i'll ask again whether this game is "good" but i'm gonna phrase it thusly:
i currently have 52 gigs of free HDD space and 20-25 of those are reserved... is ELEX worth using up my other gigs of free space?
Eh, it depends aweigh. Did you play Gothic 1 and/or 2 and/or Risen 1? If so, did you enjoy them? Elex is very much a Piranha Bytes games like those. Personally I rate it higher then Risen, but not nearly as tight, far more chaotic then the Gothics. Perhaps it's most similar to Gothic 3. I'd kinda rate it on a similar level.
Exploration is very nice and can be quite rewarding.
Attributes only act as gates to get better equipment and a bunch of useful skills. Kinda sad but, to my surprise, it works well enough here. At least if you don't go crazy with crafting stat-boosting potions (which can break the system), ingredients for which are unlimited for some weird reason. The sense of progression is real. Perhaps even too much so, in this case. You always started weak in these PG games, but at least you could face level-appropriate challenges. Here even that is very troublesome early on - at least without resorting to some cheesy tactics, some of which are frequently mentioned here.
The combat system is very good in theory, BUT sadly the implementation is poor and the balancing is bad. Still it feels rather good to come back and kick the asses of enemies you've been running from for the last 10 levels. Also you can cheese most encounters, if that's your thing.
There's a huge variety of weapons. From swords, maces, axes and bows trough harpoons, xbows, shotguns, rocket and grenade launchers all the way to flamers, lasers and plasma rifles.
There's light and heavy attacks which you can chain for damage bonuses, plus special attacks which can be executed once you fill your combo meter plus jet pack charge attack.
Generally the ranged weapons also have different fire modes and/or ammo types. Seeker arrows, scatter arrows (x5), armor piercing harpoon spears, different types of rockets, fireball/stream, semi-auto/auto laser, plasma projectile / aoe ball.
Almost every weapon can be found somewhere in the wild. They come in 4 tires: regular and upgrades I-III (plus some "junk" tier weapons like bent pipe and rusty axe). So you will see variants of the same weapons throughout the game.
Kinda feel PB missed the opportunity here to make the weapons feel more unique. I mean every faction already has 2 models of weapons they have access to. Should have maybe made "regular" weapons generic, factionless, added +1 model per faction and have a clear progression, rather then (possibly) using the same weapon from level 3 to level 40 (after upgrades, if you're so inclined).
Also there are weapon enchantments for melee weapons. Kinda interesting with things like Stasis freezing enemy Stamina regeneration, but in practice the damaging DoT ones are the clear winners.
Oh, there are also named uniques - artifacts. But most of them are around Tier I power level with weird stat requirements for off beat builds/as secondary weapons for different types of builds (like a 2handed sword which mostly requires Dex, so would be good for a mostly ranged character). There are also notable exceptions with some high tech gun artifacts being top tier (but sometimes requiring high Strength + Dex rather then Int + Dex for example). Some have simply weird requirements, like very high Con.
The factions are varied and have unique flavors. Add a lot to the atmosphere of the game. You kinda start with the Berserkers (you don't HAVE to, but it's natural progression), which are kinda weird. Definitely not my favorite faction.
Also have interesting exclusive skills.
Overall the decision is easier if you've played previous PB games. If not, well, do you like open world, free form games? If so, this one is among the best out there. Just don't expect a Dragon's Dogma or Dark Souls combat here.
