Yo. It's me, random internet man who says stupid shit. Back at it again today to go over a vidja game that came out quite recently from a very small studio. It's called Biomutant, an action roleplaying game released for Steam/Xbox One/PS4. Biomutant was developed by Experiment 101 and published by THQ Nordic. This is Experiment 101's first time developing a video game for the public. And, while they are a very small studio comprised of a very small group of people, they're charging AAA game prices for their game. Yes, that's right, babybois. Biomutant clocks in at a fat $60, which means I'm going to review this game like it was made by a big AAA tier gaming company.
And, boy do I have some good news for you if you like to save money. Biomutant isn't worth anywhere fucking near $60.
The current state of the game is not very good. The only comparison I can draw up from recent times would be cyberpunk, and yes, the game is in that rough of a shape right now. There's a lot that feels unfinished in the game, and it's stuff that is super noticeable. For example, probably half of the actions you do in the game lack sound effects, where it feels like you've suddenly had your head dunked into a sensory deprivation tank. Combine that with the fact that there's no real feeling of impact or weight to when you're doing attacks, and you'll probably be wondering if there's even any hit registration in the game. I can't stress enough how awkward/bad the combat is, you feel like a 4 year old throwing a tantrum, pissing their pants and swinging their fists in the air. It's just plain bad, that's all I can say.
The writing and lore of the game is some of the worst I've ever seen in a modern day video game. Which is a pretty big bummer, when this game was in development for 4 years. So, you'd expect at least the narrative and dialogue to be well done. Instead, it's pretty fucking embarrassing to listen to through the entire game, and basically makes you feel like your brain is growing fungus. There's a lot of shit in this game that just is so utterly stupid sounding, you'll probably feel like you've been possessed by a haunted spirit of the Discord app. Elevators are called "uppy-downy's", something that sounds like a slang term people from Australia like @galenkp would use. All the enemies in the game have names like "Bompa Bonker" or "Muck Puff", maybe you'll hear "Quick, we've got to get to the NoNo Nest!" or something equally as sad. It's just very silly and not in a good way.
And, beyond the childish parts the rest of the narrative sucks ass as well. It's all nonsensical and most of the NPC's pretty much just say the same exact phrase to you, but slightly tweaked. It's downright diabolical how fucking bad the writing is on this game. All these characters just have copy/pasted dialgoue, and lack any creativity, depth or anything that makes them interesting. Just some example of what you can expect "Oh, I like scooters. Life is like a scooter, you never know where it's taking you.", and then the next guy you encounter "Oh, I really like bikes. Life is like a bike, you never know where it's taking you". But, we haven't even gotten to the worst bit of it. What could be worse, you might be asking? Well, sit the fuck down and get ready to cut off your ears, because the narrator is about to come slip his penis into them. Every single part of the game features dialogue from the narrator, and he never seems to shut the fuck up. It's literally probably the most annoying, obnoxious feature I've ever heard in a video game. And, the dev's must have become aware at some point about it, because there's a fucking setting in the menu to make the narrator stop yapping his god damn mouth.
The voice cast is pretty scarce in this game, as there's only 3 voice actors total that were used, and 2 of them are for characters that you will barely interact with, with the last being the detestable narrator. Everything else in the game just makes those goofy banjo-kazooie style sounds with the narrator translating them. And, the majority of the lines you hear later on from characters end up not even having tweaking where every NPC you talk to will just have the same exact line. I've probably hammered this enough, but, seriously. This shit sucks. I might be coming off as harsh considering this is the dev team's first game, but, it's a AAA priced game and it doesn't reflect that at all. If this game was $20, I'd probably have had less issues with what we got. But, with that premium price I don't see any reason to pull my punches and not shit on the game for a disaster.
You're supposed to be exploring an open world in this game, but, don't you worry. It's basically a desolate wasteland and absolutely barren of life besides a shit ton of grass, so you won't have to waste any of your time actually enjoying yourself or finding anything fun/entertaining while you explore. I actually have to say, this might be one of the worst open world experiences I've had since Death Stranding. Getting from one point to another just feels laborious, and there's nothing interesting in between. You may or may not encounter a couple of enemies along the way, but, even then, they're always the same few things and they only have 1-2 attack patterns. So, while the appearance may differ, the attack types do not amongst all the enemies. Which means that even the random enemy encounters are fucking boring. And, if you do encounter a random NPC it falls back to that grand old issue of only having one line of dialogue and then saying see ya. Getting around the world of this game just isn't fun, and it feels devoid of actual life. Even the villages are literally nothing but 3-4 huts. It's a huge world, but completely empty.
The questing in the game is also pretty terrible, which is exactly what you expect from an RPG, right? I mean, maybe you'll enjoy the questing if you're a literal lobotomite who can't stop drooling while moving a joystick. Otherwise, I'd assume you'll probably think it's dogshit. The main quests in the game are probably about 90 percent fetch quests, where you just go gather so and so materials to do so and so. Then the other 10 percent of the quests are go here and fight this boss. So, yeah, pretty terrible overall. The side quests aren't any better, and in fact, some of them don't even function at all. I can't say anything about the nonsensical plot or questing is fun at all. It feels like the barest of bones was used for this game in pretty much everyway.
Now, there is a skill tree/leveling up system in the game since it's an RPG. So, you can put points into stats which normally adjusts your way of combat, and there's also some mutations you can acquire which are kind of cool sometimes, but usually useless. But, I'm sure you'll be surprised when I tell you this, it's pretty awful. You can dump all your points into one specific stat and it hardly ever seems like you've progressed/gotten stronger or that it's made a difference at all. The only stat I noticed actually made a difference with the character and combat is the health stat, because you get more health. And, that's it. The combat itself can be interesting with how flashy it gets, and you can pull off some cool combos. But, because the combat is weightless and has no real impact, it never feels good which just kinda ruins it when you do pull off a cool combo or do something really over the top.
So, I've been going pretty hard on the game and have probably given you the impression that nothing at all is good with this game. But, lets nip that now. Because, there are a few things I do enjoy about the game. And, I think that the dev's who made this have talent and could definitely put out some good quality shit if they learn from this. The art of the game and the world design look great, as does the character design. Visually, the game is pretty damn good. I would say that's really the only thing that does feel like a AAA game here for the price. The mutation abilities are pretty cool to see/use as well, but don't really ever seem to work as intended and feel pretty useless beyond looking neat.
Overall, I would say stay the fuck away from this game for a long time. I think the people making this game wanted to do something really cool, but just overshot and missed due to being too ambitious. It's nowhere near being worth $60 in its current state, and I wouldn't even recommend it for more than $20-30 if they do end up patching a ton of stuff and fixing things. Hopefully the next game they put out is more polished and actually finished, instead of what we got here. Because, they definitely have the ability/talent to do so, in my opinon.
But, yeah. Until next time, you filthy degenerates.
Later!
