Recent reviews by s3gfault

Worth the wait

Ask not what Super Earth can do for you, but what you can do for Super Earth.

This game screams labor of love. If it were restaurant, it would have 4-5 items on the menu and all of entrees would be simple home meals with minimal "rustic" presentation, but you would leave completely satisfied.

I am genuinely surprised how well the core loop works. Jetpack off to explore a planetoid. Fight some aliens. Mine some stuff. Explore an abandoned ship. Return to base to craft, make some improvements to your ship, do some light farming, defend from a wave. Repeat.

The way the systems tie in with one another gives me Space Engineer vibes, but it's not really fair to compare, because this game actually has a well-paced tutorial that introduces you to all the core mechanics.

Space Trash Scavenger is worth your money now, but there is plenty of room for the (two-person!) dev team to grow the experience. Right now, the game is in a "diamond in the rough" state. Polish is needed, but the core is brilliant.

Is this you: You want to play a space game but... Elite: Dangerous is dead. Star Citizen has bugs, performance issues, and feels more like a tech demo than a game. No Mans Sky doesn't have enough depth or difficulty in its flight. X4 looks dated and the UI makes you think of Eve Online. You want dogfights in space, not spreadsheets in space!

You want a space game that has solid flight controls. Mechanical depth. Ship customization. Rock-solid performance. No bugs. An honest-to-goodness enjoyable story with memorable characters. Mechanics that don't require a 3rd party tool to effectively use. An experience that is enjoyable for 20 minutes at a time yet is so well-paced that it can stretch into a multi-hundred hour play-through. Boy do I have the game for you.

Everspace 2 is on my shortlist for 2023 GOTY. Please support these developers; they made something truly special.

Note: I'm a software engineer and that heavily colors this review.

This game is a computer engineering course in the style of a Zachtronics puzzle game, and I can't recommend it enough.

I credit this game with the single best feeling of a puzzle just fitting together. You see a working computer and know that you built every part. I had read about 2s compilment and assembly, but now I understand.

For the nerds out there, this is for you. This joins Factorio on my short list of games that, if you complete, I would offer you a job sight unseen.

It's a fast-paced, tactical, deck-building roguelike. If you enjoy those things, One Step from Eden is a well-built indie with a caring dev, some seriously satisfying difficulty, and tons of replay value.

The game has a lot of variety in its items and gets them to you faster than other games in the genre. There are plenty of starting archetypes and unique items show up quickly and keep coming. There is a system that lets you choose what type of cards you prefer, giving you more agency than typical of a roguelike. The result is that you can build really interesting decks earlier in the game.

I like the pixel art style. There can be a lot happening on screen so visuals prioritize readability. One negative here is (as of writing) lack of colorblind mode.

This is, like all roguelikes, a difficult game. You will steadily unlock a larger variety of cards and starting characters/loadouts, but there are no permanent stat increases (not what some would call a roguelite). The developer cares about balancing the game and I think they've done a great job responding to community feedback; the game is definitely better than when it launched.

Note: Most of my playtime on Switch, which I would similarly recommend noting that it has occasional frame drops

I do not typically enjoy the Souls-like genre, but this game really captured my interest

Points:
- Progression system is simple and well thought out. You always get something useful, but the best stuff is item-gated behind more powerful enemies
- Items are unique and interesting. Every time I killed a boss felt like I earned something cool and powerful
- Excellent use of different enemy AI and design across tilesets. I ended up swwitching weapons and tactics in each area because they felt so different to play
- Some of the best UX I've seen recently. Menus are simple and easy to navigate. Coop is dead simple (looking at you, FromSoft)
- A good amount of story. It's there, it's solid for what it is. It doesn't waste your time or get in your way
- S+ value for money. I would pay $60. Procedural generation and coop allows for a ton of replayability

Of course, that would mean nothing if the combat didn't feel good and deaths felt fair. The guns feel satisfying to shoot and enemies have attacks that can be dodged with enough skill. Every death felt like my fault and I was quickly back in the action, without the hassle of having to hunt down my old corpse.

This AA gem deserves your time and money. If anything about the description appeals to you, give it a try.

Take FTL. Replace the combat with arcade flight sim and small arena exploration. Add Rogue Legacy's persistent upgrades. Add a dash of voice acting to set up the core narrative and you have EVERSPACE.

The game is beautiful and controls really well. Flight is arcadey, fast-paced with a lot of manueverability. When the enemies are clear, cruise around to gather resources before jumping to the next area. The upgrade system has a bunch of different resource types, so it can be hard to get the parts you need to do what you want.

It is, as you may have guessed from roguelikes I compared it to, also punishingly difficult. But since your ship gets stronger each playthrough, you never feel an early death was a complete failure. There are, of course, different difficulty settings.

Pros:
- Solid controls, fast fluid action
- Simple and beautiful art style
- Upgrades feel rewarding to locate and unlock

Cons:
- Sector maps are severely oversimplified
- Too many resource types for a roguelike
- It will kick your teeth in. Be ready

TL;DR Enjoy FTL/roguelikes and flight sims? Give EVERSPACE a chance to impress you.

Atlas Reactor is a brilliantly desiged strategy game. For a F2P game that has generated relatively little hype, it has quickly become my 3rd most played Steam title (out of over 300 games).

Even with the 'Beta' tag, gameplay is rock solid, a lesser studio would have already released. Graphics and animation look quite good, even at high non-standard resolutions. Item unlocking has been completely revamped to include random cosmetic items, no P2W elemnents to be found here.

Overall, I highly recommend downloading just to see the gameplay. It really is like nothing you've ever played and you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

The Deluxe edition is a fantastic upgrade to an already solid indie tower defense game. The new graphics style is clean and looks good at all resolutions. RPG elements and clever options keep replayability high, and the game has a great sense of humor.

Further, the developer has an excellent history of transparency, excellent dev blog materiel, and genuinely cares about this being a great experience. Highly recommended for any tower defense fans.