Recent reviews by inderekt

A really outstanding, beautifully crafted and depicted tale of space thrills and horrors. I fell in love with the dusty landscape, the alien sky, and the eerie mystery... not to mention the beautiful voice of the protagonist. While the game is very much a walking simulator, there are certainly enough twists and turns to keep you enthralled and decisions you make seem relatively impactful as to how the overall story unfolds.

The atom punk aesthetic inspired by early 20th century science fiction is just the cherry on top. As you take Yasna on a journey to discover what happened to her colleagues and, indeed, the very world you find yourself on, you may find yourself emotionally invested more than anticipated.

There's truly something about these alien shores that beckons despite how very hostile the environment is to foreign trespassers.

5 stars out of 5.

The game is less than the cup of coffee you risk spilling on your keyboard. Thus, I am not sure how expensive this game actually ends up being for you. Like the mimic, the price in your cart is a trap. Be careful at how eagerly you snatch it up.

This was almost a mixed review, but the game's tremendous story, animation, and art direction push it into positive territory. I am going to go through all the negatives, but I'll end my review with my positive take that lifts the game into a "recommended" from me.

What drags this game down a bit? Well, as most people alluded to: this is an exceptionally difficult game in some ways. But it's basically difficult overly so. It doesn't HAVE to be this hard. There are opportunities for making the game make more sense on a difficulty scale, but I'm reminded of a piece of story dialogue early in the game that I am going to butcher in my paraphrasing: "space is hard". That is incredibly true for this game.

You WILL absolutely find yourself facing zero forgiveness for mistakes. You overloaded your power grid? Instantaneously with that, there WILL be accidents and workers sent to an infirmary or health center. Your work sector running optimally and you have enough workers? There's still a chance for accidents out of the blue without an obvious reason to me. Accidentally have too few workers and thus conditions have deteriorated from "optimal" to "extra hours"? There WILL be accidents and probably pretty soon. Overworked? Uh oh. Danger? You better do something QUICKLY or you're going to lose the game and need to restart.

I think accidents are too frequent, but is that realistic in a space environment like the Tiqqun in IXION? Maybe. But I'd hope the crew and the technology would be safer. Also, why is it that it seems my population migrates of their own accord between sectors (this is an observation and I can't confirm if it actually happens, but it seems to) and sometimes this creates a population problem thus causing an overwork situation. Maybe that's not happening, but I've noticed something weird happening with the populous sometimes.

Another thing that is frustrating is the fire station. This is a somewhat large building. I am not entirely sure if they can respond to every sector or just the sector they are placed in. It appears to be the latter. I wondered if the train station would help expand its influence because in the description of the train station when researching it, it does state that some building's influence will then spread to other sectors. I would like to know which. For sure the transport of people is incredibly quick with the train station. And might I say, "Thank goodness the train station doesn't require another footprint in the limited building space in each sector because I probably would never have built one."

Now for another annoyance: storages. I'd like to see an ability to upgrade a basic storage to a tier 2 or tier 3 storage if you make the space for it, but in the meantime, you have to transfer all of the items out of the storage first it seems and dismantle it and (again, so long as you have the space) wait for it to be dismantled before plopping down a new storage. I wish there was a temporary holding area for resources in limbo. I don't mind upgrading the residences like this, because really people will automatically move around or go homeless for a short built while you go from a Crew Quarters to an Optimized Quarters or Domotic Quarters.

This one is not entirely an annoyance, but it's not my favorite either: stability. This game is very punishing on stability. It would be nice if the sectors interacted more so that you didn't have to build these quite large footprint memorials and other facilities (which also take power and workers) over and over again for each sector to improve its stability. I did like my discovery that stability can be increased by researching how certain memorials can have their stability boost increased further if placed in a compatible specialized sector. For instance, an industry specialized district and the marduk memorial can be boosted beyond a +1 stability.

So some areas of improvement I see are probably some more automated or at least "assisted" functions that prevent catastrophes and what I will call "dumb breakdowns". It can become very micromanagey to monitor and control every single function of the station. There's very little automation other than assigning responsibilities for your mining and cargo ships or the balance of resources between sectors. Which, by the way, is another annoyance. If I have a cargo ship that comes in with ice but my sector doesn't have a place to store the ice, it doesn't go anywhere or to another sector that uses ice and will just sit in the docking bay. You HAVE to build a storage facility to hold it only for it to be potentially immediately transferred out to another sector anyway. This takes unnecessary time to monitor, adjust its power on/off state for energy level maintenance as well as how many workers are active in a sector at one time.

Now, why do I think with ALL of this being said that the game is still worthy of a positive and a recommend? The art style is tremendous. Fantastic audio and music, fantastic even if not technically superior graphics and animation, an engrossing story, choices with very real effects on not only where the story goes and what happens to you during your journey, but even ultimately if the game very well ends if you've made enough bad choices (I only have one finished playthrough so cannot comment as to if any individual choice is a game-ender besides your final choices obviously). Other important points counterintuitively INCLUDE the challenge. I liked how challenging it was (with the exception of some of the micromanaging and stupidly difficult things like simply flipping a power switch instantaneously can lose trust, start accidents, break buildings, and send people to the infirmary and cause you to make other decisions to reduce working hours and ability). I feel there should be some safeguards or leveraging the batteries more if there is a temporary overload along with some sort of warning if you are about to obviously exceed power. But I guess to the latter point, that goes against the game's adage that "space is FRIKKIN hard AND unforgiving".

I have 54.5 hours in this game as of writing this review. I only have one playthrough. Technically, I'd say the first 9 hours or so is my attempt at a playthrough which I felt I wasn't likely to be successful yet I had learned some new things and wanted to start fresh. I can certainly say I think I'm understanding some of the reviews that come in around the 9-12 hour mark claiming to be "one of the 9 hour reviews" with a common set of complaints.

Yes, the game is punishing and unforgiving, but space is truly like that. Now, is the game without fault? No. Is the game needlessly difficult in some ways? Yes. But it makes up for it over and over again.

I really want the developers to do more with IXION. There are various parts of the story I want to either continue or learn more about. But overall, for this game and if it's standalone or not, I'm pretty happy with the choices I made, including the ending.

Here are my thoughts:

Game Performance: Passable for some maybe
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Well... one of the positive reviews states running this game on a system very much like my own. AMD processor (mine is a 5800X3D), 32GB RAM, RTX 3080 (12GB), and running at 3440x1440 resolution. Performance is actually not spectacular and is barely passable. It's indeed not a great port. However, it was sufficient for the already slow walking speed in the game. Definitely turn OFF motion blur. This is an absolutely terrible decision to use it as it makes it appear as if performance is a lot worse.

Story: Average to Slightly Above Average
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I was initially rather enthralled with the story. I had my own preconceived notions of what it was about. The voice acting was superb across all characters and the exploration was somewhat interesting. There certainly is an air of mystery abounding. But really by the end of the game, I hadn't shed a single tear (I think one review stated they got emotional) and just frowned a couple of times. I didn't feel particularly strongly about the story in either way. But I will say, I loved being taken through this GORGEOUS land so thoughtfully. The interactions between the characters were well developed and the situations were believable for the most part. But the overall plot and the reason behind it all? Well, I was left sorely wanting. I didn't feel like the meaning of the story was that impactful, but it was good enough to experience.

Graphics: Outstanding
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I do have to say the environment is crafted very well and the graphics look rather stunning for the most part. CryEngine is still a wonderful game engine even though it's getting long in the tooth as far as I am aware. I am not really sure of recent developments of CryEngine and if that is still ongoing, but that's beside the point of this review. I just loved the attention to detail all over. Nature felt really well done and the lighting was fantastic for not having the "new new" raytracing tech found in AAA games of today. I think I was only perhaps slightly disappointed with what I will perceive as draw distance at elevation. This may just be the map not being detailed enough in the distance by design, but it does muddy the waters a bit for immersion. Also, there is this one part where you look out and the land is mysteriously void of trees compared with the rest of this world. I am not sure if that is intended or just "convenient for programming schedule" of the game. Still, a really good effort here.

Audio: Superb
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The music is phenomenal. It's really atmospheric and meshes well with the game. It comes in trying to evoke emotion at the right moments, but not quite rising to meet the occasion due to the game's only mediocre "heart grabbing" abilities in its narrative. The female vocalist is, of course, talented and helps set the mood as the game developers likely intended it. The instruments are done well. All of this is expected given the talent of who they hired to do the audio. It just doesn't fully make up for some of the other parts lacking.

Game Length: Five or six hours
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Big caveat here. I think I saw a YouTube video where someone did it in a little under four hours. I am sure it really depends on how immersed you want to make yourself via your curiosity (or forgetfulness if you've been to a certain place or not), and how good your knack is for following directions, taking breaks, or not being confused by the lights not seeming to guide you all the time. There were a few times I was hung up seemingly walking in circles because I wasn't being led in the story as I expected and I think it may have been a minor glitch, but I am unsure. Also, I tend to take longer than the average player to make the same amount of progress I think. That's just the type of inefficient or untalented gamer I am. :)

Bugs: Didn't notice anything major really
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Another caveat here: is there really any game activity you could break? It's just walking and clicking a couple of buttons. I think the only potential glitches I witnessed--as aforementioned--are when the game didn't appear (emphasis on this as it may have been working fine despite the illusion of a problem) to progress to the next interaction point, let's call it. Pretty playable (if you can handle the sluggish responsiveness of handling the walk and the game in general).

Overall Thoughts: A decently good game, but it's not the best in this style of interactive storytelling I've seen
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I may revise my way of thinking the more I ponder on this game, but I'd give it a B or B minus. It has some incredibly stellar parts that wowed me, but then it also had so many more that were a bit dull or lacking. As for a place I'd want to visit (albeit this is a fictional locale), I'd absolutely go here any day, given that this particular event was NOT occurring of course. It's simply beautiful. I've never been to the UK but I wonder if parts of the countryside and its more rural areas look like this a bit. I'd certainly retire in a community like this being the more small-town individual I am. Overall, no regrets buying the game. It was a very good experience to have had and now I'm just left wondering what some of the clues the game seems to litter and repeat all over mean. Seriously, what do they mean? I guess I need to do some Googling because it seemed like they were all inconsequential and did not require me to do anything.

Side note: I was actually taking notes on my phone of various things I noticed or heard in anticipation of some kind of test or revelation at some point in-game and I can report that I was pretty disappointed I must say.

Recommended: Yeah, I'd give it a "Try it for a few hours of thoughtful pondering and a beautiful countryside to explore. It's certainly worth that and the performance was passable enough to not be too distracted in my humble opinion, even if not lightning quick."

Simply look at my playtime as of this review... 1.5 hours... and I'm already really depressed after spreading fake news across the world.

10/10 but wouldn't deceive the world again.