Just let me shoot the dinosaurs!
Dinosaurs + Mechsuits = Fantastic Idea. It's basic math, and impossible to argue with. As evidenced by their upcoming title Exoprimal, Capcom is aware of this formula. I've participated in both of the game's public beta tests now, and I can confidently say that the game has nailed its ridiculously wonderful premise. BUT! I can also say that they're making some really dumb mistakes.
Before I get too ragey, let's start with what works. For starters, the dinos are great for many reasons. The first of which is they're not zombies. We've got so many zombie horde games that they're used as insulation in the walls of homes. True, some games have given us hordes of giant, thought-to-be extinct reptiles before, Second Extinction comes to mind, but Exoprimal puts an insane amount of writhing, wriggling, and hungry beasties on your screen. So many, in fact, that I'm shocked at how well the game ran during both beta tests. There wasn't a single dropped frame or chugging moment no matter how many raptors were cascading from the sky and clambering over one another to chew my face off. Even when an explosive sends a plume of dinos soaring into the air everything runs like an absolute dream, and it's endlessly enjoyable to behold.
While the scaly monsters are fun to watch, they're also fun to destroy because of the ten different Exosuits that you can pilot. Four Assault Exosuits, three Tank Exosuits, and three Support Exosuits that you can swap between at any time in a fight. Each one has a unique primary weapon, abilities, and lovingly detailed animations that make them a total blast to try out. In fact, I can't really think of one Exosuit that I wouldn't be happy to play as. Mowing down dinos with each one is fun, fun, fun!
Despite the great dinosaurs and robosuits, Capcom has decided to add an extra and completely unnecessary ingredient to the beautifully, mathematically proven formula: PvEvP. For reasons unknown to mankind, Capcom thinks that the best way to play this game is by forcing players to compete in 5v5 online matches where you and your team must complete a series of dino-killing objectives faster than the enemy team. WHY? WHY? WHY? Seriously, someone tell me why! It's baffling. Taking the ultra-frenetic combat that wants you to focus on hundreds of dinosaurs and then saying, "Oh by the way there are five other random humans doing this same thing, and I bet you'd much rather focus on doing it faster than them" is tremendously dumb.
Imagine, if you will, that you're playing a Diablo game. You're having a great time taking on enormous groups of foes, and then suddenly the game says, "UH-OH! You're having fun too slowly. You gotta kill better because some other random people you can't even see are doing it way faster than you. Oh, and if they keep going way faster than you, they'll eventually appear in your world and just kill you themselves." Yeah! Each match of Exoprimal ends with some dorky brawl between the two teams. A poorly-balanced brawl, might I add, because it's almost like the Exosuits were designed with the idea of fighting dinoswarms instead of player-controlled Exosuits. Ending everything with a stupid player versus player fight also kind of takes the wind out of any sense of achievement from the objective, AI-killing events that lead up to it too. Who cares if you can destroy dinosaurs quicker than the other players, if they're just going to jump into your world and kick your butt themselves anyway?
To be fair to Capcom, they have said that when the game arrives on July 14, it will have a game mode that doesn't end by having you directly fight other players. Great! Now just remove the other players entirely! I'm aware that I'm about to sound like a total loser who doesn't understand how hard it is to make video games, but it shouldn't be that hard! Exoprimal has such a fun, goofy premise and so much polished, enjoyable gameplay that the blind focus on competitive play is just so frustrating. There's already a great system in place for randomizing the events and objectives within a match, all that would need to be done is just line it all up into a wave-based survival mode.
For an example of how this could work, look no further than the multiplayer mode in Mass Effect 3. First you choose an overall difficulty level, and then dive into a match where the goal is to survive ten waves of increasingly difficult foes. Crucially, Mass Effect 3 also let you decide whether or not you wanted to play with random players or just you and some friends. Occasionally those waves would have a randomized objective, and when you were done with everything you got some in-game currency to spend on earning new weapons, character variations, and customization options. Easy! Simple! Immensely entertaining! Exoprimal already has announced their plans to include loads of customization options for your Exosuits and even Exosuit variants! Sweet! Let us work toward those just by replaying a simple, PvE mode over and over and over and over!
The idea of replaying something again and again may sound unappealing on paper, but Exoprimal has some good bones! Its structure, presentation, and moment-to-moment gameplay is so fun that it could easily be replayed for a long time. That replayabilty takes an immense hit, however, when the only game mode is a competitive, high-stress clock race which requires ten players. Of course, the second beta for the game allegedly included 10-player co-op missions, but I never managed to get matched into one since there wasn't an option to simply choose that game mode and it had to happen randomly. Stupid. Also stupid that it had to include nine other players.
The survey from the second Exoprimal beta didn't give me much hope either as it wanted to know what game modes I preferred the most from the following options: "Playing with others against another team, playing with others against another team of AI Exosuits, or playing with a team of AI Exosuits." Um. None of these. Just let me jump into your game, and play it. Jump in. Shoot dinos. Repeat. Revisit that formula at the top, of this article, Capcom. I'm sincerely hoping the game has more to offer when it arrives, because I can see myself spending a lot of time in this zany dino world if it would just allow me to enjoy it by myself or with a few friends.