First Impressions:
6 games played.
5 Won (1st lost).
Usually lasting around 7-16 minutes per game.
It plays like the recent Battlefields, in how they have idiot-proofed the class system...almost. It's like no one plays as Sofia/Medic. The first game I joined into was a terrible team versus an awesome team. 3 Coles, yet no ammo boxes dropped until I snapped on my headset and gave them shit for it. Seriously, people, pay a-
ing-ttention.
Health icons appear above injured players when you're Sofia. Bullet icons appear above players who lack ammo when you're Cole. Paduk, like a Wretch, gets shown areas he can climb to. And Baird...well, everyone knows when barriers are taking damage, he just gets to try to fix them.
Sofia uses the Lancer with 4-5 extra mags, and a Sawed-Off with only the two shots in the gun. She can get more ammo, but only when Cole drops it for everyone else. Her stim grenades are really only valuable if you get teammates standing still, or guarding a single barrier. It's not that I don't use it on a single teammate, it just feel like a waste to do so since it takes time to recharge, and disappears shortly after it's dropped. It's great for expected strikes, though, where the Locusts rush and shoot your teammates, yet they aren't going down and are ripping apart the Locust players.
Sawed-Off has a nice range, too. Expect to hate it in versus. But really expect to hate the Halo-esque melee, just without the lunge. The rapid nudge is deadly for some reason.
Also, you can 'revive' teammates sometimes; I was able to grab a fellow grenadier when he was downed. This never occurred on the COG side, but this might also be because I was already a medic and was tossing stim grenades at downed allies. This does seem to only occur when there is a Medic or Kantus active on your team though, as normally when you get downed it seems like you automatically die. The game shows you a message saying something like, "Medic on the field: revival something...something." I assume it's informing you to prepare for a potential revive, but if there are no medics, it mentions something like, "No medics available, prepare to respawn." It you lose your head or get ripped apart, there is not revival for you, just like the previous games.
This is really important. Executions are now the B button. I tried to execute a guy and kept swapping weapons, looking like an idiot. Quick B tap is the fast elbow finisher that's been in every game, but if you get close you'll see a B button prompt which you can hold down and do. I just beatdown a guy with the Lancer out, so I don't know if showy executions are gone.
Locust team should treat the first few minutes of Overrun like Beast Mode. Don't worry about the COG. Killing them is almost useless, since the barriers still block your paths. You can shoot and frag the barriers, but they are both very, very weak against objects, including the E-hole. Grenades are almost pathetic with how little damage they do. A ticker, or group of tickers, can rapidly take down barriers, and a wretch can knock an E-hole down very quickly when you ambush the spot.
The last game I played we won by 2 seconds (9:02 versus 9:04) because of teamwork. Please use your headsets, spot (same as it was in 3: aim and click in the left stick), use your grenades if you're a COG, and don't just stand around the E-hole. Seriously, the worst defense is a defense that crowds the object of importance, because once you're dead, the enemy team is already at the target, and you're respawning away from it, unable to protect it. It's better to die ahead of the target, so that when you are killed you'll respawn close by to rush to it before the enemy can get there.
Likewise, don't go too far away from it. You'll be unable to attack the enemy team if they take an alternate route and group attack the objective. Try to stay between the 1st and 2nd closest barriers to an E-hole, so that the enemy has to work to take out barriers, while also being killed by you and your team.
I played briefly as Baird, and he's not a rush or assault person. Stay back and take cover by a barrier. Put a turret on an elevated surface, and let that be your 'gun.' Just repair barriers, and switch to the Gnasher only when the enemy team gets too close. Your repair tool is weak, and it seems like people shooting at barriers do more damage than you can repair in time, but at least you'll stall them.
And if you see a team of Maulers and Kantuses, shit your pants, and hope that the Cole players can Booshka their asses, or else you've definitely lost an E-hole or the Generator. Seriously...
