The Surge

In order to play this game, i had to roll back my AMD adrenaline software/drivers back to 24.12.1 (the current drivers are 26.6.2) - the game hasn't crashed in the additional 40 ish hours it took to finish the game. it was crashing every 15 minutes prior to that. i've seen other reviews about how the combat is "too hard" - it's not, however, the game can be difficult because there very hard punish windows if you think you can just tank through the game like a button masher. you simply can't animation cancel out of some attack movements and you'll get wrecked because the enemy can pull off a counter attack. combat is indeed clear and responsive thanks to the game's gear augment/implant system where you can do things like boost your hp/stamina/energy regen and amount of heals you can carry. you'll probably read a lot about how the first boss is too hard - and it is until you understand how the combat system works and that you should always be upgrading your gear and adjusting your skills/implants. the boss combat patterns need to be learned as well, which of course you're going to die a few times. as far as difficulty, it's a lot more forgiving/less overwhelming than the dark souls series, for sure.if i could scale the difficulty as compared to other souls-like games i've played.. i'd say easiest would be Ashen -> Thymesia -> LOTF2023 -> The Surge -> Elden Ring The story was done really well and is presented in audio files that you have to find/collect while playing through the game. There's also the traditional guide-like mission director - who shows up to you in hologram form, telling you that you have to get to the main part of the station. then there's also the documentary style video clips that play across TVs you encounter while going deeper into the game. all of them lead to a great story twist that makes this game unique compared to other soulslikes. the general atmosphere of the cyber/mecha dystopia setting is really cool - the main character is a paraplegic who gets an exosuit installed and he wakes up in a junkyard and everyone has gone nuts through some neurolink virus that infected the other workers and machines installed with the same exosuit rig you're using. speaking of story - a lot of it is told through the environment. the way that the set design is for the different areas is something that i haven't seen since dead space 1. as for the map layout, there isn't much hand-holding like in other games. no mini-map, waymarkers, quest markers or overview map to see the layout of the area you're in. the map is actually well designed and adds to the sense of exploration that this game offers. you really are trying to fight your way through a giant base, learning its layout and unlocking doors and paths that create shortcuts to make traveling easier. again, kind of like dead space 1 in that sense - the USG ishimura has a logical layout interconnected by trams or corridors and access points. now imagine navigating the whole USG ishimura without a map or ez path/questmarkers - that's pretty much the layout of "the surge" - you're exploring a whole station. now you can understand why some people will complain about that. however, if you can handle no GPS and not rage like a lost child, then you'll find that the map design is a challenge and a puzzle on its own.