Back 4 Blood Review (Bottle of Acid)
Back 4 Blood is a pretty weird game. Is it good? Kinda, its decent. Half of it is great, it is one of the more engaging horde shooter experiences. The other half is a janky game with weird design choices that really hamper the enjoyment of this title.
+Very good gunplay. The guns are snappy and sound great, headshots pop zombies quick and it feels satisfying to snipe. Shotguns feel powerful as is, and generally all guns are pretty decent at their role. You can modify the guns to behave slightly differently and with the cards system it changes more as well.
-Weapon attachments cannot be pulled out of guns, and the game uses a RPG style colored loot tier that does not gel very well imo.
+The card system is pretty good. I like building different decks which completely change up your playstyle. You can build a sniper deck which focuses on damage, crits, and get cards that reload your rifle while you switch to your sidearm. You can build a melee deck / shotgun hybrid with good move speed and healing effects. Quite a fair bit of choices, with some meta cards on higher difficulties.
-Because cards are all locked behind a progression tier called supply lines, you have to grind out unlocking these cards by advancing the tiers. They are like battle passes, and you cannot selectively choose what you want in each "pass". At the start of the game, your cards are pretty bad, so if you want to play on higher difficulties, you have to grind quite a bit. This is good for some looking for farming experience to prolong shelf life though.
+Map atmosphere and sound design, visuals are great. Very atmospheric. Distant gunfire, screams, growls, the world feels very alive and you feel like you are part of the war. The voice acting is decent, and the characters have some interaction with each other. I do like the whole angle of how you are part of the 'remaining military' carrying out operations and strikes against the zombies vs the usual survivors merely living theme. Levels are pretty well done, with set pieces that are fun to navigate and look at.
-The entire game is set in one general region, with a lot of reused areas. The same map can be reused 3 times, once each campaign, except with some changes in pathing and the time of day. This isn't that big of an issue, but it does feel a little stale after a while of grinding.
+-Basic mobs are great to fight, and specials, while pretty engaging to tackle, do have a big issue of spawning in massive amounts. The game likes to do the l4d equivalent of spawning 4 spitters, 4 boomers, 3 chargers, 1 witch and a tank all at the same time, from spawn points literally a few meters from your team. The result is a coin toss where some runs are very easy due to far spawns and sometimes you just wipe because the game thinks its funny to spawn 3 of the smasher types around a small bend and then 2 exploding specials behind you so you have nowhere to retreat to, all the while having another 2 specials that can range grab you. You end up with a wide range from smooth easy runs on higher difficulties when everything falls into place nicely or some badly spawned combinations just wipe your team.
For content value Im not sure i can recommend it at this price. It feels like a 45$ game, and this sentiment I had before and now, 28 hours after launch early access, I share the same view. More free content needs to happen, but looking at Evolve my hopes aren't high. The game can feel a little stale unless you're okay with grinding for supply points to unlock cards in the same environment for hours on end. A recommend, but take caution.