Recent reviews by mikelovesrobots

Developers of games have an interesting line to walk. If they introduce too many new things, they'll struggle to find an audience. If they introduce too few, they'll be labeled derivative or a copy. This game is a copy. It borrows extensively from Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, swapping the sci-fi for a fantasy setting, but not adding enough new ideas to stand on its own. It’s hard not to wonder why am I playing this instead of the original, especially since it has lower production values?

I think I'd forgive all the pointless game mechanics if the writing was any good. It's just so... bland.

Originally I didn't recommend this game. I felt the turn-based actions were too slow and plodding. After a month or so I returned to the game and this time picked the easy fighting mode and that made a huge difference. It's still challenging at times, but my characters weren't being downed every other fight.

Intellectually lazy.

1. Controls aren't optimized for PC (e.g. dodge is by default set to 'z', so dodging while moving left is out; popup recommends controllers)
2. Never really clear when to dodge vs. block against large bosses.
3. Bosses two-shot you on medium difficulty.
4. Makes you install origin.
5. Steals level mechanics from a LOT of AAA games (e.g., squeezing between walls tomb-raider-style; dangling climbing bits like uncharted; giant spinning death traps the player needs to slow time to pass like prince-of-persia; sliding bits like tomb-raider; prince-of-persia wall-running.) Makes me wish I was playing those games.
6. Levels feel like a collection of mechanics rather than a place that exists independent of the player. Why is there spinning death traps in an ice cave? Why are bosses sealed away in ice walls other than to spook you?

I feel a little bad for slamming it. Story is good. It's pretty. It feels like Star Wars,

But, in the end, I've played for 4 hours and that's enough.

Elite: Dangerous is a very pretty, but shallow, unrewarding experience. It's a sandbox game with no overarching storyline, and that's fine; but authors of sandbox games need to give people stuff to do. As a player, your options at any point are either to: explore nothingness, transport goods from one place to another, practice piracy (for little to no reward) or go hunting for pirates (and by hunting, I mean sit in space endlessly pressing 'g' for ten to fifteen minutes.) And whatever you decide to do will be punctuated by ten minutes of idleness as your ship zones from place to place. Be sure you have a book to read.

On the plus side, the sound is some of the best I've experienced in a game since Journey, and whoever crafted the cockpits did a great job with the little details.

Check it out a year after this review. Maybe there'll be something interesting to do.

I love block building games, but this one is more like pre-alpha. The user interface is horrible and in my opinion, the game is unplayable because of it. Guys, do some user testing before taking money from people.