game that makes gameplay interesting. Yes there is a grappling hook that you get at the beginning of the game. A new climbing mechanic that was much needed in the whole series makes climbing more interesting the problem is that it occurs towards the end of the game. A Lot of this game felt very bloated and not memorable. And that’s my major gripe with this game being memorable. While the other games had to battle against a generic plot and average gunplay at least they had memorable set pieces. My favorite is the iconic one from the beginning of Uncharted 2. The one that made J.J. Abrams say that it's the best opening to a videogame, movie, or tv show. There’s actually only one standout set piece in the game and if you saw the E3 demo you’ve already seen it before.

When playing this game I kept thinking about the order 1886. Which was basically a steampunkish uncharted clone. There’s a focus on cinematic qualities, mediocre gunplay, climbing . I feel like Uncharted saw the criticism that people had that The Order was too short and just extended the game to be longer than Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 3 combined. There’s a new dialogue tree mechanic that’s only used about five times and doesn’t really add anything to the game except in this part where you get to choose your witty remark. All of the problems from the previous games are here. Sometimes it's really hard to determine where to jump in this game and when you think you’ve got the right spot and then……. Yeah. Climbing in this game is just a interactive cutscene. It’s never been very interesting but at least the other games didn’t spend too long on it as this game does. The grappling hook is kind of fun.The most fun that I had with the game was messing with all of the bonus features. Changing the art style to be cell shaded and making voices really deep was the most satisfying part of this game. The gameplay is at its most when you're running around like a crazy fortune hunter scaling walls, swinging down spiderman style punching a bad guy out. Which is why I’ve always felt that it was weird that this franchise has been so insistent on its cover shooting mechanics which are just blah. Which is why I recommend the easiest setting when playing this game it makes it a whole lot funnier.  

But one thing you haven’t seen before in any game is the visuals. Though I wish that the game was in 60 fps this is clearly the prettiest console game. The cutscenes are mostly real-time meaning that transitions between cutscene and gameplay is almost unnoticeable. I say mostly because there are prerendered cutscenes in this game. Many people say that this game is very cinematic but as a film buff I got kind of annoyed with the shot compositions. Why are you doing that. That shot doesn’t match what’s going on. Yes I know your “Game” is beautiful but why are you spinning the camera around these characters.The game has less of an edited feel because of all of the real time rendering shots linger for too long and most shots involve pans and not cuts. But anyways this is one of the best presentations of an uncharted game. Animations are detailed and make Uncharted 3’s animations look like a saturday morning cartoon. The thing is that with having real time cutscenes there are goofs just like in a play. I can’t really attest to the music except at this point it felt really awesome. But most of the music just hides in the background in the game. The only other time I noticed the music was because I was trying to find Nate’s theme which is in every game when I was looking at the footage I recorded. They decided to put it at the end of the game. So, are you hyping me for the game that I just finished or is something else going to happen after the credits?

Without revealing too much the story for this Uncharted game is probably the worst of the whole series. Yes that is including Uncharted 3. But Shaun you might say that’s kind of hyperbolic. To which I would say no what’s hyperbolic is to call it the best game story of all time. Even though the other games are cheesy as heck at least they are fun. Nate goes from location to location trying to track down this treasure which turns out to be in this lost city. Turns out the treasure has some power that the cartoonishly evil bad guy is trying to get. Nate kills the bad guy and saves the day. The difference between this and Uncharted 4 is that this game is trying for a more darker tone as indicated from the title, box art, and main menu. Neil Druckmann, the writer for The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 said that with this game he was trying to break Nathan down to his lowest point. He also said that the ending would be divisive for players that they will either love it or hate it and that it made play testers cry. To me the plot of this game is not memberale. First of all let me point out I would not nitpick this plot if it wasn’t for this game’s severe pacing problems. The game constantly repeats itself over and over in its gameplay. Do this really easy puzzle over and over again.The bad guy is not a really good driver of the plot and does nothing but to oppose the Drakes. I also feel like Nate’s brother, Sam, was poorly written. He was very indistinguishable from his dialogue from Nate. I guess that these two are more like clones. They both share the same sense of humor and give the same kind of witty remarks. If it wasn’t for the subtitles I wouldn’t have been able to distinguish the two from each other.  I do think that he was also poorly written. And then I kind of have problems with talking about the story without spoiling the game. That’s a spoiler warning for those who didn’t get it yet.

So the game starts off with an explosive boat chase to an island and it's all exciting and everything and then Nate falls off the boat. The main problem with this intro is that it's really trying to invoke the beginning of Uncharted one with the narrative conceit of Uncharted 2 but doesn’t really do the later very well. The intro for Uncharted 2 caused the player to figure out things as Drake was also. It added new questions as it answered them so that when the game flashes back in time the player is left wondering how did Drake get there and if he’s going to make it out alright.  Uncharted 4 starts off and you already know what's going on. The game flashes back towards Drake’s childhood. And gives a climbing tutorial which is fine and dandy if there wasn’t going to be one later on. The grappling hook is also introduced here as a gameplay mechanic which brings in the a gripe that video games tend to have when they do flashback/prequel things. The fact that the grappling hook was introduced to Nate as a versatile tool for climbing and stuff makes one wonder why he never used grappling hooks in his later adventures. It sure would’ve helped him in multiple occasions. The game flashes forward a bit to a prison a clue to the treasure, and then a prison escape. Problem that cause of said prison escape just seemingly happens out of nowhere. The writers want to portray Rafe as a spur of the moment murderer, when it makes no sense as throughout the plot he does everything in his power to avoid murdering. It also makes no sense for Rafe to stab Vargas. As it’s stated later on that all Rafe wants is the glory. To actually accomplish something for himself.  But yet we have to have a reason to hate him. For causing a chase scene that caused our brother to get murdered. Which is played off as if we’re supposed to believe that the brother is dead even though we know he still alive.It’s as if the writers are trying to explain why Drake’s brother wasn’t in the other games. Flash forward to the present and we get even more exposition. Eventually Nate’s brother, Sam, shows back up to give the call to action. Almost, 2 hours into the game. Then we have to play another prison break sequence that only exists because its been 2 hours since we’ve shot anything.  This shootout was unnecessary and boring.  Eventually the brothers go to Scotland where Rafe has hired a private military group to search for Avery’s tomb. Which begs the question why did Rafe partner with a private military group? Why not sponsor a University of Indiana Joneses. Heck you could even use science to figure this stuff out. A Lot of the gameplay in this area is also very repetitive. It’s alright to have a rolling crate puzzle or two but to have this many in different locations is kind of much. Seriously am I to believe that the pirates had the ingenuity to make a crate very similar to the very ones that the private military corporation is using. This whole Scotland are could’ve been integrated in another area to make them more interesting. If you really think about it the Drakes are instigating this whole conflict. They stole the cross that Rafe was going to purchase. Then they trespassed on his property and killed his guards. It doesn’t really make sense why Nate didn’t go to Rafe in the first place. Even if the two didn’t get off on the right foot they never really had to kill each other to get the treasure. Then the brothers move to madagascar and that is finally where the game really picks up. The open areas allow for a more sandboxish but still linear progression. It was generally really fun to climb the towers only to jump down and punch a guy out.

This area made it feel almost like a Far Cry game. The game continues to the city where you do two really dull puzzles but then there’s a really awesome set piece. The brothers later go to an island where libertalia is located but Rafe’s right behind them searching too. But this is kind of perplexing because Rafe has a lot of resources as he says earlier. So it's a wonder why he doesn’t use satellite imagery to see where Libertalia is. I knows the area. And it's not like there’s trees covering. Heck get a helicopter. Anyways here on this island the grand reveal is that Sam was lying the whole time. Turns out Sam was working with Rafe then double crossed him. Which begs the question of why turn on Rafe so early on the hunt. Nate says that he believes that Sam got every clue that Rafe had except he didn’t bring anything but the cross. He could of waited at the last moment and then brought Nate out. Anyways if he spent such a long time coming up with the Alcazar story why didn’t he come up with a guy who was alive. The guy died 6 months prior. Also how come Rafe was able to find Sam. Nate said that he was looking for Sam but exhasted all of his resources. Also he never got confirmation that Sam died so um yeah. Throughout there’s a slow burn of internal conflicts. But after revelation and subsequent abyss there’s not really a pay off there’s no resolving of these conflicts. There is no transformation and those ideas that were earlier slowly built. Its conflicts just dropped out of the game. The boss fight at the end was repetitive and janky. It was just a modified quick time event. The actual conflict just seemed contradictory. All Rafe wanted was to earn something which he did he found the treasure. Why couldn’t Rafe just take credit for finding the treasure and give Sam a cut of the find. Yeah Naughty Dog wants you to think that it’s just because Sam wanted to share this find with his brother as being just a part of the family but  The actual plot of Libertalia is actually very interesting because it somewhat relates to Nate. Libertalia is a city founded by pirates who wanted to settle down are create a life for themselves. Just like what Nate’s trying to do. But greed ultimately caused the whole settlement to erupt in a civil war cause everyone to kill each other. The last two people the founders couldn’t even agree on splitting the treasure so they killed each other. Nate sees this as his future if he was to continue treasure hunting that this would be his future. Except you wouldn’t be able to tell this when you first play the game. No the third act of this game plays like any other Uncharted game and that would be fine if wasn’t trying to retire a character. The game ends like any other Uncharted game but then it continues because it would be a shame if the audience still had any questions about what Nate was going to do with his life.  And then the game continues because it would be a shame to wonder what would happen next to Nate. The game starts into a nostalgia filled epilogue that is basically Naughty Dog just saying look at where we started and now look at where we are today. Naughty Dog causes player to remember the journey that they’ve had with this game company ( as I have since the very beginning). The thing is that if you’re not affected by nostalgia like me this ending comes off really badly and non satisfactory. It doesn’t really feel like a closure to me as they really heavily allude to another game starring Sully and Sam Drake. The ending feel more like its Naughty Dog that's leaving the series and not Nate. I do commend Naughty Dog for not killing off Nate as you know that’s not the only way to retire a character contrary to modern narrative. I know that many people are satisfied with the ending but this ending felt like it was missing something and was definitely not the controversial conversation starter teased by Drukmann. Its’ almost too safe.

A Lot of the puzzles are explained as tests for people who want to join Avery in Libertalia but seriously these are so easy.  So you're telling me that if I could connect the dots I could join your colony? Wow you’ve got low standards. There are also heavy cases of what's called Lampshading. <show the examples of Lampshading>  That is when a piece of narrative anticipates an audience’s criticism and answers it for them. Typically characters would point out a contradiction and either move on or try to explain it.  This comes off as a very lazy attempt of filling in plot holes and the such.

Uncharted 4 is a game about balancing Nate’s passions and spending time with those he cares about. Its about greed vs. pride, Lies vs. Truth, Past vs. the Future and the game doesn’t really successfully tackles all of these topics. The game is overly long and just drags on. But of course this game is going to be trotted out as the game of the year that justifies the current console generation. And I’m not saying that this game is bad. I’m just saying that it’s not as good as it could've been. It makes me wonder what was the original script that long time series writer and creative director Amy Henning had in mind. The original script that had Alan Tudyk involved and then leave when it was changed. The script that was thrown out and reworked from scratch. But what do I know I’m just a sponge.

Nostalgia

Today Hollywood seems to be having a moment. They’re feeling nostalgic or at least want other people to feel nostalgic. And it's something that’s been very popular in the gaming industry. Uncharted 4’s throwback Crash Bandicoot level, Homefront the Resistance’s Timesplitter 2 levels, Doom’s throwback to its previous games, Modern Warfare Remastered getting more hype than the brand new Call of Duty game. It seems like the gaming industry wants to invoke the past. Many people claim that the sequelization going on in media is hurting the whole industry but is it really? Is there an actual time where nostalgia can be beneficial? See the thing is that the answer for both questions are both yes and no. It’s actually very nuanced.

Well, just so that we are on the same page, Nostalgia is typically described as the warm feeling you get when looking old photographs and home movies. But it can be more than that. Nostalgia comes from the greek word nostos or return home and algos or longing in english. When the word Nostalgia was first coined in 1688 by medical student Johannes Hofer, being Nostalgic was thought to be a disease.  But of course as we now know is not the case. Turns out that nostalgia isn’t as bad as you might assume. Actually studies show that nostalgia counteracts loneliness/ anxiety most of the time and causes people to have hope for the future.

So there’s two forms of nostalgia. Natural, originating most commonly from photographs and home movies. From bumping into a song that may have some kind of deeper meaning to one of the games you used to play as a child with your friends on the couch, natural nostalgia typically occurs very suddenly upon coming into contact with that original medium. The second form of nostalgia is unnatural. Media products from corporations who want to sell you back your childhood. That idea that “Hey you liked this as a child now go watch the new movie that doesn’t retain any of the charm of the original”. Many people see this kind of nostalgia as exploitive that it doesn’t really add anything to the medium. That the glut of reiterating on the same properties are going to stagnate the whole genre. But is that really the case? Is there some benefit to the rampant rebooting, and sequelization?

The thing is that reboots and sequelization are not created equally. When some movies are just unnecessary appropriations of nostalgic properties. Some movies can take on new context in the  times in which they are presented. The Amazing Spiderman doesn’t really do to a post financial crisis america what Sam Rami’s Spiderman did to a post 9-11 America. Ideas presented in the original film can be recontextualized. But in gaming where sequalization seems to be the only way to make money what does this mean. Sometimes there are games where their sequels rise above the originals upon which they were based upon but other times quickly become the same game slopped out every single year. The recontextualizing is not something that we typically see in video games. Most reboots tend to be just bringing back that old game with more modern mechanics if you're lucky. But some like the Tomb Raider reboot shows how different modern audiences see certain types of people. Nostalgic properties that take a leave of absense as the industry looks toward more profitable genres, tend to come back big and remind us what made the original so great. Simplicity.

Which is why I believe that people are hating on the new Call of Duty versus the game that they’ve already played. Why developers like putting nods towards their original franchises. Why we see the resurgence of rogue likes. Why the new Doom and Wolfenstein games exists. Its because there is nostalgia for simplicity. A time where progression systems were nonexistant. Were an upgrade was not some arbitrary stat increase. Where upgrades were an item that changed the way that you played a game. In a time with big budget action video games flooding the market. It’s the look to the past that reminds us where gaming used to be and puts where we are today in a new light. Times where couch co-op was king. Because it really is those moments of playing games on christmas with the family that we are truly nostalgic for. And these old games are a portal to the times where everyone seemed to get along. A truly formative time in life. Nostalgia sells. Maybe even more so than sex. And sometimes that could be a good thing but other times it could stagnate a whole industry. But at the end of the day what really matters are th memories that are with these games, movies, or songs and that we hold them close for those connections that we’ve lost along the way. But then again what do I know, I’m just a sponge.

Captain America Civil War Review

Wow that wasn’t the dumpster fire that I totally thought that movie was going to be. Now hear me out I was kind of feeling franchise fatigue after seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron. And when I heard that Marvel was adapting Civil War comic book series I immediately thought that it was very stupid. Then again this is coming from the studio that  made me think that a puerto rican man running around with his glorified trash can lid. Also I thought that putting one of the most convoluted story lines into the movie verse. And the casting announcements really made me worried that the movie would become more clustered than my stomach after I eat taco bell. This movie isn’t really the best movie in the whole series but actually just a better Avengers movie than age of ultron. It’s a marvel movie and you know what you're going to get and that’s the problem. The plot was actually really interesting because that’s what arguments people happen today or even in the past. And that's what really intrigues me. I do not resent seeing this movie unlike a certain other movie (ehm batman vs. superman). I think I’m tired though of marvel action sequences. All of the action sequences except for two were editing kind of weirdly. It’s as if it turned out that these actors can’t really fight. After awhile it gets kind of boring seeing CG object interact with another object made entirely in a computer. I actually thought the plot was convolutedly good. Some of the themes don’t really punch home. And I felt like it was pulling punches that the comics were able to land. But I can’t really talk about this without spoiling the movie. So um spoilers. Bruce Willis is dead.  You were warned anyways. So yeah. I was thinking about the parallels of Steve’s and Iron Man’s arguments to real life as one does. Captain America is clearly those people who believe America should intervene in foreign affairs. Iron Man is one of those people who looked at America when the Iraq and Afghanistan war and said well was all these civilian casualties really justified for the end goal? But technically this argument kind of doesn’t work in the movie when the bad guys are uncharacteristically just bad guys. Just an interesting parallel i thought about. So yeah Civil War good, not great , but not bad. But what do I know I’m just a sponge.

Nioh First Impressions- Imitation Done Right- Spongesoak

If imitation is the biggest form of flattery then Team Ninja must be trying really hard to Impress From Software. Nioh is a game no not that Neo this Nioh. And No its not Geralt from the Witcher series. Its actually Williams Adams who was actual person. This major deviation from the souls formula of storytelling puts Adams into a historical context rather than a fantastical context.

But then it gets weird when you’re a White sailor hacking and slashing Japanese invaders, zombies, and demons. The story in this demo is largely told from character dialogue that you pick up from corpses.

The game play combines the hack and slash gameplay of a Devil May Cry Game with the complex formula of a dark souls game. Shrines are bonfires. Souls are Amrita. Elxirs are Estus.  Death drops currency and returns you to the last checkpoint. Healing items are replenished at checkpoints. Bodies contain item pickups. Special Items are found in chests. There’s Jolly Cooperation.  Intricate level design rewards exploration. Melee weapons, magic, and special items can be used in combat. Combat is a ballet of blocking and dodging memorizing the opponent's moves.  And you die alot.

But don’t just think that this game is a dark souls clone. As it takes that dark souls formula and uses it as a springboard for a new experience. I feel that this should show the gaming industry how to take a pre existing idea and build off of it to make something new which is something you don’t see very often. You can’t just run through this game like it's a souls game. Somehow the leveling system is even more complicated than dark souls. I could go into the minute details but hey this game is unique as heck.  

Overall, I am optimistic in what new Nioh can do but cautious in its overall design as dark souls was a japanese game made for western audiences Nioh is a Japanese game not really made for a specific audience. A lot the dialogue is in japanese and the menu design and just the way the game plays screams japanese design philosophies. The story might be well removed from the player and might not be engaging as its based on a true person. As true as a sailor turned samurai fighting demons and stuff. A criticism that I have is that some of the enemy animations aren’t good. Some of them seem like they are missing frames and this causes unfair attacks on a person. That is what Dark Souls does well. It’s animations are rock solid and tell you exactly what is going to happen. But what does that all matter? I’m mean I’m just a  sponge.

Spongesoak: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -First Assault Online First Impressions

How does one know if their property is successful? Well it becomes a tv show with a spin off series. A manga. A movie with the wrong actors portraying the wrong races and a video game. Ghost in the Shell is a game wait thats not what it is? Oh okay. Ghost in the Shell First Assault is a no? Really? Okay. Ehem okay I got it. Ghost in the Shell First Assault Stand Alone Complex Online is a game made by the Korean developer Neopole who according to their website makes wonders. The problem is this game is not a wonder. Actually I fell asleep while playing this game it was so boring. This game has the usual team fortress/ moba variety we’ve seen with Battleborne and Overwatch. The shooting is very mediocre. It works but its not really satisfying. The guns are very generic. Stand Alone Complex Online’s contribution to gaming is sharing special abilities. But I never really noticed the sharing doing anything. Everyone seemed to just be doing their thing.

For those who want a little more depth well there’s three game modes. Team Deathmatch, Conquest, and Demolition modes. You can change your loadout with weapons you can unlock and use or purchase from a store with in game currency which surprise surprise you could purchase yourself with real money. There are augmentations and attachments that make numbers higher.  There are skins that are non distinguishable from the base skins. You get 3 operatives for free. The first one is unlocked immediately and the other two at level 3 and level 5. Other than that you have to purchase them for 10 dollars. And with no apparent character rotation if you want to try out a new character well you're out of luck buddy.

The graphics of this game is so flat and the aesthetics so drab. The maps are generic. The menu UI is just plain ugly and hard to understand what’s going on.

Bottom line I can not recommend this game at all. Not even if you're a fan of the franchise because it doesn’t even do anything interesting with that world. I want to watch the show because of people tell me about it. This game doesn’t even push me  to watch the show. This game is pretty much a free to play game that you have to pay 5 dollars for. Later on it's going free to play but its not worth the time and money right now. There are better free to play shooters out there that does the team based shooter thing better than this game. This game feels like someone put a Ghost in the shell skin on-top of a completely unrelated shooter. I would actually rather play those games. But what do I know I’m just a sponge.