Recent reviews by jade

Valve is actively profiting off of the harassment of users and the destruction of their product. Do not play this game.

If you are a fan of games like FEZ, Tunic, Rain World, and Hypnospace Outlaw, you should check this one out.

This game rules but you should not buy it until they remove the always online DRM. Unplayable on steam deck because of it.

deep ♥♥♥♥ galactic

This port leaves a lot to be desired in terms of optimization. I understand that this game is demanding, genuinely, but seriously? I have to lock my framerate to 30 fps to get anything useable because this game murders my cpu while nothing is happening in game.

However, that 30fps cap is still really playable, and honestly, if that were all there was to it, I would recommend this despite the shoddy port job because the game is great. However, in its current state, its an unstable mess. I get crashes for no discernable reason, I had to wait 3 hours for my shaders to compile, and the game keeps eating my controller inputs. Please. Make this port better, because this game is real neat!

this is one of the best games ever made

playing this game felt like being on meth and it made me want to order a pizza

this gam,e is evil do not play it

I criticize this game constantly and yet here I am buying it AGAIN and recommending it AGAIN.

Bonelab is good. This is effectively an expansion to Boneworks, think of Boneworks as Half Life 1 and Bonelab as Opposing Force. Which... makes it feel really odd that it's actually priced higher than Boneworks when it has less story content, although we'll get into the idea of "content" in this game soon. The systems in place are an expansion and refining of the ideas in Boneworks, now with an actual body mapping and system in place to give different characters realistic stats according to their body types. The player's body is actually a full physics object in this game, unlike in BW where the upper body was pretty inconsistent with when it was and wasn't physical, and the changes here while they take some getting used to are a genuine improvement. Swapping to an avatar with unrealistic proportions, but having it actually match up when I put my hands on my hips, for example, is a shockingly novel sensation. But, those improvements and new systems are really all that the game has going for it, besides some minor graphical improvements (I really like the look of the new Nullbodies!), the lackluster campaign....... and the elephant in the room.

THE "CAMPAIGN... is pretty lackluster, especially in comparison to Boneworks. It starts off strong, with some interesting level design in a return to the brief Fantasy Land setting from the end of the last game, and sets up more of that great mystique and atmosphere that I adored in the first. Then, you're sent into the hub world, which if you don't pay very close attention, could lead you to believing is the end of the game's story mode. Once you're dumped into the hub, you're "on your own kid," and you are introduced to the true intention of this game; a GMod-esque VR modding sandbox playground. But we'll get back to that. You have to play through three of the gamemodes once and then you are given "power orbs" which you need to move with a crane mechanism to power the door to move forwards to the actual rest of the game. I was able to figure out this stupid crane puzzle, but it really is just mind-boggling as to why they would lock the INTENDED PATH FORWARDS behind a puzzle as obtuse as this. There is a hint on a screen in the lab about it, but it's simply not enough for most. I was able to figure it out on my own, but basically everyone else I have seen play this game has gotten stuck there, and some of them genuinely thought that the game ended there. Going forwards, there is a pretty lackluster set of levels before the game does simple minigames to introduce you to the avatar system, and then abruptly ends. As a fan of Boneworks' cryptic story, I find that this game's story is genuinely very disappointing. I understood the story beats and I find the lore revelations so exciting and fun to theorize about, but I feel they could have been told in a much more engaging way. The reveal and explanation as to the reason for our adventure, rather than being gradually explained and hinted at in any interesting way, is dropped on the player all at once at the end. It's quite disappointing to see the mysterious and delightfully intriguing atmosphere of the soulless corporate cities of MythOS cast to the wayside for lame glorified minigames. Especially since our character and the story concepts surrounding this Westworld-y thing with the AI of Myth are so fun thematically! It just feels like wasted potential, and it really hurts because of that.

Basically, this game is a platform. It's not Boneworks 2. Boneworks is a game that I genuinely love for its world, story, and gameplay, and Bonelab while not BAD, is definitely not a sequel. I'm pretty sure this game effectively exists to get a Boneworks-type game onto the Quest, which is FINE. That's cool. I'm glad more people get to play a good game. But simply put, this is not a substantial release in its current state, especially for those who enjoyed Boneworks for its campaign. It's a game for modders and a platform for future content. I really do recommend it - it's literally just more Boneworks with extensive modding support - but its PURELY that.

Also, just an aside, why is there basically zero tutorial in this game? Boneworks spent almost two entire levels introducing you to its mechanics and did so in a fun and creative way. The Museum is genuinely my favorite tutorial in any game period. Meanwhile in Bonelab you're lucky to get anything besides a brief text bubble on your controller. It doesn't make sense especially since this will be so many people's first introduction to the game's mechanics (think of poor baby Quest 2 players!), which hurts even more since some of them have been changed. Thanks for telling players how to claim prize bubbles with the removal of the reclamation bin (a genuinely great change, marred by a really poor visual indicator on prize bubbles that explains very little), and thanks for explaining the changes to slow-mo.

TL;DR Bonelab is a good platform and not so great of a game. I recommend it if you liked Boneworks, but only because it's literally just more of it.