Quick Look: LawBreakers

So much menu dubstep.

I picked this up on steam to try after a ton of going back and forth. I enjoyed myself for the most part but it just didn't grab me enough to pull me away from my normal multiplayer shooters (primarily siege/pubg) and I ended up refunding it. If it were free-to-play I can likely see myself putting in a handful of hours but still probably not playing enough to get really good.

The games [lack of] personality didn't really help and everything outside the gameplay (particularly UI) just felt like it was missing that last level of polish.

For the people who are asking why they should play this instead of Overwatch, the game is probably not for you. I played it a bit in open beta, and it's way more of a twitch arena shooter, and Overwatch is very much not like a twitch arena shooter. The games are really nothing alike despite looking the same.

EDIT: Ultimately the question is probably why you should play this over some of the upcoming games like the new Quake.

@johnny_sailor said:

Lawbreakers looks like if the staff of an e-cig shop made a video game.

Are you a law? You should say if you are a law.

Painfully boring aesthetic.

Jeff seems pretty poor at shooters, do they not have anyone better to show of the game?

Also the ball has a shield that needs to be lowered before picking it up, that's why Jeff runs by it a ton of times.

Feels like this game is getting a rough deal when it's shown of like this.

@jwat: You've obviously never seen Jeff in any of the Call of Duty/ Battlefield/ Titanfall/ Destiny videos on the site.

Also, "l33t skillz" has zero relevance in determining what features a game includes and how that game plays.

@dasakamov: I've seen him play Titanfall 2 recently and he spent most of his time jogging around on the ground, clearly under using basic features of the game seems to be a common theme.

And to your other comment I don't really understand what you're referring too, if someone watches poor gameplay and assumed it was because the game plays badly then they are a bit simple.

@crazybagman: Three shines to my one shine? Hmmm... DEAL!

@jwat: Granted, it's probably been about 4 months or so since I watched a Jeff Titanfall 2 vid, but he was doing plenty of wall-running, boost-jumping and grappling then; also, he "prestiged" (or whatever it's called) pretty soon after the game's release.

I undertand your point that people might get the impression that the game is at fault if the quick-looker is dying in rapid succession, but GB staff in general have been good at explicitly saying "wow, these controls are poorly implemented / laggy / broken as hell" and differentiating that with "whelp, I died because I wasn't paying attention and / or I got outplayed".

Zzzz...

:(

Are you sure you mean the Union Jack ? I'm not sure how the official flag of the United Kingdom can be racist

This game is totally acceptable mechanically and design wise, but it's so horribly unimaginative and so bad at making anything you do feel all that good that I gave up on it after a couple matches.

By contrast, it only took 2 matches in the open beta for me to buy Overwatch, and I never looked back.

This game looks terrible when a new person plays it. I was hoping GiantBomb would have spent more time with it before showing it off. It always sucks to see a game you like getting a lot of hate. Oh well.

Well...I like that the ball is Morty. Whether that’s enough to overcome how bad a taste Cliff’s intereviews “promoting” this game at E3 left in my mouth remains to be seen.

Blind fire behind you in a FPS is a pretty fucking genius idea.

Damn!

Always wondered what that twitch face meant, cheers Ben.

I'm not sure about Ben saying Justin Roiland only has one character , when he famously voices both Rick and Morty

Yeah... :-/

Aside from the interesting, somewhat droll idea of something being "super racist" as opposed to "racist" (no idea what the criteria is for judging that), the Union Jack isn't racist in the least. Some people are trying to remove it from flags, yes, but that's because Australia and New Zealand are no longer colonies and some people in those countries want flags that represent their independence.

It's much less race and more nationalism / political identity stuff. "Me Australia. Me powerful country. Me have own flag!" sort of chest beating thing.

As for the game, it looks alright. I hope this doesn't wind up dead in three months like a lot of other multiplayer-only games. Seeing only a few thousand people on Steam during launch week is a bit worrisome. *shrug*

Edit addition: this is a confusing era.

I'm a really big fan of Rick and Morty, but boy do I not want to hear Roiland in random ass video games. If not for the tidbit that he and CliffyB are friends, I'd call it a cynical ploy to appeal to "the hot new thing that the kids are into these days". Hell, even with that tidbit I'm not entirely convinced it isn't.

I just can get over the obnoxious attitude of this game

#UnappealingAF

"Hey I'm here with your obligatory comment about how I love Rick and Morty but I hate the fandom!" I mean...I could say the same thing about the PAX wrestling stuff or literally anything that has a fandom...literally...anything.

The game is fine on a controller; it is slower paced than any COD since MW or hell especially the black ops games, overwatch, titanfall 2, doom, etc and they all play well on a controller. That's just some "Let me cater to the PC Master Race, bruh!" commenting from...the artist formerly known as Dude Huge.

Largely my complaints thus far are largely aesthetic complaints as literally nothing about this game looks good to me. Shooter wise its fun outside of the consistently boring ultimates, the pace of the movement, and the fact its yet another loot/crate based FPS that desperately wants streamers to pick it up and make it the next thing. I honestly do regret buying it only because I know I won't be playing it anymore afte Destiny 2 comes out.

@that_lamer How is this any different than any other actor, not voice actor, getting pulled for something?

@steveurkel Other than everything being racist to someone on Twitter, no...the Union Jack is not "racist".

I'll be one of the few defenders in here: I think this game feels great (playing on PC). Movement and shooting are just snappy. That's enough for me at $30 for a few games a night.

I will totally not defend the aesthetic/attitude though.

Looks like a 6,5/10 game that will be forgotten by most in a month or two.

Also, what's up with giving decals and coins as reward? Has anyone ever felt happy about receiving that? Try something different, unique weaponeffects, new taunts, sound bites, whatever

I played a lot during the open beta and it just isn't a game that's going to hold my attention. Primarily because I don't care for the "teamplay" or game modes. It's like they intentionally picked the most boring game modes they could think of and then added their own twists which only made them worse. Most of them seem to be CTF variants of the same game type, too. I didn't care for the weird control point style mode either.

I don't think the classic arena FPS style fast-paced gameplay really lends itself to class-based teamplay either. It seems like they should have just made a UT-style game.

A nitpick, I guess, but... There are too many screen altering effects in this game. When you enter the low-grav areas, there's this awful distortion effect that takes up WAY TOO MUCH screen space around the sides. You spend far too much time in the low-grav sections of the game for that to be acceptable. Also, I believe there's heat shimmering effect in addition to some weird gradient like effect that you can especially see when looking at characters in the customization screen and character selection screen. It's all too much.

I just don't think this game is really going to take off, sadly. It doesn't help that until Quake Champions it's the first real classic style FPS hitting the market with some weight behind it and they offer no real tutorial for new players. The YouTube videos in-game are terrible. The majority of FPS players now have never played a game like Quake or UT. You really need to teach them the ropes because this game has a very high skill-ceiling.

The gameplay is great, though. That's why I pray they make some better game modes.

Hey @vinny!

Lawbreakers problem is that the designs all kinda blend together. It's just tacticool human-shaped shadows sometimes shooting lasers at you and sometimes wearing a cowboy hat. In a class-based fast paced game, it's important to be able to quickly identify your teammates and opponents, simply based on their outline. Cliffy B seems to think he's making a new Unreal Tournament game where he can just have overdesigned soldiers and gun skins and stickers, like anyone would ever notice if your gun is camo blue or camo pink.

TF2 and Overwatch goes for the cartoonish designs purposely, so they have have exaggerated-looking characters that you can instantly identify at range and in motion.

@bam_boozilled: I gotchu, fam.

This was a bad showing for the game. Jeff and Ben showed very little knowledge of the game as a whole, and also didn't really show just how skilled this game can really get. They should've spent more time learning this before recording a quick look. When you really dive into this game, it is much more intense and thrilling compared to a certain game people lazily compare this to.

i reallllyyy dont get the hate for this game, like doesn't the low grav combined with movement abilities while in it add depth to the game? overwatch just makes you feel like a 21 and 4 god with hand holding mechanics. Also a lot of people are kicking up a stink about the character design, the power of anime is that strong on you huh? There is low grav and ability based vertical movement in this game that are viable in a gun fight(like enforcer sprint and all of wraith) ,that is kind of inventive in my opinion. i mean even in quake you stop bunny hopping when you encounter someone(sometimes anyway). In bo3 and cod aw jumping up in the air was only viable at close range plus dashing removed ability to fire. . overwatch is HEY look at me im an anime girl fire hosing a giant slow gorilla....whatever... ( dont hate i admit there must have been games that used viable vertical movement in the middle of a gunfight too but never this blatantly/stylish..(tribes sucked)

@paulunga said:

Hey @vinny!

I saw this and thought of how Overwatch has the EVA Pharah skin.

Was already disliking the voice of the ball even before knowing it was Justin Roiland. Seems like his whole deal is just to scream and do annoying voices every time.

@dropkickpikachu: It doesn't come up in conversation frequently, but Jeff is definitely a fan of 'Tim & Eric' and that whole approach to humor.

I needed money, but I had none.