Mutant Year Zero - Review @ PC Gamer

HiddenX

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PC Gamer has reviewed Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden:

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden review

Let's get it out of the way. Yes, that's an anthropomorphic pig and a duck, and yes, you can play as a fox, too. Ha! But you'll forget their inherent ridiculousness as you start to explore Mutant Year Zero's skeleton-strewn Sweden and face its stern tactics challenge. Very quickly Bormin was simply my gruff stalwart tank, Dux my sharp-eyed, crit-dealing sniper, and Farrow my sneaking shotgunner. God, I love that gang.

[...]

In fact, Mutant Year Zero too often leans on adding hit points to enemies to raise the stakes. There's a good number of different types, from molotov-throwing pyros to telekinetic leaders, medi-bots to armoured tanks. Each demands different strategies, but by the mid-game most are introduced and I found the majority of the challenge came in figuring out how to eke more damage out of my weapons. The answer lay mostly in fussy fiddling with add-ons to raise critical limits and give chances of setting raiders on fire and EMP-stunning robots.

And then the game ends. I found the story, such as it is, fulfilling enough. But in the 15 hours it took me to complete on Normal, I'd only just bought a couple of late-game skills and had barely used the other two characters; I wanted a chance to explore them. Coupled with plenty of little launch-period bugs which sometimes made upper floors invisible and could get confused about where I could move my characters to, I felt Mutant Year Zero isn't quite finished.

I could do an Iron Man permadeath-and-no-saves run and I started a Hard one, but still, it doesn't fully deliver on its potential. But it's also very good at addressing things many strategy games falter at, always ensuring you have information to make good decisions and using clear hit rules. While it lasts, Mutant Year Zero is a tense, absorbing and atmospheric new member of the XCOM family. I suppose wanting more of it is a good problem to have.

Score: 81/100
Thanks henriquejr!


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Well damn! I was extremely excited for this and then I saw the game length of 15 hours :( That's barely enough to get settled in!
 
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Well damn! I was extremely excited for this and then I saw the game length of 15 hours :( That's barely enough to get settled in!

Well, I read another review yesterday and they had it at roughly a simliar score but with 25 hours playtime and not-quite-at-the-end yet. So, considering my slow and obsessive compulsive exploration playstyle, I'm guessing around 35-45 hours to finish the game.

Sounds fairly decent anyway, so I'll certainly try it out once I am through with "Pathfinder".
 
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15 hours for a millenial whose brain was bleached by mobile-phone + WiFi overdose? This game will take at least 50 hours for me then. I'm a diligent, obsessive explorer!
 
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I hope it's fairly successful so that they can make a follow-up that is more RPG-like for the money ;)
To me it's a total waste to make something like this into an xcom-clone, i find x-com one of the least immersive games i've played together with Total War. It no doubt has things that are well done, but it's not a world which feels alive or immersive, and for me that's a deal breaker, it doesn't draw me in enough.
 
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I'm nearly finished so I think you should expect the time to be closer to 25 hours. Also note that pc gamer played on easy. I'm playing on hard and i suspect the other reviewer played on hard as combat takes a lot more time on the more difficult level.

Well, I read another review yesterday and they had it at roughly a simliar score but with 25 hours playtime and not-quite-at-the-end yet. So, considering my slow and obsessive compulsive exploration playstyle, I'm guessing around 35-45 hours to finish the game.

Sounds fairly decent anyway, so I'll certainly try it out once I am through with "Pathfinder".
 
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So, considering my slow and obsessive compulsive exploration playstyle, I'm guessing around 35-45 hours to finish the game.

.

This product is a network of levels.

15 hours for a millenial whose brain was bleached by mobile-phone + WiFi overdose? This game will take at least 50 hours for me then. I'm a diligent, obsessive explorer!
Streamers who chat, eat, drink, listen to music and try to complete products in order to gain the most of a product relatively to their show and line of work can barely reach half that mark.
 
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I read somewhere - I think it was on a review - that there is supposed to be some free DLC coming that should add a bit to game length... not certain if anyone else has heard of this?
 
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I'm nearly finished so I think you should expect the time to be closer to 25 hours. Also note that pc gamer played on easy. I'm playing on hard and i suspect the other reviewer played on hard as combat takes a lot more time on the more difficult level.

Actually, he wrote that he played on normal. But maybe normal is the new easy? It certainly seems that way in many games, these last coupe of years I've found myself cranking the difficulty up on several games, in the past I always went with normal.

15 hours does sound short, but I'm still buying. If there's DLC coming that lengthens the experience I'll gladly wait though.
 
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15 hours sounds like a blessing. I don’t know what the rest of you do to be able to game so much but 100 hour games take me 6-9 months to finish with my limited play time. I can only play so many of those. There’s definitely room for some short games in my life.
 
15 hours sounds like a blessing. I don’t know what the rest of you do to be able to game so much but 100 hour games take me 6-9 months to finish with my limited play time. I can only play so many of those. There’s definitely room for some short games in my life.

I can relate to that. I'll seldom get more than 2-3 hours in per week, so a 15 hour game might still take me a month to get through...
 
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For the record it took me just shy of 20 hours according to steam; didn't let the game sit idle much as i frequently do while I multi-task. Was a fun rump but short. Won't play again unless they add more content. I found everything but a pair of artifact so i'm not sure the value of playing again.
 
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Actually, he wrote that he played on normal. But maybe normal is the new easy?

Hardest difficulty is the new normal.

In the case of this product, new normal is hardest difficulty plus iron man plus permadeath.
 
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