Overall Impressions

[Ae86]

Well Defiance has offical been retail for a entire day so I figured I'd give my little impressions of the game as only a japanese car can

Graphics: The graphics are pretty damn good. The use of the Havok engine shows through in making deaths and the like realistic as possible. I myself have had some minor texture and model issues but nothing to major to make me ragequit and call this game crappy like other members here on the forums have done. the worse issue I've had was my weapon not showing up in my hands. But I hit the trigger and it still fires so I dun give a damn

Sounds: There is a thread going on now on the Dodge Challenger sounding like a bus or as one member putting it sounding like a ps3 overheating. They could have done better sounds for everything but patches can fix those I guess.

Gameplay: Now we get to the fun part which is what everybody actually wants Defiance for.

• Gameplay:The best way I can put this section is Defiance has the intensity of a Halo Deathmatch. With the largeness of a mmo. Being able to have 30+ people in the same event all fighting the same Hellbug is really really cool.
  
  
• Gunplay: While it's not perfect it is really fast paced along with the EGO abilities. Plus you change weapons pretty damn quickly so you don't have to worry much bout having to hide while some long winded animation plays. Plus all of your commands are within easy reach(Atleast on console) so you don't have to remember what does what and you can hit them on the fly.
  
  
• Driving: Another big aspect of Defiance being the vehicle portion in being as your primary mode of transportation. I do have my issues with the pre-order Dodge Challenger but I'll set them off to the side for now. The driving feels kinda stiff but from what i've heard at later levels the driving will loosen up alot. Which is another neat little thing being you can level up your driving abilities with each type of vehicle and it unlocks bonuses for that vehicle type.
  
  
• A.I: Now we get to one of my biggest issues with this game. I don't know if other people share it or not but it bugs the living hell out of me. The enemies are flat out telepaths. I can be hidden in the bushes and cloaked and One shot a Raider and all of a sudden everybody knows where i am down to the shade of brown of the dirt I am standing on. It's annoying as all hell to me and it makes being a sniper pretty much useless as you're suppose to stay away from the combat while you snipe. But that gets broken when they automatically know where you are. This is the same issue I have with both Far cry 2 and Far Cry 3. The enemy always knows where you are no matter what you do.
  
  
• Hit Boxes: Another thing that is bugging the hell out of me. I can blow my own leg off with a grenade yet the enemies are immune to their own grenades? What the hell Trion I mean really. Plus it feels like my character has a wide *** hitbox on him to where a rocket and fly right past me and keep going and I still get hit by the same rocket. It doesn't even have to be a rocket. It can be gunfire and it seems like I get nailed by a raider with a AR by every bullet in his clip and he's damn near on the other side of the world.

Closing Statements: Overall I find Defiance to be a really fun game that has potential to become a GOTY for 2013. It's got a blend of Halo meets the craziness of borderlands meets full fledged internet prowess. I expect the future DLC in the season passes is going to make this game even crazier and more fun to play and I myself am fully glad I bought my copy.

[SlashZaku]

Graphics: Still has some pop in issues (driving down the road and you'll come full stop only to have a barrier/transport appear in front of you or seeing your map with enemies and other players around you but not seeing them on screen) but they kind of sort themselves out after a few seconds. Right now, the most annoying is coming out of a menu and seeing your head spawning on or doing the same for other players (same with the weapon). Otherwise, I think the graphics look fine. I know others were slamming them in the beta but I'm not bothered by them at all aside from the few hitches.

Audio: Still seems to be some delay at times where I'll see the portrait on the side of the screen and the subtitles at the bottom but no audio till half a minute or so later after it appears. I think it's better than it was in the beta but still kind of bothersome for me =\

Gameplay: The gunplay is satisfying/fun for me as it was in the beta. Still would like an in-game button to use to switch to a different loadout instead of having to go to the menu but we'll see how that works out (long press of Triangle/Weapon Switch to change loadout?). I like that the enemies are more diverse in appearance now compared to the beta. As for you mentioning the AI, it's one of the reasons why I really didn't bother with Cloak in the beta: didn't seem to help much at all after the first shot rang out and the enemy just hounded you like they had sonar to trace the gunshot back to where you were. Vehicles I'm not much bothered by. They get me from point A to point B quicker than on foot and they handle well enough. Not gonna say much else. One problem I do have overall though, is there still seems to be some 'lag/issues' with the menu coming up for me. Sometimes I'll open it and I'll see the background and maybe the commands at the bottom but no content in the menu. I have to exit out and go back into the menu to get it to load or I'll sit there for a half a minute or so and it'll finally load up. Not sure if it's my PS3 or what but it's annoying really. Chat box could also probably be a bit bigger or at the very least, if the server is going down, flash it in the top middle of the screen so it's more noticeable and not in the chat box. I took a look at the map too when I had the chance and am kind of surprised at how big the thing is and see some greyed out areas outside of what's there.

Overall, loving the game and finally getting to continue the story from the beta. World is interesting to me, gunplay is solid/fun and the randomness of other players helping out on missions always keeps things interesting. I'm interested in seeing what gets brought over from the show as far as Episode Missions are concerned. I've only played 1 but I thought that was fun with the characters from the show (I see a 2nd one but it's past where I stopped in the beta so I'll get to it once I get past the wall that was in the beta and when I'm crossing into that area for story reasons).

[Ae86]

It's not your ps3. Mine does it as well.

[VA1N]

You hit a lot of good points. My three major complaints are...

1) Enemies are telepaths, as you said. There is no hiding or stealth because if you enter their box and aren't stealthed, they will see you. Doesn't matter if there are 3 walls, a couple cars, and a bridge between you - they can see through it all and start shooting.

2) Driving is not fun. I wish I could control the vehicle like you can in Borderlands 2 with the mouse. Using WASD just doesn't work well. If you can use the mouse I haven't figured it out yet.

3) Guns don't do much damage. At least the guns I have found. I even have a rare gun or so the hologram woman told me. I unload clips into some enemies and they still have health left. There is a lot of moving around which is fine but the gun combat needs to be refined. I've found that sniper rifles have an extremely small window for a headshot (with anything outside the window) missing completely. I've taken a shot and hit the enemy in their cheek area or so and it misses. There seems to be a small rectangle area you have to hit for any shot to the head to register. That should be turned into a square.

Besides that though, the game is enjoyable but I'm very forgiving with games. They won't have critical success with the game in it's current state or even mediocre if they don't fix some of the issues.

[Ae86]

You hit a lot of good points. My three major complaints are...

1) Enemies are telepaths, as you said. There is no hiding or stealth because if you enter their box and aren't stealthed, they will see you. Doesn't matter if there are 3 walls, a couple cars, and a bridge between you - they can see through it all and start shooting.

2) Driving is not fun. I wish I could control the vehicle like you can in Borderlands 2 with the mouse. Using WASD just doesn't work well. If you can use the mouse I haven't figured it out yet.

3) Guns don't do much damage. At least the guns I have found. I even have a rare gun or so the hologram woman told me. I unload clips into some enemies and they still have health left. There is a lot of moving around which is fine but the gun combat needs to be refined. I've found that sniper rifles have an extremely small window for a headshot (with anything outside the window) missing completely. I've taken a shot and hit the enemy in their cheek area or so and it misses. There seems to be a small rectangle area you have to hit for any shot to the head to register. That should be turned into a square.

Besides that though, the game is enjoyable but I'm very forgiving with games. They won't have critical success with the game in it's current state or even mediocre if they don't fix some of the issues.

Yeah my best gun I have is my Sniper rifle but in order to do good damage with it I got to be high above the enemy to hit my 1k-4k dmg shots. Never said the game is perfect. But if they keep with it as I said I could see Defiance becoming a GOTY title.

[NihilSineNefas]

You hit a lot of good points. My three major complaints are...

1) Enemies are telepaths, as you said. There is no hiding or stealth because if you enter their box and aren't stealthed, they will see you. Doesn't matter if there are 3 walls, a couple cars, and a bridge between you - they can see through it all and start shooting.

2) Driving is not fun. I wish I could control the vehicle like you can in Borderlands 2 with the mouse. Using WASD just doesn't work well. If you can use the mouse I haven't figured it out yet.

3) Guns don't do much damage. At least the guns I have found. I even have a rare gun or so the hologram woman told me. I unload clips into some enemies and they still have health left. There is a lot of moving around which is fine but the gun combat needs to be refined. I've found that sniper rifles have an extremely small window for a headshot (with anything outside the window) missing completely. I've taken a shot and hit the enemy in their cheek area or so and it misses. There seems to be a small rectangle area you have to hit for any shot to the head to register. That should be turned into a square.

Besides that though, the game is enjoyable but I'm very forgiving with games. They won't have critical success with the game in it's current state or even mediocre if they don't fix some of the issues.

Serious? I have no problem being in stealth, but yeah hiding kind of a problem. Driving works likes wonder for me, controlling with mouse in borderlands 2 is not my thing. :P

[VA1N]

Yeah my best gun I have is my Sniper rifle but in order to do good damage with it I got to be high above the enemy to hit my 1k-4k dmg shots. Never said the game is perfect. But if they keep with it as I said I could see Defiance becoming a GOTY title.

Whoa, now you're talking crazy talk. This will never be GOTY material. I don't know if I'd even give it consideration for game of the month. It can become a nice little diversion but it's nowhere near GOTY contention.

Serious? I have no problem being in stealth, but yeah hiding kind of a problem. Driving works likes wonder for me, controlling with mouse in borderlands 2 is not my thing. :P

The stealth mechanic is fine, I'm talking about not using the stealth power...

[Hyaku Shiki]

Always room for improvement. GOTY is going a bit far but it can last awhile if they actually "tighten" the game up.

[Braneric]

As far as driving goes I've found it to be much more responsive using a wireless XBox controller than my keyboard. YMMV of course

[goldnuggets]

game sucks