Recent reviews by Ikol Aldebaran

The puzzles, the story and the voices all recapture the feeling of Portal 1 and 2. Whether it is on par with those or not really is in the eye of the beholder. I thought it was but even if it isn't it is still a fun continuation that also includes it's own mechanics and ways to solve puzzles. New and nostalgic. What more do you want?

So... IF YOU HAVE PLAYED AND LOVED THE PORTAL GAMES YOU MUST TRY THIS GAME... and you'll likely love it ^_^

Firstly the game looks great! Really beautiful and I especially love how far you can see around you when at high points.

The gameplay is also pretty smooth with combat being fun and engaging and crafting a nice mix of hand crafting, NPCs, workstations and add-ons.

Overall the game is inspired by and taking the best of games like Valheim, V Rising, ARK and Conan Exiles, Breath of the Wild and Path of Exile including things like combat, base building, skill tree, flying around, crafting and farming.

But it also adds more than enough of its own flavour to be a distinct and enjoyable game of its own. A few examples:

It is great how pages/books with Lore point to new areas which often have a new page/book which points to a next location, etc. Also I like that the text of the lore helps in finding where exactly the page/book or the related chest is.

Also I really love the Shroud areas and the lore behind it kind makes sense. It's always exciting when one has to go into it.

Last but not least the puzzles in for example the Sun Temples add some variety to the game. More of those please :)

It can still be improved in a few areas:

Farming becomes tiresome pretty quickly because you have to plant each individual plant one by one. After a few hundred plants it becomes really tiresome to find the right spot for a plant. Perhaps add tools that can be unlocked later in progression that allows you to plant multiple plants in a grid at the same time.

The red fungus ground (pretty much lava) that quickly (e.g. within 2 seconds) drains your Shroud resistance while on it's own is great idea can also be really really annoying. Especially combined with that the game sometimes randomly has you sliding of edges or not-that-steep slopes. It's responsible for most of my deaths and those typically didn't feel fair.

Crafting arrows is a chore. You have to spend as much time farming twigs as you are shooting arrows in combat.

That said. Super game. Completed all the content there is so far and can't wait for whats more to come.

The good
On one hand the game is a lot of fun because you are building awe inspiring tracks through both flatland and mountains. Then you have just as much fun carting stuff around making money, leveling and playing with different trains and carts. You can see a lot of love, hard work and eye for detail went in to this game.

The bad
But... on the other hand the game is a mess. The many things that make this game great and unique are contrasted by how many things work terribly.

My biggest gripe is you continuously derail for so many different little things:
* Have a turn in your steel bridge? You will DERAIL
* Have a truss connected to anything with an incline of more then 0? You will DERAIL
* You don't manage your speed with a weird continuous dance of flipping on/off the regulator and brake (also see below) on any track with turns in it. You will DERAIL
* Did you let the game decide how to build the turn instead of using circle mode? You will DERAIL
* You don't pay attention for 2 seconds. You will DERAIL

And every time you derail or lose a car you are spending up to 20 minutes fixing your train. Not in the least because you can't connect cars when they are already touching. Which is pretty much always unless there is absolutely no incline in the track. Instead you have to play a pinball mini-game with cars, brakes and engines that is fun the first time, annoying the second time and downright an horrible experience anytime after that.

Another gripe I have is that there is no sane way to go any other speed than your top speed.

Then there is the little annoyances like, for instance, buying 10 of the same cars is gonna set you back 3 minutes of repetitive clicking through the same menu's.

The ugly
After playing 20+ hours in a single weekend in the end we were spending more time rerailing trains then having fun and when I then started building tussles through the sky instead of cool paths of tracks through the hills it was time to give up...

Played the game because I like my erotica with a bit of story, some character development and a bunch of mini games. Stayed for the Eric's economics lessons ^_^

Do heartily recommend.

Would be FANTASTIC crafting and building game if it weren't for two major issues: Clang and lack of end game content

CLANG!
Things randomly go haywire or explode especially with moving mechanical parts (hinges, pistons, rotators, connectors). If it weren't for the ability to set autosave to every minut in the Sandbox_config.sbc file this game would be almost unplayable for the first 100 hours (= the time it takes to get a bit of a feel for when things will go CLANG!).

END GAME CONTENT
Content wise after a certain point there isn't really a lot to do. It needs more depth, more strategy to the combat, more to do then just mine, refine, and build stations/ships. Progression doesn't really add anything. What about fighting other bases, planets for control of specific goals, etc.

Wow... simply wow...

This game is all that Subnautica is: breathtakingly beautiful, exciting and sometimes scary, very immersive while exploring and building.

However it's story is where this outshines it's predecessor. It's impressive without overdoing it. With multiple threads and an ending I'll say nothing more about ^_^

Needs some more work but a really fun game with a great mix with on one hand developing your character, clan and kingdom and on the other hand displaying your combat prowess in tournaments, fighting tactical battles and sieging castles and cities.

4X are always a difficult game to do right. Typically these games provide decent all round gameplay and then excel in one or two things. Stellaris instead is great game by doing a lot of brilliantly fun things... doing them all well and making them all intricately work together to create a very 'interesting' experience ^_^

Handling the internal mechanics of your empire and its species, ethics, government, leaders, scientists, technology, exploration, happiness, divergence, rebels, xenocide, assimilation and genetic modifications.

Dealing with war and peace between your peers while uplifting cockroaches to interstellar species and simultaneously dealing with the idiosyncrasies of those neighboring overwhelmingly strong fallen empires.

'Nuff said, go play and have fun.

One of the best shooters ever. Not because of bullettime, although that certainly makes the gameplay awesome, but really because of its amazingly good film noir style and story.

Awesome game, awesome mood, awesome music, awesome story.