Luitenant_Gruber Deep Rock Galactic Review

Masterfully crafted game and the prime example of keeping a game interesting. I love Deep Rock Galactic. It is simple, mindless and repetitive, but it has the ultimate gameplay loop that keeps me entertained for hours. In the basics, you play as a grumpy dwarf that is sent on mining expeditions to collect resources, both for the mission, and minerals to use yourself for upgrading and purchasing new gear. You select various missions, which play in dimly lighted, randomly generated caves and complete your mission, while collecting all kinds of minerals and items to bring back with you to the Space Station. Accompanying you is a “Mule”, which is a robot on legs in which you can store the mission items and collected minerals. Throughout each mission, many different minerals can be found and mined, including rare artifacts and upgrade materials. When playing alone, a drone named Bosco comes with you and can shoot enemies and mining minerals. Speaking of enemies, throughout your expeditions, you are constantly hindered and attacked by the local wildlife called Glyphids. These are spider-like aliens that want nothing but your swift demise. There are many different Glyphids and other alien races that are present at each level and each one is as annoying as the last. There are four classes to choose from: The Driller, which specializes in breaking through rubble and digging tunnels, the Scout, which can light large areas of the cave, the Engineer which can create platforms to reach high places, and the Gunner which obliterates Glyphids in rapid succession. Each class has its unique play style, weapons and tools and, when combined with other players, real teamwork can be achieved. This class design is one of the best aspects of the game. For example, your Engineer places a platform high on the rock and your Scout reaches it with his Grappling Hook and mines the minerals. Each mission earns you rewards like credits, mined minerals and experience. When completing certain tasks, you also earn skill points that you can use to improve your character. When reaching level 20, a special mission can be played to promote your character, resetting it to level 1, while keeping your upgrades and skills. Do this three times and your dwarf has become the best of the best. After 15 levels, a statue will be placed in the Memorial Hall in honor of you. When returning from a mission, you arrive at the Space Station, your hub of operations. Here, you can switch your class, modify your dwarf with a million different cosmetic items, play dumb video games, drink beer, shake your booty on the dance floor and spend your minerals upgrade your weapons and gear, or purchase new items. The amount of stuff to do at the Space Station alone is mind blowing. There are about eleven different types of missions that you can choose from. From simple mining missions to Egg hunts, Dreadnought extermination and Liquid Morkite refinery. Although this could get a little repetitive over time, the constant switching between these mission types, the randomly generated caves and the slightly different secondary objective make the experience unique enough each time. I really like the graphical style of this game. It is cell shading polygon and not meant to be mind blowing, but it still looks pretty nice. The animations are fluent, the controls just work and the soundtracks are fantastic. I like the constant grumpy commentary of the dwarves when they are calling the Mule to their location, when you shoot your teammate by accident or when you arrive at your mission at the beginning. You can hear immediately that this game does not take itself seriously. Later in the game, you unlock Deep Dives and the Forge. Deep Dives are just three missions crammed together in one large mission, while giving you a ton of XP and resources upon completing them. If you are looking for a real challenge, there are also Elite Deep Dives. The Forge can be used to crafts cosmetic item sets or “overclocks” that can give your weapons the little boost they need to become unstoppable. On top of the many, many things that you can do in Deep Rock Galactic, the added seasons and specials events make it even more fun. When Christmas arrives, you can play special Christmas themed assignments to earn unique cosmetics and a ton of resources. You also got the seasonal Terminal, in which you can earn special tokens to unlock new weapon skins and minerals. In harder missions, on higher difficulty levels, hazards are introduced in each level and some of them are awful, like the Low Blood sugar for example in which you take damage every second and need to kill enemies to collect their healing crystals. Another small complaint with this game is the “High Ground” glitch. Enemies can attack and hurt you when you are above them because of some Clipping, making them stop underneath a platform or ledge, while going full Rambo on you. Meanwhile, you cannot do anything about it. But in the end, I can only praise this game. It got a lot of stuff to do, unlock, collect and experience and keeps you entertained forever because of the seasons, events and new content. Definitely recommend this game!