Exoprimal

[Tobal]

Playing it on gamepass via XSX, doesn't look much like a next gen game but it's very smooth. Gameplay is what i would call Capcom's well defined 3rd person shooter controls meets overwatch and while killing alot dinosaurs in Power armour.

You'll also need Capcom Id account, so prepare to waste 10 to 15 mins setting it up and linking your account to xbox or psn.

You'll load into a choice of PvP or PvE match (5v5, no bots/single player stuff here), and kill dino's in time attack, racing to objectives to start the next dino cull. While the other team starts of as ghosts for the majority of the match, any early interactions would be if any team earns dino attack which allows anyone on your team to play as strong dino to attack the other team, i think these are generally used as a crutch mechanic for losing teams. Once the last objective is reached in PvP mode, both team can attack each other, otherwise it's as you where in PvE. Only done about 4 matches but i've only seen escort the box and cull the strong dino's.

The power armours come in classic setup of the holy trinity, DD, Tank and Support and then split down further by main weapons, abilities and HP/def/speed. In a fantastic change to this type of game you can change Suit on the flying during the match, so it you find you need a tank for strong dinos (and you will, it is very easy to die) and no-one is on one, you can quickly change it up. The shooting feels fine but i do recommend playing with the sensitivity, aim down sights is terrible on default, i lowered everything to 3, acceleration delay to 0.5 and deep curve option.

the Grind, you have a main account level which i can't see much use to yet (maybe MMR stuff or universal mods), each suit has a level to unlock skins and mods(ability upgrades), sometimes these can be universally used across all suits but require Bikcoin to buy which is the ingame currency used to buy everything from mods and locked suits to skins and emotes. The story once you get past the opening tutorial matches is unlocked by playing normal matches and getting lost data out of it which can then be use to view the next story unlock in the database. The last grind is the season battle, £7 for the premium one full of skins and emotes, there is also £10 unlock welcome pack to get quick access to the 3 locked suits (looks like you need level 30 account and then a pile of bikcoins)

Story itself it quite bonkers, A.I. creates a multi-dimension wargame testing grounds for some reason, cutscenes are very monster hunter world.

Hopefully there are more objectives and dinosaurs to see that what i've seen repeated in the 4 games i've played, and most of that was on the tank suit (people seem very unwilling to play as) which did quite enjoy pinning triceratops up against a wall while my other team mates blasted it, and it ability to shield bash is also good fun.

[Tobal]

I don't think i can recommend anyone on steam or Ps5 paying £50 for this but gamepass is perfectly fine, there just some very strange choices and very little variety(so far) and no choice on what you want to do. I'm 24% into the database story, the main account level dictates the pace of the story and deals out universal mods and ingame currency, from this it will start making the matches slightly more difficult and very rarely give what is basically set-piece match (still in 5v5 setup) to introduce a new mechanic like carnage mode.

But so far is it pretty much doing the same thing, killing dinosaurs and sometimes throwing in a boss fight, defend the flag, escort the cube and new one, carry the hammer, not sure what exactly going in that as i've only had 1 chance to play it, you smash a shielded box with a hammer inside and take that to next shield, repeat for 3rd time where both teams meet in pvp... i think the hammer can be used as big attack cooldown looking at my team mates actions.

I can easily see people getting bored quickly if they don't switch suits often, or don't take advantage of the exp boosters for random match mode or winning and get stuck in the main level grind repeating the same matches over and over. As i mentioned earlier the strange choice for a MP game is lack of any choice in selecting what modes to play or even the difficulty.

As for balance... like hero shooters, if no one is willing to play 1 healer or a tank or stack tanks/healers you will lose by a large margin. I has one match where 2 players played the shielded tank all game were got the cube escort round 6 with enemy players already at 30% competition. You can get away at least for the 4 of the 5 objectives/rounds without a tank, and probably bumble through the 5th with at least a healer around, but the 6th round(the teleport) is lost game.

The other gimmick which i think they got badly wrong on balance is the dinosaur domination (in round 6), they give the losing team a dino first but it's so early on to use it will get the dino killed right away as it won't have the cover of late round boss dinos, and then it will always give winning team there dino late on which is when the losing team is roughly around 60-70% completion and fighting boss dinos so it absolutely wipes the floor with them, i have only seen a losing team come back once when both team got the Dino power within about a minute (it was 'close' match 15% behind and my teamate that picked up the dino power on our team saved till the enemy had theirs). What they should do is add kill player counter to the dino, kill 5 and it the dino dies to give players a small chance to recover.

The other balance issue is the ultimate only gets charged for 1 use per match based (usually around round 5 of 6 it finishes charging) on what i've played so far, it's always best to save it for the enemy team dino domination or in a PVP round 6, unleash it on the enemy team at the end when they meet up.

[charlesr]

Thanks for the thoughts

[eastyy]

I played about 4 matches and i really dunno about this, core gunplay seems good but i really wish they went more the Warframe with more PVE emphasis, it definitely feels a bit one trick and really i cannot imagine it having the legs needed, and having a battle pass and advert for premium coins really did not help

Definitely feels like a F2P game when booting up though not sure how the progression works as getting loot chests and Mech upgrades seems limited at the moment.

Also as mentioned feels like if you are loosing you need a lot of luck to get back in with a chance

[fishbowlhead]

Ah, yet another game requiring sign up to another service just for the sake of gathering your data, HARD OUT.

We already have a service provider (MS or Sony) any other layers in a console game need to be permanently banned by the platform holders.

[Tobal]

I'll be surprised if capcom don't continue to use the ID system for future stuff like that onimusha-themed co-op beat'um'up or future monster hunters. Just give them fake data on a throw away email and move on.

Well i've now seen what the game does when a team does embarrassingly bad, unfortunately i was on the bad team. It was match after cutscene mission so it a level up in monster intensity and types, everyone went in on DD jobs so jumped on healer... just not enough... a triceratops chase mission pops up in round 1 with kamikaze and sniper dinos(yes sniper dinos), without a tank the other team got to round 6 by the time we had finished round 1, and as it pvp and new type of collect the balls and deposit game which they couldn't end the round without us, so round 2 to 4 was shoot 1 dinos (of any type) and move on... then when we got to round 6 it was 0-80 whitewash, i just stopped loading it when the enemy team killed me twice, nothing you can do against 5 people ganking.

[Lebowski]

I give it a short go over the weekend just running through the tutorial and first few mission what i did find an issue is how much of a cluster **** the combat is, fighting raptors in a small area with 3 other players ( shooting allies in the back more than actual dinosaurs), hopefully it stops with these really tight areas as they don't seem big enough for 4 players you just feel like your on top of each other constantly.

[Tobal]

I give it a short go over the weekend just running through the tutorial and first few mission what i did find an issue is how much of a cluster **** the combat is, fighting raptors in a small area with 3 other players ( shooting allies in the back more than actual dinosaurs), hopefully it stops with these really tight areas as they don't seem big enough for 4 players you just feel like your on top of each other constantly.

It won't get much bigger, though normal bullets should just pass through teammates, i think it just things like grenades that don't.

Made it to 47% database and was given the 3rd story mission (as i would call it), quite a surprising mission.

->Open Spoiler<-

During the 3rd round we got teleported to a virtual lobby zone, and team up with the enemy for 10 v CPU, first 2000 raptors coming hundreds at a time and then a Destiny like boss battle with moving platforms for protection against it AoE attacks. Good fun that.

For some reason, i'm into the grind of the game, levelling up suits and generally seeing new dinosaurs and mission types roughly every 3 games as the database fills up, adding more difficulty. Still very much 6/10 game, selfish players, Round 6 balance issues and just to much missing when it comes to your choice of gametype.

[Lebowski]

Had a few more round on it last night including that symmetrical pvp mode where you escort a slow moving "block" across the map and try and beat the other team from doing the same as you, it reminds me of Destiny's 2 game mode Gambit as it mixes pvp and pve elements. It's quite cool how both teams end up in the same location at the end with rounds finishing with a situation where your blasting the crap out of each other while trying to protect your cube. Theirs an invasion type mechanic too where you can control a T-Rex and stomp all over the enemy.

I absolutely slaughter the other team multiple times but apparently invading and killing players destroying their cube and slowing them down gives you less points than sticking to the standard objective and killing dinosurs as i came bottom of the board despite racking up a massive amount of pvp kills.

[Tobal]

Finished Story mode, about level 50+ (and 61 matches). Had alot of fun with the 10 players vs Computer story missions, and quite a few of them pop up at the end. After finishing a new mode pops up called savage, which isn't available right now.. and who knows when it will be.. i assume it be 10 player vs carnage module in the VR realm.

Still a huge problem not being able to select the map/modes/difficulty, they just need to look at how warhammer darktide does it, it's perfect for co-op shooters.

I can't see capcom continuing to support this a year on from now so i won't be going into the abttle pass stuff, but i'll the grind behind leveling up the suits and seeing if i can make a broken build like the default gunner suit, its last mod 'shooting lowers cooldowns' and the 30% off cooldowns gave 4 second grenades.

For now this is my pc ms rewards game(daily 275pts), quicker and more fun than waiting an eternity in a AoE lobby.

[Tobal]

Savage Gauntlet has been released as an extra mode for those finished with the main story. It is set mission with 5 day time limit, you go 5 vs a hard swarm of dinos in 3 rounds against the clock with the aim to either being in the top 20% and 50% of player base time attack scores or just finish it and i think... once the event closes for the next mission, rewards will be dished out.

I've only managed only to clear so far with many failed attempts as other players refuse to ****ing use there brains and balance a team, stick together (dd running away from the tank or healer) or do 'outrageous' out there tactics like moving 2 T-rex's with huge as AoE's attacks away from the defend the object zone in the final round or making sure you're not defending with your back up against a death drop (like tiny barrier overlooking the sea). Add in no penalties for disconnects (aside from no score) and it's a right pile of crap. A proper pre-made party of 5 could easily get in to the top 20%, and probably a pre-made with 3 (healer, shield tank, and debuffer) covering vital jobs could as well.

Would be nice if they added what the time to beat was for 20% and 50%.

[Tobal]

They've updated game with 10 'new' suits, which are the old suits with a new main weapon and 3 mods which in general effect the new weapon. Differences are quite pronounced even if it is just a weapon changes, from playing around in the firing range the biggest example being the

Grenadier now has a chargeable rocket launcher

Shield tank now drops his shield which can made to explode for damage and exchanges the punching for a auto-shotgun.

Flying healer, loses the healing gun for pure damage which is an aimable AoE shock which can be charged into a lightening blast, you can still just about heal with the confuse ray (due to the huge cooldown)

As far as getting these new suits.... £23 in the store or have the original suit at level 20 and then 15,000 coins for each new suit, which is roughly about 15 to 20 matches, getting mostly coins from gacha chests rewarded from levelling the main level and the rest coming from 1000coin per level up for main level and suit level.

Nothing new in modes or options for choosing game types.