Recent reviews by Spobbles

I was interested in this game because I enjoyed Freespace and Starlancer and wanted more. This isn't it, but it is a good game.

Bear in mind I haven't played the game's PvP. I'm not interested in it and I'm aware I'm missing some content because of that.

The gameplay is solid, flying the ships around feels good and the game looks great, it just lacks substance. It's pretty much a "make your own adventure" game and most of the existing content is fairly solid, it just needs much more of it. More activities; more things to do with the ship you've spent time upgrading, more things to do once you've earned your fortune.

The community organizes activities like racing, but there are no systems in-game to do it. The "active" lore of the game mostly consists of news articles describing the happenings of the galaxy, which usually translate to gameplay in the same two or three ways. Typically "Kill people here because X reason" or "Deliver stuff here because X reason".
The alien threat is a more interesting part of the game and it's growing more relevant with time, but like the news articles it still feels very disconnected to the rest of the game.

The game also lacks immersion outside of your ship cockpit; interactions with stations and the characters in them is done through text in a menu. I understand some sort of codex is being added very soon which is a good start for the lore-side, but the game really needs the space-legs the community has been asking for. As it is, you cannot leave your seat. Being able to walk around your own ship will be really nice, but being able to walk out of it into proper hub with other characters would be even nicer.

The game has microtransactions for cosmetics, and I don't think they're unreasonably priced, but I wish the game had at least some basic cosmetic options without them. Even just a colour palette for your ship's exterior. Cosmetics you can earn through gameplay would give people a new reason to grind, but there aren't any aside from three small decals you can put on the outside of your ships to display your various rankings. If there were paintjobs or cockpit-accessories we could earn through gameplay, that'd be great.

The reason I give this game a positive review despite all that is it's just such a great experience if you love space and space ships. Even the mundane cargo runs are oddly entertaining, and combat is always fun. It's a nice world to be in.

I don't think this game is currently worth its full price though. You need the Horizons DLC to enjoy it properly, and the combined price of that and the base game is too much for what it currently offers in my opinion. There will also be another paid DLC after the next update, to my understanding.

With a reasonable discount, sure.

Really good game, but also a really broken game. De-sync and bugs galore!

It works okay for the first few minutes, but rapidly goes downhill to the point it's totally unplayable.

I'd like to give this game a neutral review but that's not a thing.

I really wanted to like this game, but it didn't go that way.

I bought this game for the open world co-op, and it's...okay, I guess. You can't do story missions in co-op, so you'll be going around destroying outposts, fortresses and climbing belltowers. Trouble is, that doesn't take long. The outposts are tiny and often cleared in less than two minutes if you do stealth. You'll get more out of them if you go loud, but that kinda sucks if you're someone who likes being stealthy.

The fortresses are supposed to be kind of "super outposts", they're labelled as being very hard and give you the option of weakening them through story missions. We cleared all of them easily without weakening them, they're just bigger outposts.

Don't get me wrong, messing around with a friend in this game is fun, just not very challenging and you can clear the map pretty quick. There are random side objectives around the map and collectibles to find if you're into that sort of thing.

And then we get to the story. Oh boy, the story.
First of all, this is really just my preference. People like different things so hey, people who aren't me could like it.
Second of all, I did not get all the way through the story of this game. I couldn't. I'm not a masochist.

I hated almost all of the characters in Far Cry 3 (which I did play all the way through, unfortunately), and 4 is pretty similar. I found this game's story plain excruciating and hated almost every minute the main characters were on screen. Even the protagonist got sick of their s*** part way into the story.

I love story games. I'm also fine with games with no story at all, or even a mediocre story that wasn't really important, as long as the game's other aspects made up for it. I've never played a game whose characters I hated so much that I had to stop playing, until Far Cry 4.

If you don't mind them, then good for you. You'll enjoy this game a lot more than I did.

All in all, the co-op is okay. The basic gameplay elements and weapon diversity is decent. You can have some fun. The story is up to personal preference. It's a Far Cry plot, for whatever that means to you. Personally I was begging the game to let me use my RPG in cutscenes, if only to drown out what the characters were saying. Oh, and the drugged out trippy dream sequences are in this game too. If you like them then good news.

If this game was offered to you for a few dollars? Sure, go for it. Full price? Meh.

Oh, and to upgrade your small leather wallet to hold more cash you'll need to kill and skin 2 bharals, 3 monkeys, FOUR F***ING RHINOS and a wolf.

That's one quality wallet.

This is really a very good game. The problem I always have with these builder-type games is that you can go ahead and build something really cool, but then you have nothing to use it for. It's why I lost interest in space engineers originally, since I wasn't interested in the game's pvp.

Empyrion does have stuff to use your creations on though. The enemy variety is still fairly small and "early access-ish", but it's expanding and entertaining. Plenty of enemy bases around to attack with your ships, clear out with your personal arsenal and scavenge for parts to build bigger and better. If designing ships and bases isn't your thing, there are plenty of blueprints in the game & steam workshop for you to use while you enjoy the scavenging, resource gathering and looting of a survival game.

There's real progress happening with the updates, with public areas featuring NPC traders added now, more enemy types, building improvements, visual upgrades, weather systems, etc.

This is without doubt one of the most promising early access games I've seen in a while.

The first Souls game I've put real time and effort into, and it was worth it.

The atmosphere is what makes this series special for me. This game is very beautiful, and pretty brutal as well.

PvE wise there are a couple of issues here and there - mainly with some specific enemies, but overall it's a solid experience. It doesn't feel clunky or cumbersome, barring the rare occasion when your camera becomes your enemy. It can be punishing, but you don't have to be an especially 'tactical' or strategic player to get through it. There's also a nice variety of armours and weapons with varied styles and movesets. I very much enjoyed the PvE experience as a whole.


As for the PvP, I don't have much good to say as it didn't really work for me.

I'm not a fan of the invasion mechanic, but I've accepted its existence and won't complain about it being there. The two problems I did have with it were firstly that as a brand new player (level 10-15) I was already getting invaded by end-game players using gear with stat requirements I could only dream of. I had zero chance of even doing significant damage, let alone winning the fight. The second problem was that it was extremely laggy for me. My internet isn't super fast but isn't bad either (I don't get problems like this playing p2p in other games, even with people far away), yet more than half of the invaders I've ever fought were immune to my attacks. As in my weapons would pass through their bodies and do absolutely nothing. I don't think I was even there on their screens. I tried port forwarding as well as other suggested fixes but nothing helped.

When the PvP is actually balanced and working properly though it isn't too bad. Or it's awful. It is, after all dependant on other players. Sometimes you can have a good, fun fight. Other times the invader will immediately run away and hide to waste your time.

Of course you can simply avoid pvp altogether by playing offline or just not running around while embered, though that does limit your co-op options. If you want to run around the place for a while with a friend you're going to get invaded. You can just summon friends when you get to a boss though, invaders can't interfere with boss fights.

Speaking of the co-op, I'm a little disappointed. The invasions I can handle, but just the way the whole things works isn't very enjoyable. I can understand that the idea for this seems to be a primarily single player game with occasional call for help from a friend, but it'd be nice to have some more freedom with the co-op. For example you can't see your friend's summon sign in an area if you've already beaten the area's boss. It makes sense with the 'singleplayer+help' theme, but it'd be nice to just be able to run around an old area with a friend having fun farming souls, or whatever.

Overall, I enjoyed this game a lot and I'll be continuing to play for some time yet.

I'd have liked a bit more in the co-op system so it could be more enjoyable with friends, with more than just boss fights and initial area-clearing.

Great soundtrack, worth getting for sure.

Good game for sure. You're gonna need some teamwork to get through a lot of the levels, and it's a good challenge.

Not without its problems, but overall it's a solid, enjoyable game.

I can't comment on the community, since I've only played with friends.

All in all it's a solid co-op experience that costs you nothing to play, worth trying for sure.

It's free. Play it.

Can be grindy or repetitive for new players, but once you find your place in the game and have others around you to play with, it'll keep you interested for a good while. Updates all the time, a devteam players actually like and enjoyable gameplay await.

This game is free to play and has its premium currency like any other, but you don't have to pay anything to get the premium content if you work for it thanks to the game's trading system. That premium content is largely limited to cosmetic items anyway, so you won't be at a great disadvantage either way.

It's still free. You should try it.

A good concept and it has its fun moments, but ridiculous bugs such as zombies running through solid walls and the player not being able to move/stop moving while selecting an item continue to plague this game. That, and 80% of the time you're playing running simulator.

Buy it if it's on special for 75% off, otherwise don't bother.

Hopefully this review will change when the game finally comes out of early access.