Recent reviews by ECTOPLASIM

I don't think most players truly understand the level of complexity this game offer in terms of ship design, there is no other game that offers anything near it. The problem with this complexity is your required to use your brain to come up with ingenious solutions to seemingly unavailable off the shelf features, this puts a lot of players off as you can't simply buy your way around it and the learning curve is tough. Yes the game does lack some depth in terms of game play features, like most games based on complex mechanics it makes adding these features more difficult so I understand it will take a while. I'm inspired by the incredible ship designs and borderline Einstein level coding the community come up to make really amazing features on ships that can be purchased.

I held off on my purchase as so many were saying you needed high end graphics cards, in the end I bit the bullet I tried it anyway.

I'm pleased to report that I can run the game on a bog standard GTX 1080, I find just disabling clouds in the console using r.VolumetricCloud 0 and adjusting shadows to low in the menu made the smooth and lag free. I am on single player though so higher specs maybe required for multiplayer servers. Obviously everything isn't set to epic but its good enough for me and better looking than the original. I haven't listed the values as the game sets them automatically based on your hardware.

I have crashed a few times but I see they are constantly patching the game and the frequency of crashes seems to be reducing, I also was please that getting back into the game after a crash is really fast.

New building system seems much better, the old one could be a pain and required experience, the new one however is pretty easy and the tool tips help a lot.

My main dislike of Survival evolved was them allowing the transfer of insanely OP dinosaurs into maps that didn't have access to those dinosaurs, it was a population killer, ruins the longevity of the game, and is a pretty obvious pay to win approach. Lets hope they don't repeat this madness.

I realise that now we will all eventually have access to the the cloaking, laser beam shooting, faster than a bullet dinosaurs, but for me these are break the semblance of immersion in a prehistoric battle for survival.

If players either want these or don't then there should be servers dedicated to each play style.

In the current state its a solid 6 out of 10.
Content is a little lacking and the world at times feels a little empty or repetitive. The scare factor in caves when your alone is great and the first time I was jumped I thought my heart was going to burst through my chest. The complete lack of traps was disappointing except for animal hunting, limited worthwhile base items and no real defences apart from a wall. I would have loved a bit more complexity/variety to recipes such as potions for increased strength/vitality/speed, also food recipes would be a great addition if they added some herbs/spices to the flora. I did love the new building mechanics that was a real improvement and clever, but the limited amount of options made this charm wear off quickly. The variety of enemies was better but the limited models and scripted behaviour made these also feel repetitive after a few hours, you also realise very quickly its easier to just run past mobs rather than fight as there is no benefit to killing them. There's no sense of progression apart from from a strength stat but unless you chop trees for all eternity to increase it I think the game impact for this is limited.

I know this sounds a little harsh considering its early access but then most games are early access these days. I'm sure they will improve over time but I can't imagine picking up the game again in the future because at times I was a little bored. The ending is strange and anticlimactic, I've played for about 22 hours but all the content can be completed within a few hours if you can find it. I think they should have waited to release a more polished product that's ultimately more fulfilling. I don't recommend the game yet, but in the future I'm sure it will get better.

JUNK!!!!!!!!

Lots of squeakers constantly shouting. I managed 3 rounds before the game got the best of me. It not just early access its 80's graphics and gameplay in 2018. I have nothing positive to say about this game full stop. Avoid downloading dont waste your life.

Ok 260 hours in and I'm addicted, I play on server EuKnight-32 and although for a PvP server it has a low population I have found the players to be helpful and informative.

This game is often compared to Ark and yes, I would agree there are many similarities with Ark but the style of this game is much more in line with my tastes. The variety of spells to cast and different melee combat weapons to use will satisfy most PvP players, this coupled with a vast array of animals/creatures which once tamed can also be used for PvP/raiding.

I was impressed with the interactions between animals as they fight to survive and the ecosystems created from these interactions, the creatures will try to defend their kin if attacked and this action of working together allows them to defeat stronger creatures. Every creature in the game in tameable with the exception being rabbits and all creatures are ridable except for sheep (Some may find this upsetting as the riding of sheep has been a time-honoured practice for some dysfunctional individuals for years) :)

You start the game at level 1 and through hard work eventually progressing to level 60, with each level you gain points to allocate to your character as you see fit. Attributes include Health, Stamina, Attack dmg, Mana, Weight, Focus, Constitution, Hunger and Thirst. This customisation means you can build your character how you want to and if you’re not happy with the results you can craft a potion to reset them.

This game is can be hard work . . . If you want the best creatures in the game you will need to get into farming which includes laying irrigation systems to water your crops and the production of fertiliser but by putting in this effort epic creatures such as dragons and crystalline beast are at your fingertips and you will be the envy of other players.

Being an early access game there are some bugs but none of them are game breaking and with a bit of brain power these can all be overcome, although I haven’t dealt with support team directly I have been told they are excellent and deal with any issues extremely fast.

They patch the game every few days and with each update things just keep getting better, the amount of content already available is huge and I expect the already large variety of creature types to increase soon.

The building part of the game is also good with a large amount of building parts (with multiply tiers) which will allow for unique base designs that either look amazing or all super strong (raid defence) or both.

If you like survival games that keep it real and raw within the theme then this game is for you, there are no guns, no c4 and no tanks (The rust devs could learn a thing or two here).

A meal out could cost £20 and I wouldn’t get a 260-hour + experience out of it unless I got food poisoning so in my opinion it’s worth it.

Rust = Survival of the fittest

If you want a game about peace, love and dancing in poppy fields then this game is not for you :) So for all the negative reviews about a toxic community I would simply suggest that you don't understand the nature of this game.

Everything you do in rust needs to be assessed from the perspective of "how will this benefit me, and what is the risk" so when you find another player you need to asses the risk in wanting to have a nice talk with a random player who appears "wink wink" to be friendly as this may result in having your brains blown out. In rust you need resources to build, if you "steal" another players resources i.e. (blow their brains out and take from there corpse) you can build faster and protect yourself better. There is also an advantage to forming a group but this comes with its own risk i.e. could I tolerate this squeakers voice for more than 10 minutes, will he betray me, is he utterly useless, is his cod piece bigger than mine. :)

Every encounter is a adrenaline fuelled adventure leaving your heart pounding and your butt cheeks clenched, oh and either the euphoric thrill of victory from defeating an enemy or resisting the urge to punish the keyboard when you get shot. No other game I know of lets you grind your enemies into dust quite like rust, first you kill them, then chop the body up for meat, then destroy their base, then take all the resources they spent hours collecting, and last up dinner time "fillet of enemy" whilst telling the guy you killed your eating him in chat :).

You start with nothing but a rock and a torch but with enough time and dedication you can build an empire. You don't need a team to survive in rust although it does make it easier. Anyone can have a big base with all the trimmings if you play smart.

I have over 1200 hours in this game and have only every seen a few hackers, if you play on a server with active admins they will ban the hacker immediately. If anyone wishes to buy the game but does not want to play alone then add me on steam and you can join my group of players and we can give you the rust crash course.