Info about Brigador: Up-Armored Edition:

Official game description:
  
Pilot a mech to hunt down and destroy the oppressive government of a cyberpunk autocracy. In this fast-paced, top-down shooter, use overwhelming firepower to destroy columns of tanks and level buildings. Unlock up to 56 unique vehicles and 40 weapons. Brigador is an isometric roguelite of intense tactical combat.  
Play as mercenary pilots betraying their planet, looking for the big payout and a ticket off the planet. Find the right loadout for your playstyle and wreak havoc on the city of Solo Nobre.  
Everything you destroy earns the pilots money that can be used to unlock even more destructive vehicles, guns, and challenges.  
Create your own Brigador experience and make levels with the modkit tools.
**Features**
------------
*   Unlock 56 different mechs, tanks, hovercraft, with 40 different weapons  
*   Crush 100% destructible environments  
*   Challenge yourself with 37 missions in Campaign Mode  
*   Play as you like with 20+ maps in Freelance Mode  
*   Dive deep into an engaging dark science fiction universe  
*   Enjoy over 2 hours of original synth music by acclaimed artist Makeup & Vanity Set

Release date: 2 Jun, 2016

Categories: Top-Down Tactical Shooter, Vehicular Combat, Roguelike, Destructible Environments, Single-player, Vehicle Customization, Mod Support, Sandbox Creation


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Extensive Replayability & Content (weight 0.97): The game offers massive replayability, especially through its Freelance mode which is considered the heart of the game. Coupled with a huge variety of maps, vehicles, weapons, unlocks, and achievements, players find endless engagement and reasons to return.
- Stellar Retro-Cyberpunk Aesthetic (weight 0.83): The game receives widespread acclaim for its unique 80s synthwave, cyberpunk visual style, detailed pixel art, and dynamic lighting. The exceptional soundtrack and crisp sound design are frequently highlighted as integral to creating a compelling and immersive atmosphere.
- Engaging & Deep Core Gameplay (weight 0.8): Players consistently praise the game's core loop as satisfying, deep, and highly enjoyable. It strikes a good balance between action and strategy, with a rewarding learning curve that allows for both quick play sessions and immersive experiences once controls 'click'.
- Fair & Customizable Difficulty (weight 0.77): The game offers a challenging yet fair difficulty curve, meticulously avoiding cheap deaths and allowing for extensive customization through player choices of pilot, mech, and weapons. Fast load times further mitigate frustration from mission failures.
- Diverse Mech & Vehicle Combat (weight 0.62): Players love the vast selection of mechs, tanks, and weapons, which successfully delivers a powerful mech fantasy. The wide variety of vehicles and weaponry fosters diverse playstyles and tactical approaches, making experimentation a key joy.
- Highly Satisfying Destructible Environments (weight 0.32): The game's fully destructible environments are a major draw, providing immense satisfaction in leveling entire cities and affecting tactical gameplay. The visual feedback of destruction is highly detailed and impactful, enhancing the overall experience.
- Rich & Engaging Lore (weight 0.3): The game's lore and writing are consistently lauded as exceptionally deep, well-written, and captivating. It adds significant immersion and flavor to the world, often surpassing expectations for the genre and providing enjoyable reading outside of gameplay.
- Critically Acclaimed "Hidden Gem" (weight 0.24): The game is widely regarded as a unique, polished, and masterful experience, often described as a 'hidden gem' in the isometric mech action genre. Its cohesive blending of art, sound, and gameplay elements has deeply impressed players, making it a highly recommended title.

Common complaints:
- Clunky & Unintuitive Controls (weight 0.8): A significant portion of feedback highlights frustration with the game's controls, which are described as clunky, awkward, and having a steep learning curve. Specific issues include poor gamepad support (especially on Steam Deck), difficulties with the aiming system (e.g., disappearing crosshairs, lack of aim assist), and the unintuitive "tank controls" scheme.
- Weak Narrative & Progression (weight 0.67): There is widespread criticism regarding the game's minimal or non-existent story, lack of compelling characters, and superficial narrative elements despite rich lore. This contributes to a sense of aimlessness and a lack of meaningful progression, particularly in the campaign, which feels more like a series of disconnected skirmishes than a cohesive story.
- Repetitive Missions & Gameplay (weight 0.5): Players frequently found the core gameplay loop and mission structure to be highly repetitive and monotonous. Missions often share similar destruction-based objectives without offering sufficient variety, meaningful progression, or diverse strategic incentives to maintain long-term engagement in both campaign and freelance modes.
- Mech & Weapon Imbalance (weight 0.28): Feedback indicates issues with the balance of mechs and weapons, where light, high-mobility mechs are often perceived as underpowered or unusable, while many weapons feel overly specialized or difficult to integrate effectively. This problem is exacerbated by restricted loadouts in campaign missions and confusing weapon naming conventions, hindering strategic choice and customization.
- Inadequate Onboarding & Tutorials (weight 0.23): The game's initial player experience suffers from an inadequate onboarding process, with tutorials that are either too simplistic or prolonged (e.g., the campaign acting as a slow tutorial). This often leaves players unprepared for the game's complexities, specific mechanics, or overall expectations, leading to early frustration and misunderstanding.
- Poor Visual Clarity in Combat (weight 0.18): Visual elements, such as oversaturated effects and a zoomed-out perspective, often make it challenging for players to distinguish between different mechs and key combat elements. This lack of visual clarity negatively impacts tactical decision-making and overall situational awareness during intense engagements.

Gameplay feedback:
- Freelance Mode is Core Gameplay (weight 0.31): Players widely consider Freelance mode the primary game experience, offering extensive vehicle and loadout customization, semi-randomized missions, and roguelite progression. It provides open-ended objectives, varied map stages, and significant unlockable content including mechs, weapons, and pilots.
- Campaign as Guided Tutorial (weight 0.28): The campaign mode serves as a structured introduction, teaching core mechanics, allowing players to familiarize themselves with various vehicle types and weapons, and providing lore. It features preset loadouts and scenarios, and while offering challenges, it's not considered the main game, but rather preparation for the Freelance mode.
- Tactical Vehicle Combat Controls (weight 0.26): The game features detailed vehicle combat with tank controls as the default and preferred method, allowing separate movement and turret control. Players pilot mechs, tanks, or hovercraft, engaging in aggressive yet tactical play that requires managing momentum, positioning, and weapon arcs, with customizable control schemes like 'Relative' for higher difficulty.
- Destructive Mission Objectives (weight 0.12): Missions generally involve straightforward objectives such as destroying specific targets (e.g., communication towers, VIPs, infrastructure) and then safely exiting the map. The game encourages strategic destruction within dense cityscapes, with missions often consisting of multiple 'districts' or stages.
- Pilot-Driven Difficulty & Rewards (weight 0.11): The choice of pilot significantly impacts the game's difficulty, starting parameters, and reward multipliers, especially in Freelance mode. Pilots offer different playstyles and payout structures, influencing the challenge and progression across multi-stage operations.
- Varied Weapon Systems (weight 0.05): The game offers a wide array of weapon systems, categorized into different types like cannons, ballistics, explosives, and lasers, each with distinct fire rates and effects. Weapons come in various forms, including howitzers, shotguns, railguns, and machine guns, providing diverse tactical options.
- Solo Nobre Setting (weight 0.05): The game is set in the city of Solo Nobre on the colony world of Novo Solo, where players act as mercenaries amidst a power vacuum following the death of its 'Great Leader.' This establishes the backdrop for the destructive missions.

Performance notes:
- Good performance and compatibility (weight 0.06): Players report that the game runs smoothly, even on aging hardware and Linux systems. It also has good compatibility with devices like the Steam Deck, and can run on Macbook Air M1 after some troubleshooting.
- Minor display and controller issues (weight 0.02): Some users experienced stick drift when playing on the Steam Deck. Additionally, achieving 4K resolution on 4K screens requires users to set Windows scaling to 100%.
- Added slowdown options (weight 0.01): Developers have implemented options to slow down the game, providing players with more time to process moves. This feature improves gameplay accessibility and strategic planning.
- Beautiful custom engine (weight 0.01): The game is visually appealing and is built using a custom engine. This contributes to its unique aesthetic and polished presentation.

Recommendations:
- Highly recommended isometric shooter (weight 0.5): Players overwhelmingly praise the game as an amazing, must-have isometric shooter and a standout indie gem. Many rate it 9/10 or 10/10, consider it a top-tier title, and strongly recommend it for its fun and destruction.
- Appeals to niche preferences (weight 0.33): The game is a perfect fit for fans of mechs, top-down tactical shooters, gritty sci-fi, and fully destructible environments. Its blend of strategic depth, challenging gameplay, and atmospheric world-building particularly resonates with players who enjoy complex vehicle systems and rewarding difficulty.
- Excellent value, buy on sale (weight 0.27): The game is considered a great purchase, offering good value, particularly when bought at a discount. Many reviewers specifically recommend waiting for a sale to make it an even more attractive acquisition, calling it a 'steal'.
- Soundtrack, audiobook, sequel excite (weight 0.19): The game's soundtrack and accompanying audiobook DLC are highly recommended for those who appreciate the world-building and military sci-fi lore. There's also significant excitement and anticipation among players for the upcoming sequel, 'Brigador Killers'.
- Difficult controls, but remappable (weight 0.04): Players note that the game features difficult or 'hard but rewarding' controls, which may be a barrier for some. However, it's also mentioned that alternative control options are available, suggesting players should explore these before requesting a refund.

Other player notes:
- High anticipation for sequel. (weight 0.17): Players are highly anticipating the announced sequel, 'Brigador Killers,' and have expressed significant excitement for its release and features. This indicates strong ongoing interest in the franchise's future.
- Isometric view is divisive. (weight 0.15): The isometric perspective and controls are not universally loved, with some players initially disliking it or hoping for a first/third-person view in future games. This suggests a potential barrier to entry for new players.
- Desire for co-op multiplayer. (weight 0.11): Several players expressed a strong desire for a co-op feature, especially in future installments or the sequel. The current game is single-player only, prompting suggestions for a multiplayer option to enhance social play.
- Keyboard/mouse recommended controls. (weight 0.03): The game is best played with a keyboard and mouse, with reviewers suggesting this setup for optimal performance and control. Players are advised to try both control options, but KBM is noted as superior.
- Compared to retro titles. (weight 0.02): The game evokes nostalgic comparisons to classic games like Syndicate and Rampage, highlighting its retro-inspired appeal and the feeling it generates in veteran players.
- Anticipated map creation tools. (weight 0.01): A map creation tool is expected for the game, which would empower players to create and share custom content. This feature is highly anticipated by the community for extending gameplay possibilities.
- Suggests varied progression design. (weight 0.01): One reviewer suggested that gradually opening up progression according to a plot design would be a better experience. This points to a desire for more structured or narrative-driven progression.
- Desire for more modifiers. (weight 0.01): A reviewer expressed a wish for more unique modifiers for pilots and vehicles, suggesting an appetite for greater customization and variety in gameplay mechanics.
- Gameplay prioritized over story. (weight 0.01): Despite the rich lore, some players explicitly stated they did not care about the story and primarily focused on the shooting gameplay. This indicates varied player engagement with narrative elements.
- Past translation quality issues. (weight 0.01): One specific piece of feedback mentioned a past issue with machine-translated text, suggesting that translation quality has been a concern, though it may have since been addressed.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.45): Players derive satisfaction from the game's high overall quality, detailed art style, immersive atmosphere, and exceptional soundtrack. Key gameplay elements like deep strategic combat, diverse vehicle and weapon options, satisfying destruction mechanics, and high replayability contribute to a rewarding experience, especially when mastering its unique mech gameplay and customizable systems.
- Excitement (weight 0.24): Excitement stems from the game's immediate addictive quality, often compared to classic titles, and its exceptional overall quality, particularly its visual style, outstanding soundtrack, and deep, varied gameplay. Players are thrilled by the cathartic, chaotic destruction, the diverse range of vehicles and weapons, and the anticipation for future content and sequels, experiencing a powerful mech combat fantasy.
- Frustration (weight 0.15): Frustration primarily arises from the game's control issues, described as unresponsive, unintuitive, and clunky, especially with gamepads, along with a steep learning curve. Players also experience frustration due to extreme or inconsistent difficulty spikes, repetitive and tedious campaign missions (including forced stealth and fixed loadouts), and visual clarity problems that hinder tactical perception.
- Appreciation (weight 0.11): Players highly appreciate the game's detailed world-building, extensive lore, and exceptional writing, which create a unique and immersive setting. Strong admiration is also directed towards the game's stunning art style, atmospheric visuals, and outstanding soundtrack, alongside the visible passion, talent, and ongoing support from the developers, making it feel like a polished and high-quality "passion project."
- Disappointment (weight 0.1): Disappointment frequently stems from the game's repetitive and monotonous gameplay, particularly in missions, and a perceived lack of story, progression, and mechanical variation. Players also express dissatisfaction with technical issues like poor gamepad support, aiming/camera problems, and the game failing to meet expectations for genre-specific controls or overall depth, leading to a lack of long-term engagement.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.09): Players primarily enjoy the game for its addictive and fun gameplay, which centers on satisfying destruction and the sandbox nature of leveling cities. The cool aesthetic, immersive synthwave soundtrack, diverse vehicle options, and robust munitions system contribute to a highly engaging experience, often described as pure "mech mayhem" once controls are mastered.
- Joy (weight 0.06): Joy is predominantly caused by the game's chaotically fun and satisfying destructive gameplay, allowing players to stomp everything as a powerful mech and engage in "war crimes." This is greatly enhanced by the excellent synthwave soundtrack, memorable vehicle designs, and the overall engaging experience of expanding possibilities and mastering the unique twin-stick combat.
- Admiration (weight 0.05): Admiration is strongly driven by the game's exceptional overall quality, which includes brilliant sci-fi writing, deep lore, and an amazing story and world. Players also admire the stunning presentation, extreme detail in 2D graphics, stellar soundtrack, well-designed controls with a satisfying mastery curve, and the apparent talent and dedication of the development team.
- Amusement (weight 0.04): Amusement arises from the game's dark humor, particularly its satirical take on "war crimes," collateral damage, and valuing human life at absurdly low prices within a mercenary context. Players find humor in unusual mechanics like gaining money for killing civilians and the unique concept of stealth for giant mechs.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.03): Nostalgia is evoked by the game's style, graphics, and gameplay, which remind players of classic isometric sci-fi titles from the 80s and 90s, such as the Strike series on Sega Genesis, Future Cop LAPD, and Syndicate, bringing back childhood memories.
- Boredom (weight 0.02): Boredom is caused by the game's repetitive and monotonous gameplay, including limited mission types and similar arena designs, leading to a quick loss of interest and an unengaging experience for some players.
- Surprise (weight 0.02): Surprise often comes from players unexpectedly enjoying the game, particularly those who typically dislike mech games or were initially skeptical. This also includes being impressed by the game's hidden depth (especially in world-building), its divergence from expected genre mechanics (e.g., not a typical twin-stick shooter, viable stealth for large mechs), and the unexpected difficulty spikes.
- Love (weight 0.02): Love for the game stems from an overwhelming appreciation for nearly all its aspects, including its deep, unique lore, exceptional soundtrack, stunning art, engaging story, and satisfying gameplay, culminating in a highly cherished overall experience.
- Addiction (weight 0.02): Players become addicted to the game due to its gripping and deeply engaging nature, often leading to prolonged play sessions and even 100% achievement completion. This addictive quality is further fueled by the game's deceptive depth and high replayability.
- Helpfulness (weight 0.02): Helpfulness is expressed by reviewers who provide solutions to technical problems, offer advice for difficult levels, or explain complex controls, game mechanics, and various game modes or vehicle options to assist other players.
- Awe (weight 0.02): Awe is inspired by the game's grand scale, immense depth of world-building, and the vivid, destructible city environments that feel rich with history and gameplay possibilities. Players are also impressed by the fantastic sound design, striking visual effects of weapons, and the shocking realism of debris when destroying buildings.
- Reflection (weight 0.02): Reflection is triggered by the game's exploration of moral and meaningful aspects, prompting players to consider themes of war, liberation, societal stability, and the ethical implications of their destructive gameplay choices.
- Engagement (weight 0.02): Engagement is fostered by the game's deep narrative and thematic content, encouraging players to actively explore its lore, including checking for new entries with every patch and uncovering unlockable information. The strategic gameplay, continuous balance adjustments, and visible developer passion further contribute to an absorbing experience within its cyberpunk setting.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Hope is expressed through desires for future game features, such as co-op, and additional content within the game's established world. Players also hope for the game to gain wider popularity and for the developers to continue creating more titles.
- Immersion (weight 0.01): Immersion is achieved through the game's compelling narrative, rich world-building, and strong thematic elements, creating an "essential Killdozer experience." Players feel deeply drawn into the game's world, often enhanced by engaging with its music, lighting, and lore.}