but https://www.facebook.com/polygon/videos/1213903321955627/
More seriously, Polygon isnāt the only place that has trashed this game. As I said earlier, people donāt just not like this game, they despise it. On Metacritic it has a 38 critic score and a 3.9 user score (why are those on two different scales?) On the release day pretty much every forum for the game I went to was filled with people actively cheering on the gameās demise. This game had everything riding against it.
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The franchise has mainly been about single player adventures and fans have been waiting years for a new entry. An MP focused e-sports shooter feels like a betrayal and waste of time/money.
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Itās a low budget game and it looks lit. Give it a passing glance and you will most likely pass it off as some F2P thing. I myself forgot about the gameās existence up until a month or two ago. The only reason I took interest in it is because I decided to see what the recent trailers made the game look like and I found the perceived wonkiness endearing. (I am the kind of guy who was tossing and turning last night over whether I should finally buy Clan of Champions.)
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The game doesnāt teach you the mechanics very well, especially some important things like countering melee attacks, and convince you why this gameās controls need to feel different from the standard genre templates. Additionally the single player mode is not great. It is very likely there just to placate complaints that the game was going to be MP only. (I guess it provides an avenue to test some guns and maps but even matches with bots would have been far, far better.)
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I donāt think the game had any marketing budget, at least in the West. I see dev streams on the Japanese Biohazard channel but there is almost nothing about this game in the West for the past year.
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Apparently Capcom did not provide a way for game sites to review the game before release. The sites that have reviews out had to have someone try and find matches within the tiny game population. Iām sure theyāre busy and they donāt have time for a game where you potentially wait for several minutes just to get the six players needed to start a match, followed by dying in a few shots. People had the worst expectations for this game and Capcom did nothing to manage that so with being unable to play the game a reasonable amount within your time constraints you write what your gut tells you.
I donāt think itās surprising at all how this gameās reception has gone. It sucks for people who do like it, and the negativity around release will probably deter the growth of any small cult following it could have gotten if it just quietly came and went, but it is what it is. The unfortunate part is that last summer there were several articles from well known sites like PC Gamer saying they were pleasantly surprised by what they played of it (there must have been some sort of game event) but Capcom doesnāt seem to have capitalized on that. Umbrella Corps will sleep alongside Lost Planet 2 as a neat game no one liked, and maybe people will come around to it in a few years, and maybe a miracle will happen and it wll get a second lease on life like Phantom Dust.
But for now just play it while you can! Weāve already got a trailer for some upcoming free maps and modes so thereās at least one content update to look forward to (if thereās anyone still around to play it with).
Multiplayer gaming identity politics: seek out weakness and enrich yourself by pouncing upon it.
how much is this
is it worth it
$30 base price, $40 for deluxe edition (bonus customization stuff that can be bought as a DLC pack for $15). For PC GreenManGaming has a 20% off coupon you can use to drop the price to $24/32.
I donāt think itās worth it without knowing what youāre getting into. I have no idea what size the playerbase is on PS4 but I canāt imagine itās too much larger than the 98 people playing on PC right now. Matches only need 6 people, which makes things easier, but itās already taking a few minutes to find games. I enjoy the game but Iām sure there are smarter ways to spend that much money on a game unless youāre fine with that and the real potential of not being able to find any matches very soon.
can we start an official Selectbutton/Talesofthecon (my website) Umbrella Corp league on twitch
If you can get at least six people to own the game for the same system, sure! The game has a Friend Match mode that I havenāt tried- I assume itās custom lobbies. But I have the game on PC and at a glance I never found a way to create a party for ranked matches or anything. I might just be missing it.
Playing with a party but talking in party chat (as opposed to in-game voice chat) would be busted since dead players can see the entire map. I wonder if the existence of party chat has stymied the usage of cool things like that.
we can always set it up on discord or something. I can get it for PC and surely run it if I run RER: 2 just fine. do any other SB folks own it?
No idea! I doubted it, except for jodeaux. Post of up if you have the game!
I have it on PC.
Put me down as a tentative owner. Once I establish an income in the next few weeks I might get a copy but the game will probably be super dead by then. Iām sure thereās a good zombie joke in there.
Coming back to this, the low time to kill also makes it hard to make quick adjustments when under fire. I guess this is natural to any game like that but UC has a ton of different mechanics that itās hard to play with all of them as quick I want to. I think some of this could be alleviated by just making the intermediary game stuff go quicker, specifically the end of round screen and scoreboard. And just for learning purposes I wish I had more rounds to play in before being booted back to the lobby to choose the next map. Once Iām comfortable I think the best 3-out-of-5 works well for ranked matches.
With how quickly you move and how many different paths these maps have itās actually very scary to stay in place. Your FOV is fairly small so Iām actually hesitant to just take cover and scope things out in fear Iāll get attacked from behind. Then again running around constantly isnāt a great strategy since thereās no guarantee Iāll have cover near when enemy fire starts.
Just got to keep playing and learn the tactics!
Wow, what a zinger youāve got there, Umbrella Corps Man.
Edit: I just noticed the Facebook link I posted earlier didnāt work. Here is the fixed version: https://www.facebook.com/polygon/videos/1213903321955627/
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good dog animations
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Waited 15 minutes for a match to no avail. This game is dead. Slash the price to 5 bucks CapCom, or youāve doomed this game.
Hey, it took me only 25 minutes today to get the 6 people needed for a match! L-O-V-E!
(You whistle along with this emote.)
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Umbrella Corps in a Nuthsell
Still not sure why this game got so utterly destroyed. Played for an hour and itās actually pretty good. I think the small FOV is great, since it adds to the paranoia that someone might attack from behind.
If any selectbuttoneers have a PC copy, let me know, should play sometime!
The PC version probably would have been better received if the mouse controls worked right on launch. But they were finally patched yesterday so thatās cool!
For anyone still playing this game, how is the population on PS4? You can see PC numbers and theyāre arenāt very high- depending on your luck it can take a few minutes but sometimes it can take 20-30 minutes. Are there similar wait times on PS4 or is it a bit better? If the difference is measurable Iāll probably go ahead and get it on PS4 too.*
Also, hereās a quick walk through of the new map based on Spencer Mansion if you want to compare it to the actual games. Itās a cool map with lots of hallways and closed doors, recreating that feeling of not knowing whatās going to be on the other side.
*Yes, I am stupid.