Bleeding Edge Review
"An Odd Bunch"
Multiplayer
This is a multiplayer focused title where players are battling it out for objectives as various weird augmented heroes. It takes the whole hero fighting concept and turns it into a melee focused competition. Within the game you’re either battling to take control pads, or to gather canisters and drop them off.
There are some neat dynamics to these modes however, with certain places being on timers and adjustments to how the maps change over time. It’s interesting, but also rather limiting as that’s all this game has to it. There are no additional modes, or content to it with a very narrow focus. It’s an interesting situation, as it keeps the player base funneled but also limited in what you can do with it.
I liked what I was playing, at the time same time I was getting tired of it due to a limited quantity of maps with just the two modes being available. I like that both are objective based, as that reinforces the core aspect of teamwork which is essential in this one, but perhaps some PVE aspects might have been nice. It’s hard to really dive into as there isn’t a whole lot of content here, it’s a very shallow sort of experience.
Gameplay
This does handle quite well, and it’s a very streamlined sort of combative system. You’re mostly using melee, some characters can fire weapons but they’re limited in range. It has a good balance to it, and you’ll need to work together to be successful. There are a number of classes characters fall into, such as support for healing the more intense brawlers. Each character has distinct skills in combat, and an ultimate that charges over time.
Characters also have a level of variability to them with mods that slightly adjust their unique abilities. As you move, you can use a hoverboard to fly around if you can activate that as your regular pace is fairly slow. I note the activation as it takes a few seconds for the hoverboard to start. This movement element is a nice break for the action and makes it slightly less frantic, to lean on the strategic aspects of play. I liked how they segmented positions, and got people moving around the map. The levels are greatly varied, but there aren’t too many of them.
They each have a unique style, with some fun smaller tweaks to the flow of play. This includes trains that will mow you down, moving platforms and differing options for elevation. The visual aesthetic is interesting with a cel shaded art style. I like the look, but I felt they could have taken the quality further. Looking at Crackdown 3 for example, that style and aesthetic looks much better there.
Here it seems a bit basic, and paired with that are some performance issues on Xbox One X which is disappointing. There’s a lot of connectivity lag as well, but I’m giving that aspect a break due to the Xbox Live servers being pounded due to the pandemic that’s going on in the real world at the moment of writing. Still, it should be a flawless performance here as there doesn’t seem to be all that much really going on action wise.
The Conclusion
Bleeding Edge is fun to play, but it’s rather shallow in terms of content and has some performance issues. There really isn’t a whole lot going on with this one, so it’s hard to talk about in a truly in-depth way. I’ve put in some good time with the game, and have been enjoying it. I’m just somewhat bored of it already and without additional content this one will likely vanish over time. It’s worth checking out right now, there’s such a neat roster of characters.
Seriously, they nailed the funky styles and weird looks for their character roster. I was also hoping for more tweaks on them, as the cosmetic adjustment options are limited and the mods don’t do too much for changing them. It was nice to earn content in-game, but that also feels like quite a grind to work towards. I thought the gameplay felt balanced, and I liked how characters would counter one another.
It has some really interesting designs when it comes to how objectives are played, and the structuring of the maps. I just generally wish there was more to this, or that the game was expanded further. I think it’s important to have smaller multiplayer games like this, but I also have a bad feeling this one will eventually just sort of fade away unless we see an expansion to the base content that’s present in this one. So generally fun, for a brief time and then you’ll likely move on.
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Bleeding Edge Review on Xbox One X
Review Access Provided by Microsoft
Rating Overall: 6.7
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