Recent reviews by Boff

PROS
I've been playing Forever Skies from early access and it is only now we get to play the finished game and now that I've finished it, I never want to play it again because that ending is so bleak (chef's kiss). I have only praise for the team for sticking to it as it's haunting. There are so many good elements in this game that just needed a little more polish.
I applaud them for a generally cohesive gaming experience that can be played Single player or in Co-op, and fixing a mass of issues that Co-op brought to the table with the suit crafter and having the material collection be centerred around a person and not the vehicle. The POI's RNG is linked to the crafting and story progression, so you don't get items or get gated by things you can't handle.

CONS
There are things that weren't fixed, lots of brilliant ideas added that were barely used or given the time to be made robust and shine (virus analyser 3 modes not describing "what" colours/shapes they aim to eliminate. We didn't even analyse the Grey plague in the virus analyser?????.Oh and the piping mechanic.

The MO was to add a new thing to correct the old thing.
we see progress gating with a rare material or a specific tool or upgrade but it's is limited to just that POI. There was a trading element added to the game in the later half of the game, but it needed to be seeded in the earlier POI's to make it more natural and normal.

But all that is forgivable as long as the story is cohesive. The story narrative is brilliant, but delivered rather clunkily.
From the start of early access the antagonist and protagonist was always a little fuzzy.
Your suit's voice assistant gets hijacked by a guiding force, explaining things and giving you objectives, Is it good or evil ? But its hard to tell if you are getting a message or an objective from your suit or from that other party as they use the similar voice, even with intermittent static being the tell, but the game leaves the exact the same text-messages and quest markers.
it's hard to know if the aim was to have a lying narrator of sorts or if the team didn't have the time/resources to sort that out properly.
The team said they would hold off on the actual story until release however the above remained exactly the same.
They added new stuff to fix the old stuff.


We get 3 new POI's added to the game since the alpha, tying up the narrative with the end game.
2 of these is effectively narrative cuts scenes, the first of which added a surprise 3rd party to the mix named Cockroaches in a game full of insects in the first of the new POI's.
And all of this new information comes at you in the form of text messages, objectives via your voice-assistance which is being hijacking by the external party at the same time. This is confusing enough, but its all happens during a sequence which is visually and dramatically exciting in the game-world, so you can't really focus on what the heck is going on.

The airship workshop as a concept was confusingly never introduced earlier on in the game. The level design was Bioshock/half life inspired and was brilliant if it wasn't hastily made of the same brown metal for EVERY surface. So you get disorientated.
I even tried to step on one of the few concrete beams only to fall through it as there was no collision hull. So yeah, thinks felt a little rushed in those new sections.


Conclusion
The core game is fine, buy,fly and craft.
Buying as early access has been worth it as the content drops has been good.
But as a final polished product?....
I hate to say the game needed some more time in the oven, but it needed more time in the oven.

3 fixes
Additional mechanics that added later on in the dev-cycle are limited to just a handful of later game POI's and were never seeded in POI's from earlier on in development cycle
- Cockroach-storyline (limited to 2 locations)
- Trading system (limited as an unanouced goal in 3 arenas)
- Mantis Combat limited to 2 locations giving you no time to play with the cool weapons.
- We didn't even analyse the Grey plague in the virus analyser?????

More diverse (non-metal) construction material to build POI's from to avoid the boredom of brown metal.

Differentiate between your personal AI assistant and that other one,

I loved this, evoking a dark fantasy vibe and finding out after hand it was a solo developer who was aiming for that.
Starts of small and humble, ends on an unexpected epic high, with all the cute goofiness of some of the characters becoming soberingly haunted ptsd issues.
Now I’m eager for part 2.

I’ve played through 3 times. 3rd time on the switch and noticed the downgrade in graphics and nerf of the sticks(?). I’ve recommended to multiple friends and still on the story high.

My recommendation is more to the developer than the player. One word:
Signposting :) (well playtesting would have led to signposts)

Signposts are physically required to point to the commander office, harbour, commission, northern shore.
I was constantly confused the lift-gate being the west gate and the only way to the harbour.

Signpost to from the northern slopes to the old watchtower, because spoilers.

A major issue for me was the “gating” of the armour, relying on picking the pocket of a very hard to get to guard, and very hard to steal from guard as well.

The armour unlocks the commanders quest line, Silas quests, and ergo finishing off Gusto and Fatale stealth skill set, which become pointless because now you have access to a disguise. First play through,
I had literally had brute forced my way into the commission and solved the spoiler before I even knew there was a quest line and a find the missing spoiler subplot which was accessible with suit of armour disguise. Figured that out on my second play through.

Rolo peppering the player to meet on the northern slopes and not the shoreline. As that line of dialogue is muttered once and never again.

Signposting the importance of the Ranger disguise by a comment from the other mice or Rolo that Tilo is running round the keep like he’s ranger.

Even on my 3rd play through I was getting hung-up on the gating of game-states denying progress, basically how main quests and side quests should dovetail together.

Game development gripes, but from a solo-dev, whose had this in their minds for years, it’s understandable,
the story and world building is amazing.

Patch in the signposts,
Move the armoury key to a guard inside the keep.

Awesome hidden game. Scratched that space exploration itch I've had for years. It harkens back to 8-bit 3d games like Tau-Ceti where you have complex worlds to explorer. The "set-up" of the rover style gameplay, and all the functions of the ship have so much potential for additional scenarios that you wish there would be a whole team of devs working round the clock pumping out additional content. But this is a 5-year long passion project of the developer. And with that comes a lot of heart and attention to detail. For example the amount of depth to every "feature" is stunning,
From multiple descriptions and functions of the researched objects which usually results in an item being installed and applied to the rover. The majority had their own UI that are properly functional, so a friend and foe system actually reacted to the environment showing which structures it was talking to. Sensors, radars, targeting computers, all operate as they should do, and can replace each other if needs be.
The radioactive static of the rovers video, is haunting, as your brain fills in details.

The only negatives is wanting more and faster. After you get a couple of good runs, you start getting into a rythm of setting a timer to get back to the med-bay, to maximize your playtime. The research and travels to and from the surface start to become irritatingly time-consuming, (as you are literally dying of radiation poisoning). There are a few extra scenarios (due to certain objects you pull back to your ship) that really sell the potential of the core mechanics (because all the components of the ship and rover are properly functional) so you start wanting more planets, maybe landing the ship somewhere, more environments, more stories.

10 years old and it's still one of the best tactical space ship games out there.

I'm recommending this game at 666 hours which is the first reason, the second is because you can play with friends and have a lot of fun.

I really like this game. A good balance of fun gameplay mechanics and fast paced fps action. There are tons and tons of jokes, one good example is the so called 'Spycrab' from 2008. There are tons of hats and weapons that make loadouts dangerous, meme'd, unfun to play with or against, the fastest, supports your team the most , the worst, all golden and the most overpowered. the game is kinda buggy and there are some coding oversights but otherwise you should get it right away.

Emotionally faithful recreation of the (literal and figurative) game changer H A L F - L I F E
Some of the later chapters amp up the Epicness, slip in some modern niceties of 2 decades of game development, to remove some of the old-school brutal unfairness, but not to despair, the crowbar collective have added in a bunch of their own, with some areas that are plain, arduous, scream inducing hard work which only work with your hand on the quick save button as equally as the trigger but they are totally satisfying when you beat them.

it is great for speedrunning cuz it is glitchy as heck

I do not know what to say about it. It is just good. It makes you feel like a master.

Loved it.
Starts off pretending to be a typical AAA "open world" survival.
By the end fo the game you are playing Tomb-Raider, with all the iconic weaponry, hub gameplay, timing jump puzzles and some acrobatics.
Innocent Lara undergoes trails of madness and brutality, similar to the islands inhabitants, and comes out a stone hearted killer that will ice a private army to figure out some weird mystery, just like Our J,Bonds or Indiana Jones..... As Lara said herself, killing terrified her, it was scarily easy to do.
Some silly quicktime events, reminescent of Tombraider2 and beyound where more dramatic scenes needed to be time correctly.
So same old same old to be honest.
A valiant and brilliantly executed reboot to this beloved franchise.