What is so bad about this game?

[Frostblunt]

It looks like fun to me but the very low meta scores and overall critics seems bad... they say in trailer it's like a mix of worms and xcom... 2 game I really enjoy. So what kind of disapointement could I encounter in this game? I'm maybe looking to buy a few copy for me and some friends too so I want to make sure it will be as fun as it looks.

[Sycamorph]

It has a very bad AI. This is the problem. And I don't know other problems. I was playing in this game a years ago and I still like it.

[Nasty Peep]

You can't do online co-op. It has to be on the couch, meaning you don't need to buy multiple copies....unless you wanted to be nice.

The reason the game is rated so horribly, is because the dev released it in a state which most would call unfinished, so the critics judged it as a finished game....which it wasn't.

Here, Data can explain it in detail....
http://steamcommunity.com/app/209670/discussions/0/558753803715267243/

For the record, I enjoy it, and anything the game is currently lacking in is generally fixed with the many, many mods for this game (chiefly the campaign, which Weegee has several super duper mods for).

[Tleno]

Main issues would be game comming up rather bugged when released, which more or less has been remedied. There are still some issues like some people having hard time setting the game to fullscreen, though, and those aren't pleasant.

Also, it's definitely not for everyone, it has a steep learning curve and some rather unconventional control model, but the sandboxyness of the game is stuning, not to mention it's easy to mod and has a workshop support.

[FishyMishy]

Dont be fooled by the meta score, it is a good game but it is in beta and the devs thought it was the full game so they gave it a bad score.

[toroid]

Cortex Command has gotten terrible criticism (that it deserved IMO) for two main reasons.

1. Development has been painfully slow, and the lead dev takes year-long vacations every once in a while. The game has gone mostly unchanged for years.
2. The game has very little content, few features, and the interface is bare bones. Without mods it's fairly simplistic and empty. Campaign mode is lame and feels really shallow and unfinished; most of the fun will be found in a heavily modded Scenario Battle mode.

[A stick]

It is because they haven't played it, all they did was complain about it. Cortex Command is still one of my favorite games. I have yet to see another game with such game mechanics.

[Dirk Bolero]

Oprindeligt skrevet af starstrucksam:

the devs thought it was the full game

Accidentally accurate.

Basically, gameplay is painfully slow in spite of being an RTS, the AI is as dumb as the digging tools they use to kill themselves with, the control scheme is awkward to use and impossible to change, models still have a chance to explode for no discernable reason, but to top it all off I think the worst offense is that the developer took a lot of people's money and then vanished for ten years. We were sold this game being told it was Early Access Alpha, one of like two at the time, but now it's on Steam being sold as complete even though the only thing they did was add broken Steam achievements and trading cards.

Worms, despite being turn-based and played by physically passing a controller between two humans, was still faster-paced than Cortex Command is after eleven years in development.

XCOM, despite being rather infamous for the number of troops you could lose at any given time, was fair in the way it determined who lived and who died. Cortex Command has no fairness. You control one body at a time, while the remainder of your army is given the barest minimum of intelligence needed to point a gun or to properly dig off the edge of the map (WHICH STILL HAPPENS, DON'T LIE TO ME AND SAY IT DOESN'T). That said while your soldiers will point their guns they will seldom shoot those guns, because of a five second delay to keep them from being "too powerful" which is to say "alive without your control". Meanwhile the enemy AI can not only control multiple units but can also shop for more of said units. They have no delay in firing, and with these advantages they will, in the course of a regular campaign, steamroll you in every fashion, leaving you to spam cheap units just to survive a simple bunker incursion. Just not too many cheap units because too many units on the map causes all units to explode, and as said before the AI is capable of outproducing you in every way possible so they will be back up to full numbers in no time while you are left with your defenses in shambles.

But there is one thing people are saying that is true, and it is that there is no other game that fits this particular genre (that of a 2D physics-driven platformer RTS with an emphasis on resource gathering), that will even try to scratch this particular itch, which is why it's so painful that Cortex Command has failed so horribly in that endeaver because it means that when someone else tries to make this game, and I mean really tries and doesn't just puddle around for eleven years, then they will be burdened with a wariness from investors who have been burned before. Like some malformed twin attached at the hip, Cortex Command will make difficult any chance said hypothetical game has of succeeding in a crowded indie market and the more I think about that, the angrier I get.

[Nasty Peep]

@Dirk

137 hours and I've never had anyone dig off the edge of the map, maybe it is possible, my AI has never done it. I do think there should be a way to modify how player AI and enemy AI work, tweak the reaction times and so on. Naturally the AI does need an advantage, because it can't really come up with the clever tactics that humans can. So to me, it makes some sense.

I've never really found unit spam to be all that helpful, I get better results with thought out presets and careful placement (yes, even during bunker invasions). It just takes some practice.
I've also not experienced the sudden actor gibbing phenomena more than a few times, and I will say that it hadn't caused me to lose a match either.

While I did appreciate the trading cards and achievements, that's really the last thing I think they should worry about. I'd much rather there be a strong focus on maximum optimization (as optimized as the engine will allow), and then content after that. I'm not going to lie, I'm not that concerned with the campaign, I much prefer the Unmapped Lands and Void Walkers mods anyway.

I wouldn't worry too much about future look-a-likes. As long as a dev has a good team, or dedicates a ton of time, I'm sure they'll do fine, regardless of Cortex Command's existance. Sure, we'll get a storm of "CLONE! CLONE! CLONE!" threads, but that's the typical Steam community, they do that for nearly every game.

[Tleno]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Put me back in the water:

@Dirk

137 hours and I've never had anyone dig off the edge of the map, maybe it is possible, my AI has never done it. I do think there should be a way to modify how player AI and enemy AI work, tweak the reaction times and so on. Naturally the AI does need an advantage, because it can't really come up with the clever tactics that humans can. So to me, it makes some sense.

I've never really found unit spam to be all that helpful, I get better results with thought out presets and careful placement (yes, even during bunker invasions). It just takes some practice.
I've also not experienced the sudden actor gibbing phenomena more than a few times, and I will say that it hadn't caused me to lose a match either.

While I did appreciate the trading cards and achievements, that's really the last thing I think they should worry about. I'd much rather there be a strong focus on maximum optimization (as optimized as the engine will allow), and then content after that. I'm not going to lie, I'm not that concerned with the campaign, I much prefer the Unmapped Lands and Void Walkers mods anyway.

I wouldn't worry too much about future look-a-likes. As long as a dev has a good team, or dedicates a ton of time, I'm sure they'll do fine, regardless of Cortex Command's existance. Sure, we'll get a storm of "CLONE! CLONE! CLONE!" threads, but that's the typical Steam community, they do that for nearly every game.

Before the very first hotfix, it was possible to dig off the edge, albeit that's fixed. Also, in some super rare cases when NPC is squished into the soul but not killed it may just keep on falling trough soil, but that is super rare.

And the sudden gibbing, well, steam bug is fixed, but there's still the object limit which may lead to instant gib, but that must be done deliberately.

[Nasty Peep]

I think it must be, going past 10 units is just ridiculous to begin with, you honestly don't need more than a handful. Besides, I'd much rather have 5 hardy, well armed units than 10 mediocres. Maps aren't generally large enough to warrant an "army" so you have to sort of scale it down, similarly to worms, the teams tend to be smallish.

I've lost count of the times where the AI tries to make an army and how it screws them over. It seems like half the time when the AI drops in a boatload of troops, I am able to mindlessly fire into the throng, eventually manage to hit something explosive, then kill the lot of them with the shrapnel.....or you know.....shoot out one of the engines of the drop-ship and make it land on the whole squad, that's fun too.

[toroid]

Perhaps another reason for the criticism is that the game began as more of a side-scrolling adventure physics sandbox, and has recently taken a turn to pitifully attempt to give birth to an RTS. As an RTS Cortex Command is a failure because it does not really mesh well with what the game has naturally done best over the years, IMO.

Originally, it was implied that there was going to be a kind of story mode. It looked really promising back then. It would have given us a series of high-quality hand-crafted levels, each with its own theme and objectives like Zombie Cave (control chip hunt), and probably bosses too. It would have been more unique and creative than the shallow faux-strategy campaign mode, that's for sure.

I can't even fathom why they went with an RTS design over the story-adventure-physics-sandbox-thingy design. To turn this into an RTS foremost was totally a shock to me... and apparently it was also a shock to the vast majority of the existing mod making community.

[VISION305]

Game is fantastic. I havent seen any game like this in my life. The campain is actually pretty interesting. You land your brain on the planet area and immedietaly start digging a tunnel to get away from any crazy stuff happening on the surface... You dig up gold for cash then call in reinforcements. By reinforcements I mean other guys you can control or give orders to. I usually leave two guys at the entrance of my tunnel and then take one sniper to kill off all the bad guys. Then I land more troops on top of the enemy brains tunnels or if they already have a base I land on top of it and then enter the base slowly taking out defenses till you reach the brain.

I gotta say I never seen a game like this in my life. Have had a lot of fun with it. My only criticisms are that it lacks multiplayer (it has local only) and the maps are not randomly generated. Other than that there are lots of weapons and things to play with.

If you happen to take over an area on the planet you can build a bunker to help defend against other brains that might land there to try to take your spot. Build your bunkers up high makes it hard for the bad guys to enter. If you want to win easily and have plenty of gold, buy some crates full of bombs and drop on the brain as soon as it lands! =P

[Frostblunt]

I ended up buying it and came to the same conclusion as you. I liked the unique gameplay and would also like to see multiplayer over internet for this game it would be awesome. Another weak point is how difficult it is to figure out how to build a bunker and how each piece you can buy can be used. I just always use auto-design because I can't figure out what half the available piece are for. If I could design my own bunker and make use of all the options available it would make the game much better for me.

Oprindeligt skrevet af VISION305:

Game is fantastic. I havent seen any game like this in my life. The campain is actually pretty interesting. You land your brain on the planet area and immedietaly start digging a tunnel to get away from any crazy stuff happening on the surface... You dig up gold for cash then call in reinforcements. By reinforcements I mean other guys you can control or give orders to. I usually leave two guys at the entrance of my tunnel and then take one sniper to kill off all the bad guys. Then I land more troops on top of the enemy brains tunnels or if they already have a base I land on top of it and then enter the base slowly taking out defenses till you reach the brain.

I gotta say I never seen a game like this in my life. Have had a lot of fun with it. My only criticisms are that it lacks multiplayer (it has local only) and the maps are not randomly generated. Other than that there are lots of weapons and things to play with.

If you happen to take over an area on the planet you can build a bunker to help defend against other brains that might land there to try to take your spot. Build your bunkers up high makes it hard for the bad guys to enter. If you want to win easily and have plenty of gold, buy some crates full of bombs and drop on the brain as soon as it lands! =P