Recent reviews by fbane

Not sure why this game has so many positive reviews for. Its boring. Dreadfully boring. You spend more time waiting for the accumulation of minerals and isotypes than doing anything else in the game.

Its riddle throughout the game that if you want an advantage that paying for it is a shortcut.

There are better games out there that value your time and make you feel like you are accomplishing things.

Game is not finished. I doubt it will ever be finished as many have pointed out the sequel is in talks.

I feel this game should be pulled from the store.

Save your money and don't purchase this game.

The basic premise of the game is fly a "gyrocopter" through levels to earn money to upgrade your ships and that is about the extent of the game.

There are quests but you never know if they are complete or still in progress because there is no indication of what is going on.

There is an achievement for unlocking 100% of the game and a percentage bar in the game that you can fill to 100% but
jokes on you because that doesn't mean you have actually finished the game.

The dev recently updated the game to include a new biome but for those who unlocked all the levels and achieved that 100% your chances of seeing the new biome is nill.

Could have had promise but doesn't feel like the dev really wants to listen to the player base for ideas or suggestions.

I am going against the grain of this game and being someone who gives it a do not recommend.

After seeing how much this game got praise for being so great I decided to invest into it and can say I I don't understand all the hype. This is basically a shell of a "game" around a diver named Dave but the overall means of the game is you are a run around monkey for everyone and the entire game is basically played out as one large tutorial and unlocks that don't make any sense.

As an example early in your first dives you come upon sea urchins and learn that your "gloves" aren't good enough to grab them. It takes you a few quests and hours later and because a "spike" needs to be removed you get that upgrade.

The fact so much of this game revolves around mini games can also be frustrating. An example of this is using the "flame" harpoon and when you harpoon a fish you immediately go into a game of "hit two keys" fast to win but the game is over so fast you barely have time to react and I've basically given up on using those tools.

I did a lot of reading on this game and watched a lot of reviews but nothing prepared me for the onslaught of micromanaging and minigames that is implemented into this game.

I will continue to play and probably finish but only because of principle and not because I'm interested in how the game will play out.

One of these days Steam will give us a "maybe" option and not just a yes or no when it comes to doing reviews because with Early Access reviews opinions can change depending on the development of the game.

As of right now if you enjoy The Long Drive I would stick with that and if you haven't tried it give it a shot as its more polished and further along than this game. This isn't saying this game is The Long Drive because its not.

This game shares a lot in common with The Long Drive such as just following a road forever while ensuring you stay alive and your vehicle is doing alright but it has added other stuff such as biomes which is a nice break.

You have other things such as NPC Vendors which you can find and I think at the moment there are 6 or 7 to find as well as a handful of cars. But with the cars there is really only 1 at this time worth investing in which is the van because of carrying capacity.

The weapons need heavy rework as a wood spear is more powerful than a pistol and the shotguns later on feel about as soft as bubble gum chewed too long.

The boss fights are one end of the spectrum to the other and some people find them easy and others fine them difficult. I tried fighting Anubis a handful of times and it was so painful that I just gave up.

Yes this game uses a lot of canned Unity assets and I hope perhaps down the road the development team will remove these for more of their own but that generally doesn't happen because of one thing or another but would be nice to see something original.

If you enjoy being at the forefront of an early access game to watch it grow then purchase it, but I would honestly wait a bit as only after 11 hours I've seen and done the majority of what the game will offer at this moment.

01/19/2024:
The game has now been removed and uninstalled. I will come back sometime in the future to see where it has grown or changed enough to spend any further time on it.

I want to preface this by saying this game may turn into a great game. The dev is active on Discord and helps people where as needed.

The game has that Gran Turismo vibe and with time will probably become something good.

Where I have an issue with this game and its not even so much with the game but the developer.. is I found out that they are using Patreon to side fund this game which to me just feels cheap and not necessary.

IF you have a good game that people will want to play and enjoy then that should be enough and buying it through Steam should be enough as well.

When you have tiers that are $140/month CAD to "special benefits" this just makes it seem like the devleoper is greedy and will find a way to take money from people in any way they can.

I have now uninstalled this game and will no longer play or support the dev or even the studio further.

Good: Get to cup up ships and get to progress through a tier system to make your equipment better

Bad:
The storyline.
God it was awful.. all I wanted to do was either skip it or get back out to work. It felt like being in a office environment with all your co-workers complaining about everything. I play video games to get away from that crap.

As an example there is a part of the story where Lou (I think) reminisces about some girl and how it was like to kiss her.. Who cares?

Memory Leak: Man this game has a horrendous memory leak or something going on that after awhile of playing you'll notice an immediate frame drop, audio stuttering and controls getting flaky.

Music: You will get tired of hearing the same verse from the song Cats in the Cradle over and over and over again

Price Tag: This game is just not worth the $40 CAD I paid. This is like a $20-25 game as I was able to finish it in 30 hours or so and have no desire to continue on playing.

Verdict is that if you can get this game on sale for $20-25 then do it.. but don't pay full price for it at all.

I'm putting a "No" as recommendation because of all the issues and the price tag.. I'd put a maybe if I could.. but I can't.

So I put off writing anything about this until a few criteria were met.. and one of these was knowing when the game was going into early access and what the price tag of the game was going to be.

Let me preface this by saying that everyone calls this a "game" and in my eyes it is not a game and nothing more than a glorified demo and yes I know.. some people will argue this.

As this review is based off the prologue I will say that it provides nothing different to the other myriad of games in its genre.. you have collecting, crafting, building and progression. None of these are any different to any other genre out there at all so should this be priced $25 CAD? I don't think so. I'd rather see this game priced around $15 CAD and then increase the price as the game develops into something more mature that people may want to play.

Early access games are a massive gamble and this developer unfortunately is one that I would not be ok giving $25 CAD to for as they have a horrible track record of not being open about their develoment and saying very little to the playerbase. Also a game has to be incredible or earth shattering for me to put $25 towards when I have ZERO idea what the game is going to entail outside of what I saw in the demo and I think this is where too many are going to get wrapped up in.

A couple examples was they released a update into the Prologue and this introduced some bugs that were never looked at or fixed and nobody can say if these will carry over into early access.
Bug #1: Habs disappear and if you try to delete it will be "removed" but it will reappear and the only way to fix this is by either modifying your save game or completely removing all of your habs around the broken one and then rebuild everything.

Bug #2: The update introduced some weird effects with rain in the sense that rain would fall before you progressed into the terraforming far enough and it can also affect how things like rockets work in the game. Its also known that the rain can be "falling" but not seen as well.

At this time I suggest people REALLY think deep about their choice with this release and do it based off the fact that you have no idea where this game is going or how the game may evolve and can completely change.

Also ask yourself do you really feel a game in early access is worth $25 CAD? Even with a discount it won't be cheap that I would want to buy it.

Early Access games should never in my opinion be more than $15-20 CAD unless there is something incredible and ground breaking about the game and unfortunately this is not it.

I will continue to support small indie devs who release good games and are open and active with their community and show that they are worth putting my time and my money into, but for now this developer and game will not be one of those.

While the price maybe low this game is an "Early Alpha" not a "Early Access" game. It should be a free demo and maybe later down the road it could become an "Early Access" game.

The game is so buggy in so many ways that you'll just want to quit and if your not into seeing where a developer will take a game ask for a refund, or those who can be patient may wait too see what happens.

There is a lot of good to say about this game but there is a lot left to be desired.

As an example the worlds are amazing in detail and the lore is pretty neat too. But for me that is about where it falls.

I understand that this game is in early access as should everyone else and also understand that this means the game will grow and change in ways that could be better or be bad.

But here is the thing... Take away the ooh and ahh from the graphics and it becomes a annoyance to do anything related to building with how the snap system works.

The world is extremely empty as I have ran around a lot of the map and rarely feel that I am threatened or in danger unless I stumble across a troll in the Dark Woods.

Apparently there is a merchant in the game that you can buy stuff from? I have yet to run into them as well because apparently they hold an eluded fishing pole that can only be bought??? Why? Why is this a thing.. We should be able to craft stuff like this which would go so much further.

I won't say how my first boss fight went but lets just say I was really underwhelmed and when I was done I was like "Ok what next?"

I away to see where this game goes and the direction the developers go with it. If you want to be part of an early access with some promise now is the time to buy not later.

Due to how steam allows the recommendation I'm going to say no to recommending it but its really not how I feel and I won't say yes either.

Just remember its a early access game and a lot can change.