The broadcast was announcing a concert at the nearby amphitheatre.
A Billy Idol concert.
Yeah, you read that right.
(Whiskey & Pillsfrom his 2014 album, rather than anything youre likely to have heard.)
There is no context for this cameo.
Billiam doesnt feature as an NPC.
In the 40-ish hours I spent playing the game, I had no reason to return to the amphitheatre.
Its the sort of random that I can respect, and I only wish the game had more.
At first glance, this kind of why the heck not?
attitude is all over the place.
The Outlaws are the most stereotypically post-apocalyptic in theMad Max-cum-Fallout vein, all scrap armour and conventional weapons.
The Clerics are a hi-tech religious order who have definitely been playing too much Warhammer 40k.
They birthed the pasty-faced Albs, the baddies from the first game, who you might now align with.
The high point of this is definitely the Fort and its surrounding environs.
Elex 2 is very much a Piranha Bytes game.
Its an open-world RPG that cares precisely not one jot about whether you live or die.
Sadly, it also has the same problems as the previous game.
Presumably the first twoGothicgames, but I could never get past their terrible controls.
The difficulty is all over the place.
Balance isnt even an afterthought, its just nonexistent.
All that time and they still havent got the fundamentals right.
At the same time, its all starting to feel a bit stale.
Sadly, thats not the case.
Almost everyone you encounter is just a horrible person.
Theyre generally rude and abrasive, and even the friendlier ones are just annoying.
One of your party characters, literally named Nasty, is flat out abusive.
Im assuming that this is supposed to be mature or realistic but its neither of those things.
These arent nuanced, well-rounded characters, theyre flat automatons who are unrelentingly awful instead of having any personality.
It would also ignore the fact that the same unpleasantness isnt restricted to NPC dialogue.
Elex 2, like its predecessors, has a problem with women.
The women in the game are bitchy harridans, jealous and spiteful.
Thats one character who Id hardly interacted with, and another who verbally abused Jax at every opportunity.
As you may be able to guess, none of the male characters had the same reaction.
Speaking of Jax, he isnt any better.
No matter what options you choose, he will be rude, angry and shouty at every opportunity.
Worse still, at least one of the companion characters will approve of that decision.
Neither of those are on display here, or anywhere else in the game.
Cyberpunk 2077is the game that sprang to mind while I was mulling over how to approach this review.
Its also a janky, overambitious RPG full of sweary, violent people doing horrible things to each other.
Theyre frequently likeable, even caring, forcing us to deal with the contradictory aspects of human nature.
Elex 2 has none of that, its just a game filled with deeply unpleasant people.
