Prepared or Not is a slow-paced, uber-tactical first-person shooter. It’s an excellent severe PC launch that’s lastly made its technique to PS5, providing up a darker and grittier co-op expertise than the rest at the moment in the marketplace. However does that imply it’s price your time? Whereas Prepared Or Not received’t be for everybody, for us there’s a visceral edge to the sport that we simply couldn’t get sufficient of.
Prepared or Not places you within the footwear of a SWAT officer within the Los Sueños Police Division. Groups of 5 will head out on varied missions, the place your job is to carry order to chaos. What that entails is both restraining or taking out hostiles, securing civilians, and reporting any proof again to base — all with as few casualties as attainable. It’s a really simplistic gameplay loop at its core, however Prepared or Not spices issues up with its environment, its darkish topic issues, and its tactical mechanics.
There are 18 completely different ranges throughout the principle Prepared or Not marketing campaign, with an additional eight missions out there by DLC. We had been bowled over by how assorted and distinctive every of the degrees fels. From dingy drug dens to millionaire mansions, every stage has a particular environment about it.
One mission sees an ex-intelligence officer turned conspiracy nut lace his log cabin with booby traps, which means each door might imply demise, and its tight-knit corridors dictates the sorts of weapons you will usher in with you.
One other takes place in a neighborhood school, the place the lengthy hallways are the supply of fixed paranoia. A hostage state of affairs in a resort meant we needed to systematically make our approach by every room whereas always watching our again.
That’s to say that whereas visually there’s a pleasant selection, the design of every stage brings its personal challenges, which enhance the hardcore type of gameplay. You see, Prepared Or Not shouldn’t be some lock-and-load motion shooter. A single stray bullet from an enemy or teammate can imply demise, and even on the traditional issue your complete squad can go down in case you aren’t cautious. We would not say the AI is wise however it’s aggressive and fairly unpredictable.
There’s a moderately steep studying curve in these early hours as you discover ways to navigate the sport’s finicky merchandise and command wheel, or familiarise your self with the six (sure, six) other ways you possibly can work together with a door.
This studying curve makes the only participant mode far more of a chore. You’re joined by 4 AI teammates who have to be commanded always. These may be fairly particular and might take a while to come back to grips with.
You’ll be able to order your staff to stack up on the door, specify which facet of the door, inform them the right way to open the door, and in order for you them to throw in some flashbangs within the course of. All this by a reasonably rudimentary command wheel means you will spend your opening hours preventing to get your instructions throughout accurately.You’ll be able to definitely benefit from the environment of the sport when enjoying solo, and it may be approached like an immersive single participant expertise, however we did not discover the deep command techniques all that enjoyable to navigate. It definitely will get simpler the extra you employ it, but it surely’s apparent that this isn’t the best way developer Void Interactive needs you to play.
As an alternative, Prepared or Not is at its finest once you’re enjoying with a full squad of actual teammates. In our early missions we had been all scattered, aimlessly blasting our approach by the missions. Nonetheless, with no respawns on demise, we fairly rapidly began to kind technique and coordination.
Communication is essential in Prepared or Not, and we reckon these enjoying solo and never eager to leap in a voice chat might lose out on among the attraction. Earlier than lengthy, our staff was performing pincer actions, tossing timed flashbangs, and clearing rooms with none casualties. Turning into extra in-sync with the rhythm of the sport and growing our tactical abilities was some of the satisfying components of Prepared or Not.
Nonetheless, it does serve up an attention-grabbing contradiction of tone. On one hand, our squad had so many hilarious moments the place tripwire bombs had been triggered, or there have been pleasant fireplace mishaps. However on the opposite, there have been disturbingly quiet moments as the sport faces themes of medicine, intercourse trafficking, and even paedophilia. What many might see as a po-faced police sim, truly paints it in a really miserable gentle.
That’s particularly prevalent when bullets begin flying. There aren’t any hit markers or directional harm indicators. Killing enemies may be fairly harrowing truly, as they droop in opposition to partitions and begin to choke on their very own blood. At any time when anybody pulls the set off, chaos ensues. It didn’t matter how composed or tactical our staff was enjoying, firefights would usually end in a panicked barrage of bullets.
What we cherished about gunfights from a gameplay perspective had been the aiming mechanics that had been constructed into the DualSense controller. With the faucet of L3 or R3 you possibly can tilt your weapons left or proper, and you’ll both purpose down the canted sights or full scope with a half or full squeeze of L2. It means clearing rooms feels extremely tactile and cinematic at instances.
There are numerous choices relating to your loadout too. There’s a reasonably in-depth customisation system, which lets you change all the pieces out of your ballistic face guards to the quantity of magazines you carry on a mission. This implies coordination with the staff permits somebody to carry a Mirrorgun to look below doorways, whereas one other squadmate might carry a battering ram to breeze on by.
With assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, and pistols, we cherished how completely different missions require or encourage a distinct kind of gun. And every handles with a satisfying kick because of the DualSense haptics.
You’ll actually get to really feel the distinction between these weapons with Prepared Or Not’s gradual tempo gameplay. This isn’t a twitchy shooter, and for some it’ll transfer at a glacial tempo. There isn’t any run button, which we predict works brilliantly for the best way the sport needs you to play. Nonetheless, it might develop into a difficulty once you’re scouring the map for one final hidden goal. Lots of our missions ended with the entire staff silently wandering round at a snail’s tempo for minutes on finish.
Coming throughout from PC, Prepared or Not is a soild port on each PS5 and PS5 Professional. There’s a efficiency and high quality mode possibility on each consoles, with the previous providing up a secure 60fps. The latter drops right down to a uneven 30fps, and the visible distinction is principally unnoticeable. The assorted perps and civilians you will be coping with all look very rubbery, however the environments look unbelievable with fantastic particulars and atmospheric lighting bringing every of its settings to life.
