Recent reviews by SKEPTRA

kek

Whatever floats your boat.

Raft is an Early Access survival game developed by Redbeet Interactive. You begin with a tiny raft and over the course of the game you’ll collect flotsam for resources to help you expand your raft and make surviving just a little easier. Along the way, you’ll run into islands to stop at as well as stave off an incredibly obsessive shark.

One thing I will say, is this game can feel a little bit monotonous. I strangely enjoy monotony at times, but if you don’t then this game might not offer enough to keep you interested.

Positives:
Raft has fairly good visuals, nothing groundbreaking but it’s certainly nice to look at (I particularly like the sunrises and sunsets).

The core gameplay is fairly simple, but surprisingly well done. The meat of the game is really just using a grappling hook to pull in floating resources which you then use to make different tools and equipment to help you survive, such as water purifiers and wooden spears. It can feel a little slow at times, but for the most part it felt like there was a decent level of progression in the game.

As well as fishing for resources (and fish) there are also islands that you sometimes come across. Each island has something unique about it, but they all contain some of the rarer resources required for more advanced crafting. The islands help break things up a bit and add some nice variety to the game, though they can be a little bit too challenging to get on. You also come across abandoned rafts every one in a while that also add some nice variety.

The difficulty level you choose makes a surprisingly significant impact on how the game feels. The easy mode is very relaxing, little pressure from the survival elements, and you can take the game at your own pace. Normal mode requires more attention to be paid to how hungry and thirsty you are, and things can pretty quickly get away from you. The hardest mode obviously offers the most challenge but honestly it also has the least realism since you’re constantly needing to top up your survival bars. There’s also a creative mode, that’s pretty self-explanatory.

Playing singleplayer and multiplayer also offer two very different experiences. Singleplayer makes you feel lonely and isolated. It’s also more relaxing and I actually found it quite meditative too. Multiplayer (depending on who you’re playing with of course) is a bit more involved and energetic, progression is a bit faster too. I’ve enjoyed playing both, but I think I prefer singleplayer for this one.

In a sea (ha, get it) of survival games, Raft actually manages to have a pretty unique

Neutral:
For the main antagonist of a game, the shark is a little underwhelming. I actually ended up turning off shark attacks while I was playing because I enjoyed it more. The shark really just attacks you when you’re in the water and every so often it’ll attack your Raft and try to break some off. It definitely adds some extra challenge; I just didn’t particularly enjoy that challenge. This really comes down to personal preference though.

The survival requirements can be a little intense, but changing the difficulty level really makes a difference. I figure some people will probably be annoyed that the main challenge comes from how quickly your hunger and thirst bars decrease, but I personally didn’t mind just making the game easier overall to enjoy the game more.

Negatives:
I really wish there was more music in the game. There were long stretches of time where the game was pretty much completely quiet. I’m sure there are plenty of people who play with their own music or podcasts, but I found the in-game music added to the immersion when it was actually playing.

While I do enjoy some of the monotony, I do still feel like the game can be a little too repetitive. I often went long periods between seeing an island, and it can get pretty uninteresting if you’re an hour or two into just floating around looking at nothing but ocean.

I don’t think there’s enough wood to go around. Planks are the main resource used in construction and crafting, and if you’re trying to build a decent sized raft then you need a LOT of planks. I got kind of fed up of building one new piece of my raft, going back and spending a few minutes getting more planks, and then repeating that again and again until I had built up what I wanted.

Verdict:

Raft ends up being a little too repetitive even for someone who enjoys monotony but it’s a fairly unique survival game and you can customize your experience with it fairly well. I’d certainly recommend it for fans of the survival genre.

Had a pretty good time playing this. Not an overly long game. I played for 21 hours, but it only took just over 10 to finish, and that was me taking my time with it.
The crafting system wasn't overly complicated, got to love those exploding arrows.
Plenty of action throughout from start to finish, especially when running and gunning from a hungry horde.
Story wise, it's nothing deep. But it does keep you interested in wanting to know what is going on till the very end.

I've never played any game as much as this one. It's not perfect, but it's pretty awesome.

No matter how long the time has passed this game is one of the best sci-fi, fps game Even with the really old source engine it can still prove that graphic is not everything