Recent reviews by Quill

This is one of those instances I wish I could post a neutral review. But, alas, my view of the game skews more negative than positive. So here we are.

It's a tricky thing to articulate. As to why I feel more negative. Is Sea of Thieves a good game? Arguably, yes. But if you are like me, it's one of those games that flips constantly between being the best experience of your day, or the worst. And the reason for that, is other people.

Before I get into any of this, because I know already there'll be people getting their feathers ruffled and preparing a slew of "It's Sea of Thieves, no Sea of Friends". Look over the store page. Look at the trailers. Look at ALL the promotional material for the game. How much of it is focused on PvP? The two minute trailer that plays automatically on steam as of (18/07/2023) has three 1-2 second clips of ships vaguely firing on one another. The entire rest of the trailer is dedicated to voyages, quests, and crossover content. You see the Gold Hoarder themselves, skeletons, megalodons, and so on. But you don't see PvP.

How is this relevant? You might ask? Because I feel like I have been miss-sold on the game. I was promised a fun pirate adventure, I saw battles against skeletons and krakens, raiding temples and vaults for treasure, having fun with friends. I was not informed, however, that all of this would be interrupted frequently, by the large number of players that would spend their time spawn-camping your ship and screaming racial epithets.

Sea of Thieves, to me, doesn't create the fun, adventurous atmosphere I would associate with a game set to the theme of the Gold Age of Piracy. It creates an atmosphere of constant stress. And this atmosphere promotes a "Shoot first, ask later" type of paranoia between all players. I've sailed the seas for just shy of two hundred hours. And in that time. I've had maybe one, or two positive encounters with another crew. This, in Rare's mind, makes all the other negative instances worth enduring. The idea of chasing those elusive and surprising moments where another crew raises a mug rather than a rifle. I don't think this is worth the cost.

Rare has no intention of allowing people to customise how they play. It's a "You play by our rules or not at all" mindset. You are required to engage with open PvP. And if another player decides they're going to attack you. There's nothing you can do about it beyond either fight, or quit. I tend to opt for the latter, myself. I'm only here to fight skeletons and dig up treasure with my buddies. Not scrape against the emaciated PvP Lords that have forgotten what sunlight is during their 48 hour binge session, chugging Mountain Dew like a fish in water.

If you can tolerate all of the above, there's a fun game in here. Buried beneath the sludge of toxicity. If you don't mind spending a few hours digging up treasure, only to lose all of it through a chance encounter with an extremely experienced player, you might find some fun. I for one can mostly look past it all. But that's because I never particularly cared for the loot. I play for the fun of sailing. If, however, you're the type to get too attached to your loot, or absolutely hate the idea of your time being wasted in any capacity what-so-ever, then give this game a hard pass.

EDIT (21/07/2023)

I see this argument floating around a lot, on the forums, on the subreddit, and in the comments of this review. So let me address it.

People often say that without forced PvP loot would have "no meaning". This is daft. Loot is already "meaningless" because it can only be used for cosmetic items. All handing in loot does for you, is give you a little bit of permanence between sessions. (The only thing that doesn't get reset when you log out, is your currency and reputation). But this "meaninglessness" doesn't make it not worth doing. Otherwise I'd not have invested near 200 hours in the game.

And it's not like you can ONLY lose loot to other players. If you're not stocked well, you can still sink to PvE encounters, most likely losing all of your goodies.

TL;DR: Poorly designed game which does not respect your time, and has somehow regressed in quality from the 2020 Steam demo.

So, where to begin with this. I started following Voidtrain way back when the first, and temporary demo hit
steam in June 2020. And I have to admit, the game back then was wildly better than the game we have now.

People draw similarities to Raft, and to some degree, they're right. But what I would like you to try and imagine, is Raft, but with anything fun removed from it. Voidtrain as it stands is a hallmark in bad design choices and a fundamental disrespect towards the player's time. Allow me to explain this with an example;

I currently have two saves, one that is "vanilla", and one that has a single added mod that increases item stack size of items to 250.

In that first savegame after 7 hours of gameplay, I was able to get a 3/4 finished first wagon with a steam engine, and a second 1/4 wagon on the back.

In the second savegame, I'd achieved all of this and more in under 2 hours. I had a fully upgraded front wagon with a steam engine, and a grapple before the second scripted Depo.

Now, I am aware people will point and say "Oh but that's just because you're more experienced, of course you'll do things faster!". To which I say that is certainly true to an extent. But you need to understand the fundamental problems with Voidtrain's Design.

Currently, items only stack to 10. And the first chests you can build only hold four slots. This wouldn't be to bad if the requirement to craft materials wasn't so high. For example, to make 1 metal bar, you need 2 metal scrap. Meaning to make a full stack metal bars, you need two slots worth of metal scrap. 10 metal is not a lot. The aforementioned storage box of only four slots takes two of them to build. This issue only gets worse with all the compound parts you can make. Metal bars can be turned into bolts, gears, bearings, forcers and springs. And boy are you going to be making a lot of them through the clunkiest UI known to man.

Now, even this wouldn't be so bad if it were the only resource, but it isn't. There's copper, chemicals, ice, organics, wood, coal, and a few others that start to appear after you research certain milestones. And don't fret, I'll get to research soon.

What this means, is that you cannot realistically collect even half the materials on a pathway without dedicating obscene amounts of space, and resources, to storage. The lack of stack size and cost of refining means you're always short of everything for no other reason that the arbitrary limits in place. This is the key reason why my second run took a fraction of the time; I could spend my time on the rails gathering, and the time in the Depo crafting. Which is the next subject of contention.

Crafting timers. I hate them. They have no place in games outside of factory sims, with the only exception being games that do things like raft, which has no crafting UI. It's just plug in the items and wait. Nice and simple, and makes having multiple production machines easy to manage. Voidtrain however, doesn't have such ease of use. It takes multiple clicks to navigate the UI to the specific thing you want, then you have to input a fuel (which only stacks to 10 and is likely wood which burns up extremely fast) and then you have to input how much you want. Depending on the material this can take a while. Upwards of several minutes in some cases.

You could, like in Raft, have multiple production machines. And you inevitably will, since the T2 furnace cannot make T1 recipes for some poorly excused attempt at "realism". But with how fast fuel burns, how long crafting takes, and how many menus to have to pass through to get what you want, you'd spend all your time just trying to keep things fuelled. Which is near impossible due to the inventory limits.

And now we come to research. Voidtrain has possible the worst implementation of a research system I have ever seen, which hurts even more given that the 2020 demo had a perfectly serviceable Research Tree.

How research works now, is that it's broken into "phases". Phase 1 for example, contains the forge I and the storage box I. You cannot move onto phase 2 until you have finished phase 1, and so on. Which is stupid and nonsensical, especially with how some phases are ordered. Why must I research how to build a garden box before I can move on to the next phase that lets me make an armoury? This, however, is not the only issue.

Research is expensive. Often times a research project costs just as much as the thing you're trying to make. Except unlike every other game that has resource costing research, you do not get a free version of the thing you're researching. Meaning the first time you build it, it effectively costs double the resources. Combined with the points mentioned about lack of space, and constant scarcity of resources due to inventory limits, you'll rapidly find yourself spending 90% of your time bouncing between machines trying to ensure you have all the micro components you need to research and build the thing you have no intention of using so you can move to the research phase you're *actually* interested in.

The game is very repetitive. Unlike every other game of its ilk, you do not get to improve your ability to gather until a fair ways in, and it's only by a very tiny, often useless margin. There's also no way to automate gathering resources like in Raft with the collectors, leading to a repeating cycle of tedious manual gather.

"But this is a survival crafting game! If you're mad about gathering you're just a woke snowflake twitterite that-"

Gathering should be fun in a gathering game. Not a chore. There should be an element of mastery and later automation available to player. Again, take raft. There's a level of skill in measuring where to throw your line and how far to throw it. There's fun in trying to see how much stuff you can fit on your hook before you reel it in. There's none of that in Voidtrain. It's just walk off the wagon, float towards the resources very slowly and hope your train hasn't drifted too far to pick it up. This is enjoyable for the first gate or two, when there's novelty and wonder. But it grates after a while. Especially when the shark shows up.

And, perhaps the most egregious flaw. The train itself is useless. The whole point of upgrading the engine is to go fast. But going fast is actively bad for you. While you're zooming along the tracks, you'll miss nearly all the resources going past you, and you'll have much, much less time to react to minefields. Not only this, but going at anything but the slowest speed starts consuming fuel, fuel which is quite rare and only spawns as large chunks that require a special machine to crush into usable ones. Meaning that going fast, the core point of a big engine, is not only expensive but actively harmful to you. It feels like the Dev's have absolutely no conception of design principles at all. They just ran with "The Rule of Cool" but had zero substance. This feels even more blatant with the fact they invested time and resources to making rare, goofy reload animations, like your gun sometimes falling apart, or you using the force to reload it. Which, I'd like to add, is a problem, since animations can't be cancelled and prevent interacting with anything for the duration of them.

My disappointment with Voidtrain is immeasurable. And my entire year is ruined.

EDIT: I struggled through another several hours of this game, so I could "experience" the entire thing and thus have a bit more grounds for my review. I can say quite confidently that nothing in my review has changed in the extra 16 hours I've played since the review first went up.

This one is a tricky one. I, like many others, wish there was a "meh" category, rather than just a straight yes or no, but as it stands, there's more going against Stellaris than for it. In my honest opinion.

So, let's get some information out of the way first to provide you some context. I bought Stellaris many, many years ago, back when we had warp drives, wormhole stations, hyperlanes, and the ability to choose a starting weapon. In the time when the Contingency was known as the "Android Uprising", and when the Materialist FE would get angry at you for researching synthetics. The 1,700 hours I have played, have been across all updates, changes, DLC and patches.

And now, the elephant in the room; Would I recommend this game to you? Despite all the time and money invested?

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is; It depends.

If you want a sci-fi 4X game that has no real endgame, no victory conditions beyond being the last one standing, a heavy focus on warfare and a pretty terrible combat system, then by all means, go mental.

If you want a sci-fi 4X game that really runs with the idea of creating and running an interstellar empire, with all the drama, intrigue and internal politics that would entail. You'll be sorely disappointed.

The only thing Stellaris really has going on is war. The vast majority of civics, traits and edicts are focused on either producing resources to fund your war machine, or directly boost it. There is next to nothing else going on. All roads lead to doom fleets and genocide. No exceptions.

That itself wouldn't be so bad if war and combat was interesting. But all it boils down to is "Is my fleet power bigger than the other, and does it beat the rock-paper-scissors formula of shield-armour-hull damage?" That's it.

You can't realistically engage in any sort of real strategic warfare. You can't force an enemy to surrender by ruining their economy, as that's not even factored into the reasons an AI would. The only two main factors that apply towards an AI's surrender are "War Exhaustion" that ticks up regardless of whether you're fighting, or just staring at each other over the border, and "Relative Fleet Power", which usually skews to one extreme as fights are often decisive. There is "Occupation" which is determined by how many of their systems you control, but that feels very arbitrary.

Now, some people might tell you that you can roleplay as X, Y or Z, or that the origins system radically changes how each empire you craft plays. But that simply isn't the case. Nobody cares if you picked Doomsday, or Payback, or Clone Soldiers, or Ringworld. As I said, all roads lead to war. And if you're not maxxing out your fleet capacity at all times, you're going to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

So what about planets themselves? The heart of the empire, the hearth of your people, the blood of your nation. Surely there would be some depth there?

Sadly not.

Planets feel like resource nodes. You slap a colony on it, build a few districts and wait for the population to grow painfully slowly if you dare to play anything that isn't a "meta pop-growth" build. You might get the odd event or two when you settle the colony, like finding a sealed vault of aliens, or an abandoned Terraforming device. But colonies are generally static. It is possible to trigger a rebellion, but if you're not actively trying to play terribly, you'll never see it. Keeping your people happy, even in a brutal, totalitarian police state is laughably easy. You'll never have to worry about foreign interference, or deal with the cultural impact of a neighbour that has wildly different ethics and government to you.

Which brings me on to politics itself. Which, as I mentioned, is near non-existent. The Galactic Community exists, yes, but it doesn't really do much beyond add a few modifiers to things like resource production or naval capacity to all member states. Or increase and reduce "diplomatic weight" for certain things. For example, passing laws around increasing the military will boost the "diplomatic weight" from fleet power by X%.

I wouldn't mind if Diplomatic Weight was used for anything other than the Galactic Community, and federation votes if you pass the right federation laws. (I'll be getting to federations soon.) But it doesn't. The Galactic Community feels very isolated and self contained.

And what of the Federations I mentioned? Truth be told, I keep forgetting the exist. I can count on one hand how many federations I've formed in the 1,700 hours I've played. They're not very interesting, and it's unlikely you'll ever see the higher levels of a Federation as it takes so, so long to level them up. The AI forms them sometimes. And then it makes the game a huge pain when you eventually decide to commit genocide to save the game's performance.

You might be wondering why I've dumped so many hours into a game that I have very few good things to say about. There's two reasons. Chiefly, the game is mindless. It all boils down to "Basic resource number go up, so advanced resource number go up, so fleet number go up, so enemy fleet number go down." It feels like an idle game with more UI to it. The second reason, which I will confess is dwindling, is hope. Hope that maybe the game will go the direction I'd love to see it go. Of course, after so many years, I doubt that will happen.

I compare this game to Distant Worlds: Universe, which is still the best sci-fi 4X game ever made, if you ask me. While you certainly can't build dyson spheres, or blow up stars in DW:U, the sheer amount of mechanical depth makes up for that. DW:U feels a lot more "real" when you play it. There's none of this "Casus Beli" nonsense, or being forced to respect closed borders. You don't even need to formally declare war to blockade, or invade a world. Laws in DW:U are much like laws in real life; suggestions everyone agrees too, but not some grand cosmic force compelling you to obey.

In Stellaris, if your neighbour closes their borders, that's it. You can't go in. Under any circumstance. (Unless you fork out for the First Contact DLC to get the cloaking mechanic).

In DW:U, your neighbour might have closed their borders and denied you mining rights. But you can still march your construction ships into their space and build mining stations. And they can just as well send a fleet to blow it up. There's none of this "I have a starbase and I say you can't come in unless I invite you" crap like you're some sort of vampire that requires permission. You can decide if you're going to abide by the laws, or be an opportunistic, honourless bastard. Which, I might add, effects your reputation on the galactic stage. All of this nuance is absent from Stellaris. It doesn't matter if you're an evil fanatical purifier bent on scouring all life from the galaxy. Your ships will refuse to enter the space of another empire if they closed their borders to you.

In DW:U there's an entire, simulated private sector, that flourishes or struggles depending on your taxation policy and availability of resources. It has a full economy where ship fuel is a real resource you have to mine and gather, and whereby you can establish monopolies if you control the majority of it. While it lacks the ability to create an empire (in game, at least. DW:U is so easy to mod, and even has its own dev written guide on how to mod it with a text editor), every empire has its own set of conditions needed for victory. Like having the happiest people in the galaxy, or controlling a certain amount of a specific habitable planet type, or researching a specific, race unique technology. And so on.

Stellaris doesn't have that. It has war, it has megastructures. That's it. The only truly great thing it has going for it, is the soundtrack. But gameplay wise, it has no depth. All empires end up the same, with the same goals, the same tech, the same ship layouts, and the same traits. It's flat. And frankly, rather boring.

This is a tough one, I'll admit. Because this mostly boils down to taste rather than whether or not the game meets some technical standard. But a few disclaimers first:

-I have only played on a Private Server I myself hosted
-I have only played with one other person
-I played with various settings tweaked (resource gathering, day length, ECT, all changed to make solo and small group play enjoyable and not a grindfest)
-In terms of progress, I have defeated Beatrice and constructed Hollowfang armour.

Let's get the good out of the way first, shall we?

Artistically, the game is great. It's got a beautiful aesthetic, lovely sound design and really capitalises on that gothic feel. I've yet to see a game do that much quite so well.

The developers have also paid great attention to folklore surrounding Vampires. The "Compulsively Count" button is in reference to European Folklore, in which the best way to defeat a vampire is to scatter sunflower seeds, causing the vampire to drop everything and compulsively count them, even if the sun is rising.

This, however, is where my praise ends.

People frequently praise the combat system in this game, I however, do not understand this praise. To me, combat is dry and uninteresting. You pick a weapon, which from what I've seen is most commonly a spear, sword or slasher. And hold LMB while moving around enemy attacks, sometimes pressing space to dodge on an obscenely long cooldown, and sometimes throwing spells. Movement in combat feels sluggish, and doesn't really convey the idea of being an all-powerful vampire lord.

Spells themselves feel uninspiring as well. It's difficult to really be a 'caster' type fighter, as you can only ever use two spells (and one ultimate ability) at a given time. The spells I have unlocked so far after 20 hours of gameplay can be boiled down to:

Ranged bolt
Double Ranged Bolt
Ranged Bolt but if you hit them twice they freeze solid
Tipleshot Ranged Bolt that applies poison

And

Shield
Shield but it's green
Shield but it's purple

This in and of itself would not be a huge issue if not for my second major gripe with this game; Progression.

Progression systems like in V Rising I cannot stand. Locking abilities, recipes and crafting stations behind bosses creates this extremely linear, boring method of play, that really does not incentivise a second run through. Let's take a look at another game, while granted a different genre, that does boss based progression well: Terraria.

In Terraria, several of the games bosses are entirely optional. The ones that are mandatory for progress however, don't give you a recipe, or unlock some super power. Instead, they cause some direct changes to the world itself. Defeating the Wall of Flesh permanently changes the world to 'hardmode' which causes new biomes to spawn, new and more dangerous enemies to appear. It unlocks a whole new avenue of gameplay with new ways to more around the world, weapons to toy with and NPC's to interact with.

Terraria's combat lends itself well to this sort of gameplay because of the sheer variety of weapons, "classes" and "builds" you can commit too. And, because above all, moving around the world is fast, fluid and fun.

Let's compare this to V Rising; Moving around is sluggish, and takes far too long. The wolf form is only barely faster and requires killing the first boss to unlock. Horses you could try to risk getting, but you cannot keep them alive until you kill another boss that gives you the recipe for water canteens. (I am aware bandits drop them, but grinding isn't fun).

There's no way to try 'other builds' as everyone starts in the exact same way; Make bone tools, make bone armour, make a bone sword/spear. Grind copper, wait forever for the copper to smelt, grind bosses. Spend hours grinding paper to unlock research for better copper gear, have that copper gear be instantly outmoded once you beat the boss that gives you access to Iron tech, rinse and repeat.

Ranged weapons do exist, but from what I've used, they're clunky. When you fire the weapon, there's a few second wind up time in which you're locked in place. Giving ample time for whatever you're trying to stay away from, to come and bash your beautiful vampiric head in. It feels like these were made for fighting in groups; Crossbow users stay outside aggro range and thus never need to worry about moving. But tough luck if you're running solo or with only one other person.

I can already hear the tapping of a thousand keys screaming "But this is a PvP game! Not a solo/co-op PvE game! This criticism is invalid!!!" To which I respond, true. But then why does this game facilitate PvE and Solo play with its own settings and private servers? Like it or not, PvE content is what keeps any and all games alive. Full Loot PvP games rarely last, so it is important to consider the enjoyability of your PvE side of the game.

So. All in all. It depends on what you're looking for with V Rising. If you want a Full Loot PvP style game with a vampiric flair and lots of menial grinding. This is for you. If you were hoping for a power trip of playing a power vampire lord, dominating and subjugating human settlements and vying to regain control of a lost world. Give it a miss. Because I don't know about you, but I do not recall the part in Dracula, where Dracula had to sit next to a forge for an hour so he could get upgrade his axe to chop down trees faster. Or where he slaughtered the 18th bandit camp for some extra scraps of paper to then accidentally research carpets.

I don't know how best to start off a review like this. So, I'll just jump right into it.

For the sake of fairness, allow me to first state the things I really love about Valheim:

First and foremost, the soundtrack is a delight. The music for the biomes I've explored have been a treat on the ears. This is obviously my opinion, but I won't fault you for having the wrong one.

Secondly, the visuals. I'm a sucker for low-poly models, and pixelated textures, so Valheim scratches all of my itches in this regard, of course however. That's subjective as well.

This, however, is about where my enjoyment of the game ends. The gameplay is where things start too, in my opinion, fall apart.

To me, Valheim feels like it tries to capture some of what makes Terraria so fun to play; With gear and boss based progression, with new avenues unlocking as you go. However, The thing Valheim got wrong, is that at present, progression is far, far too linear. Allow me to explain, and take caution as this may well count as spoilers:

At the start of the game, you spawn in a center of a circular map. The biome you arrive in is called the "meadows" and is the easiest biome in the game in terms of hazards. For equipment, you're severely limited; You unlock recipes as you pick up items, so picking up your first stone for instance, will grant you the recipe for a stone axe. And so on.

At this stage of the game, the only gear you can use are ones made from wood, leather and stone/flint. Don't even think about trying to mine resources because not only are they placed exclusively in the next tier of biome, you can't even create the first level of pickaxe until you beat the first boss.

Now, I can tell many of you might be thinking; "Well, that's balanced. It stops you being massively over-geared for the bosses you're going to face." And you'd be right. However, this robs a player of the chance to try different methods or tactics. It forces you to play step by step, rather than looking for new and interesting ways to approach progression. You cannot, for example, play risky by running straight to higher danger zones in an attempt to snag materials for better weapons.

I'll draw your attention back to Terraria since that's my comparison. You're not forced to fight any boss in any sequence in the early game. In fact, you don't even *have* to fight them besides the Wall of Flesh that unlocks the next tier of gameplay. You can be as over, or under geared as you like before fighting bosses, which is what adds to the charm, and replayability of the game. Doubly so when you consider the myriad of weapons, damage types and gear sets you can use.

Another major component of why Terraria stands out among many games of its ilk, is the ability to build custom arenas in which to fight the bosses. Which are often considered essential. Now, granted. This sort of thing is very difficult to balance in a 3-dimensional space, with enemies that obey physics. So I can at least give a pass in that regard.

Perhaps I am simply expecting too much, or have been spoiled by games like ARK: Survival. Should things change, I will happily edit this review. But until then, I cannot really recommend it on the strength of its gameplay.

In the several hours I have played of the game, I would say it is a really good experience. However. If you're coming into this expecting endless replayability, then you will be rather disappointed. The world is handcrafted, meaning that every save file you make will be on the exact same map, and with the games greater focus on it's story means that once you've completed it, then you've not got much reason to play again.

So, I'm going to cut the crap and just jump right to the main reason anyone would be reading this; Would I recommend the game?

Yes. Yes I would.

Don't get me wrong, the game isn't a long one, but is that really a problem? Personally, I'd much rather play a short but excellent game, than a long and mediocre one and "A Hat in Time" is anything *but* mediocre.

The artstyle is lovely, in my opinion. Has a very strong Wind Waker feel which I adore and the soundtrack is sublime.

Gameplay wise, I cannot at any point fault it. Except for perhaps the lack of a "restart level" button, but that was only really a gripe while trying to get the "No Time to Explain" achievement. The controls are tight, the mechanics are simple and the levels are well designed and clearly set out; Not once did I stand around thinking "Where do I go now?".

The characters that you meet are one of the major highlights for me at least, they're all full of charisma and fully voiced to boot. (The voice acting is great <3).

So, if I had to give it a numerical score, it would be a solid Yes/10. Don't even wait for a sale to buy this game, it's 100% worth the money.

Do not let my play time fool you, I've spent an ungoldy amount of time playing this digital heroin before it hit steam. Which if you can already tell, usually is a trademark of a good game.

Factorio is a game about automation, a subject very few if any games tend to build their core theme around. The general idea is you start out on a hostile planet with nothing but a few iron plates in your pockets, and from that you create a sprawling megafactory belching pollution into the atmosphere like it's the industrial revolution. This factory produces everything from small gear wheels to monstrous death tanks and beyond. This fuel for megalomania is achieved by creating machines to do the crafting and hard working for you; miners to do your digging, inserters to do your lifting, conveyors to do your moving, smetlers to do your smelting and assemblers to do your crafting. All the while enraging the natives.

The replay-ability, at least for me comes from the process of streamlining your factory. The first time you play, your base will most likely be a total spaghetti mess with conveyors overlapping conveyors overlapping everything else in a glorious logistical disaster. But as you play new files you'll gradually make the process more efficent and more clean which then snowballs into expansion, in short, this game is perfect if you love hoarding resources as efficently and cost effectivley as possible.

For an early access title, it's one of the most amazingly well done games I've had the pleasure of playing for a long time and is well worth the money, though a word of warning; If you have a life or upcoming deadlines, don't buy this game because it'll suck the play time right out of you.


TL;DR checklist

The Good:
- Fantastic gameplay
- Little to no bugs or errors
- Lovely graphical style
- Wonderful soundtrack
- TRAINS
- Did I mention TRAINS?!

The Meh
- The end-game as of now may turn some people off, but if the idea does, hold out until later, they're bringing in space to the equation!

The Bad
- Trains can kill you when you try to high five them as they go past
- You can't pollute the world fast enough to roleplay a greedy capitalist

(Apologies for any miss spellings here)

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this.. I've seen a lot of people complaining about the UI, having played the game from start to finish I have to say I had no trouble at all using or understanding it, even from the start. A tip to those people; Helps to play the tutorial.

I've also seen many people claiming of crashes, once again, I only had one so I have no idea what these people are doing to get so many. The one crash I had only came about because I tried to augment the dog I brought aboad my crew, though a crash was expected when I did this. seriously though, don't augment dogs.

Anyway. As for Interstellaria itself, I highly recommend it. In it's current state it's looking very good and has a lot of promise for the future and I for one look forwards to what it holds.

Now for the obligatory pro's and con's list.

PROS
-Soundtrack is brilliant.
-Space combat is pretty interesting, I personally haven't played anything like it.
-The platforming aspects are good fun.
-Has a good trading system based on colonies supply and demand (this is however static).
-Pixel graphical style is very detailed and doesn't assault one's eyes.

CONS
-The platformer segments have somewhat confusing combat system. By confusing I mean I don't actually know if my guys are moving to attack, or stand around like a lemon no matter how many times I click the enemy.
-Pathfinding can sometimes bork, causing your crew to miss jumps endlessly.
-Finding appropriatley strong armour and weaponry is difficult, I had to play through the game solely on the basic handguns you find in the first sector.
-Fleets are more or less obsolete. I was able to fight the general's ship and win with a single Human Corvett MKII and 2 20mm gattling turrets without losing my shields.

The game itself is brilliant and I absolutley enjoyed the hell out of it. I honestly hope this game goes far, and I look forwards to future additions.

To be honest, I felt like this game was a waste of not only my time, but my £1.99 I spent on it. It claims itself to be "Horror" yet there is nothing either scary or unsettling (Apart from the one jumpscare with the bats). And on top of that, there no real 'ending' as nothing properly happens, there's no actual outcome other than suicide or walking away with no closure.
All in all, I say this game is a bit of a waste.