There is no way to know the difference between one item and another until you hover your mouse of it in your inventory as one assault rifle looks exactly the same as another. This doesn't compare well to how a game like
Torchlight 2 shows off its kit, all of which is very different and changes the player's avatar dramatically when equipped.
It is possible to modify the character's appearance slightly by crafting items from ingredients picked up during missions. But this doesn't have any bearing on how powerful the player is, just how much ingredients they have collected.
This runs counter to the traditional hack 'n slash model of equipment acquisition, as the more powerful a character becomes, the more imposing they should look.
MH does not appear to do this, which is the first of the issues I encountered with the game during my time on it during the closed beta.
Experience is earned by collecting glowing yellow orbs that are sometimes dropped by enemies. This means that not every kill grants experience. Instead the player is rewarded in bursts of experience and pre-defined points as the game deems necessary.
This appears to be a mechanic that allows the developers to create a varying rate of experience gain, depending on whether or not they have paid for such an acceleration measure. This is another aspect of
MH that runs contrary to the standard hack 'n slash model. One that doesn't really need much in the way of tweaking, at least in this previewer's opinion anyway.
As I progressed through the game I found a number of aspects of it to be troubling to the point of being annoyed and even bored by it. The first was spawning enemies from areas I had already traversed. I'd be running along, minding my own business when all of sudden I'd be surrounded by t-shirt and jeans wearing thugs.
I dispatched them easily enough, but their spawning nature irked me somewhat and disturbed the flow of play. It also went against the fog of war-exploration system that allows players to traverse previously explored areas unhindered.
The next issue were the tougher enemies, whose only attribute was their increased number of hit-points. They had the same abilities as the other creatures, they just took longer to kill. So while this did increase the danger it placed me it, it did not do much for the entertainment value of the game as it just forced me to kick out at the enemies and run in circles as I shot at them, a lot.
My last gripe has to be with the super-powers themselves. One of The Punisher super-powers is an RPG, which he plucks out from thin air and fires in exchange for some spirit. This made no sense. Why would firing a magical RPG cost someone their spirit?
Perhaps The Punisher is feeling remorse over the amount of destruction he is causing? Yes that's probably it. This also may be the reason why the RPG seems to be about effective as the foamy projectiles fired by Nerf guns. This was the case even after I dumped a load of skill points into it as well.
At this point you may be declaring that I am very much a 'negative-Nancy' who can't see any redeeming features to
MH as it presently stands in its beta form. Well that's where you're wrong! For there is the fact that the environments are littered with items that can be thrown, kicked and blown up. All of which can damage enemies to the point where it's more effective to do so than shooting them repeatedly in the face.
Visually
MH does look a little bland, with gray and brown being the predominant palettes. This is a symptom of the initial levels, as I'm sure there are more varied environments later on in the game, so I won't chastise
MH for that. The game has been built using the Unreal Engine, which does make the game rather demanding to run. My PC did sweat a little, especially where there were a fair few enemies on the screen. I can only put this down to more optimisation needed thanks the beta state the game is currently in.
After playing
MH I can see how it has been designed from the ground up to be free to play. While it is possible to play the game without paying a single penny, any items paid for will be either acceleration or vanity based. It's the former that troubles me most, as the game is not well paced for free-to-play, which may lead to people buying experience boosters just to make the game's pace more palatable.
This is a very low-level form of cripple-ware, in that the game becomes almost unplayable unless some monies are paid. For an example of how not to adopt this model, one only has to see how Star Wars: The Old Republic has turned into a free-to-play nightmare of a game. For they have gone so far as to deny basic functionality to those who pay no fee at all. Oh the horror.
As you may have gathered from my time with
MH the game needs more work before being unleashed to the unsuspecting public. The spawning enemies, the high hit-point versions of them, the seemingly unchanging visual aspect of the player's avatar and engine optimisation can all be fixed. Once they are
MH could be an entertaining game, as right now it needs more time in the workshop.
