Recent reviews by Brando[SSR|MG]

Another game that is driven by its modding community. With the main game in a "release state" there may be limited updates and fixes as the studio focuses on other projects. The mods for this game are what make it a game, so don't stop at vanilla otherwise it may feel like yet another empty building game. It's fun in vanilla state, but adding the mods make it so much more enjoyable.

The charm of ATLAS is found in its unofficial servers where modders and hosts have really brought out the best parts of the game. The official servers are incredibly toxic, but some of the unofficial ones have amazing communities where they are moderated and toxic players are removed.

The modding community has really made this game enjoyable for me when defending my base and ships felt more like a job on the official servers.

The game has come a long way since it first started EA. Under the previous dev team, the game was an absolute mess, but since the new team has taken over we have seen a lot of originally promised features finally make it into the game. It is in a playable state, but it is still EA. The Multiplayer Beta is stable for some, but not all. I was able to get a 4 person match going without any issues, but once we tried a 6-player round, we dropped 2 players constantly.

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NOTE on other Reviews: It seems a lot of people don't understand how the cubits (in-game currency) work. A lot of people are bent out of shape over having to spend money to buy plots. Aside from the initial purchase for the game I've acquired over a thousand cubits from just playing the game and not spending any additional money. Yes, you can buy cubits, but you also get 100 of them every time you level up.
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So far I've enjoyed the game quite a bit. There's a lot to the crafting and building system, which is great. The PvE is okay, it's nothing spectacular, but it's a lot better than many of the minecraft clones that are out there. Speaking of which, the game does remind me a lot of Minecraft, but there are more mechanics to support a social aspect. Not only can you collaborate on the same set of plots, but you can also tie your plots together with others to form Settlements. Each settlement is competing via prestige points to become the Capital of the planet you're currently on.

You can use portals to jump around between worlds allowing you to find your own little piece of land to build up or go exploring to find resources or ancient relics that you'll need to advance in crafting. There are also protectors, called Titans guarding some of the temples of the ancient race that was here before you, so there are some larger PvE objectives to help encourage team play.

There's also a significant player run economy aspect to the game, so if you can't find rarer materials you can head to a settlement and look for player shops to buy things from using coins that you get for completing daily tasks, achievements, leveling up and just simply by playing the game (called periodic rewards).

I don't anticipate spending any more money on the game and collecting cubits and coins while I enjoy a relaxing building and crafting system that allows you to customize your building blocks a lot more than most of the games out there like it.

GREAT EARLY ACCESS CASTLE BUILDER; NO COMBAT YET

The game in its current state is simply a castle builder, but it is satisfying in that respect which is what makes me recommend the game rather than give it a negative review. BUYER BEWARE, however, because it is not feature complete and does not include any form of combat in its current state.

Understand what you're getting in this Early Access form of the game. If you enjoy castle building, it is a wonderful game already for that aspect. If you were expecting combat, you may want to hold off a bit until those features are in place. Know what you're getting yourself into when you purchase the game and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Developers are very driven to work with the community as well, so that is a huge plus. Bottom line, if you enjoy the Early Access process, then this is a good buy. If you don't and you just want a complete game, then give it a bit of time and make sure you at least put it on your Watch List.

Ever felt the grind from constantly clicking to gather resources to make anything of worth in a game? Doesn't it suck? In factorio you get to do that for about the first 5 minutes before your factory starts coming together and taking shape. Before long you'll have bots whizzing around and trains zipping across the map carrying materials from node to node while your growing mass of machinery churns out gadgets and gizmos.

Factorio is addictive and it replaces the mouse pounding irritation of other crafting games. The wide variety of systems and components also lets you expand into oblivion. The Alien AI gives you a challenge to keep you engaged and the new multiplayer elements will give you even more reason to expand and grow your army of bots and turrets to fend off your best frenemies.

Support for the game has officially ended, but the core game is still solid. It has one of the better combat systems out there in its genre. The community is fairly thin and there are a lot of complaints about the existing servers, which leads to a sense of elitism shutting out newer players. It has directional and volumetric striking, parrying and blocking which is confusing as hell at first, but over time is easy to understand but difficult to master. There are some cheap tricks that you could like constant shield bashing, but a well managed community server run on the premise of making the game fun can help override stuff like that. It's similar to just about every other game out there on the market; if you are part of a well run community, you are more likely to have a better experience and this game is no different.

Rather than shrug and give up, I did start a new server for our community to see if we can breathe some life into the game, so we'll see how that works out. In a group that you can trust not to exploit, the game does very well, but be warned that the current public servers are very rough.

Here is a video announcement a group of us did for some tournaments we hosted in the game several years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyz5JuLgoAM

If you're looking for a few hours to throw away at a solid, morally ambiguious, Conan the Barbarian-esque (Good guys do bad things, sometimes) storytelling platform then you've found the right game.

A lot of people are upset about the ending, but it really speaks to the real world and this new obsession with exploring the grey areas of morality a la Game of Thrones where a character is a villain in one scene and a hero in the next. How you feel about the ending is really what you'll get out of the game.

Sometimes life is just a poopy flavored popsicle and the feeling I had at the end made me feel the same way I do about the current US election prospects.

US Election Simulator 2016.

10/10 would feel emotionally destroyed again.

Legos for violent adults.

If you're looking for a game with serious depth in crafting and environment while willing to sacrifice a few aspects of today's twitch combat system then Wurm Unlimited is the game for you. I've been playing Wurm Online for several years now and I always joke that it is my "PvP Retirement Home," but truthfully even the PvP systems are well above and beyond most mainstream MMOs. The ability to customize your server settings mean you can tweak your specific server to find the balance you want between epic PvE encounters and faction based PvP warfare.

Dedicated servers are able to handle upwards of 200 players spread throughout kilometers of land with the ability to link servers together. One of the most interesting features of Unlimited is that you can link severs together as 'neighbors' in order to travel from one map to the other with the ability to set up Home Kingdoms for people to build themselves up on and then travel to open warfare servers via ship.

Wurm Online is one of the only games that allows such a wide freedom of construction options while tying in boats, siege weapons, taming, deep crafting, extensive wound systems, religions, factions and a whole lot more.

The biggest downside is the archaic feeling combat system, but it does make up for it in the complexity of the way combat is calculated and the wide spectrum of options to include mounted, ranged, melee, pets and siege warfare.

The graphics have also come a long way since the MMOs inception and the viewing distance can make for some epic landscapes and vistas.

Overall, the game has a lot of depth if that is what you're seeking and if it feels intimidating there is an extensive series of documentation and tutorials available in the game itself. While the animation and the flow of combat feels somewhat limited, the rest of the game creates so many more opportunities for a true sense of adventure and exploration.