111 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 133.1 hrs on record (115.1 hrs at review time)
Posted: May 11, 2014 @ 8:02pm
Updated: May 11, 2014 @ 9:11pm

There is quite a bit to say about Darkout. I'll try to be as non-partisan as possible.

With the explosion of greenlight games and the large number of 'Metroidvania' sandbox style games on Steam, it's hard to make one stand out from the rest. Darkout, like Terraria, or Starbound, takes yet another approach at these sandbox style games, but, of course, is still very much the same.

Indeed, Darkout is much the same old grind. Spending hour upon relentless hour, mining through piles of the same dirt, and rock, only to fill your inventory and discard, rinse and repeat. Just enough to get you the resources to build an elevator to reach the depths of the shaft you just dug. With the same old spotty mouse targeting as others, a horrible grouping system for mining, a terribly inaccurate crafting system, and a slew of other annoying bugs, it is tedious at best during these hours, searching for resources, and can often be a real chore, during these times, to play.

It has more base in sci-fi than others in it's genre, even more so than Starbound, only short of having a spaceship and being able to explore a number of alien worlds. With crafting devices like the Combinator, the Molder, and the Chem-Lab, weapons such as the Laser gun, and fusion based power devices, it's a sci-fi sandbox geek's dream come true. Coupled with a fragmented, yet deeply frightening storyline, and some absolutely dazzling light effects and much better graphics and visuals, overall, Darkout is a step ahead of the rest. With a fairly extensive research/tech/crafting tree and some fun and interesting exploratory and combat scenarios, heavily focused on the use of light, Darkout is, again, in a class of it's own.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=259009998

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=259011002

A key thing to remember is that being another 'early release' title, or beta, at this point, the small Independent Developers, Allgraf ---- http://www.darkoutgame.com/ are slowly, but surely, diligently churning through bug fixes and adding new content for upcoming stages of the game, including more story, new monsters and biomes and of course, more craft items.

While I might not recommend it, at this time, for anyone who is easily frustrated, I am excited for the future of this great game, and can imagine recommending it to any player who enjoys this genre of game, and possibly even players who don't, upon the game's completion.

In short, after all of that, Darkout is an absolute GEM. Recommended? Definitely.
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6 Comments
Rapture May 13, 2014 @ 11:27am 
Like I said Fair review.......
[L.o.N]Naed May 13, 2014 @ 5:56am 
I hope that your "dreams" arent trampled on by Algraf.

Because they sure as heck dont take criticism very well.

http://www.reddit.com/r/darkout/comments/1wp951/dear_dev_your_community_wanted_help_and_to_help/
J_Cob May 12, 2014 @ 3:32pm 
I would agree in most cases. People really need to keep in mind that a number of these titles were released 'early', intentionally. Due to the number of eager, volunteer 'beta testers', available on Steam, it would be silly for these dev teams to not take advantage of having a large community of gamers work through a lot of their bugs for them.

While I still agree that there is such a thing as, working order too poor for release, Darkout, as with a number of others, WAS released as an 'early-access' title.
AJ, Lord of Chaos May 12, 2014 @ 3:17pm 
Much the same as my opinion though I'm a bit doubtful myself about the new content part. Last update was in feb. with the final cubes still not working I guess. As much as I want to get more content the game looks somewhat abandoned - and that factored negatively into my review from initially positve.
A release version has to be more than a beta/EA, the story has to have some kind of closure and non-working items should not exist.
J_Cob May 12, 2014 @ 3:15pm 
Fairly sure I made a point of saying that the game was incomplete. A number of times.
Rapture May 12, 2014 @ 11:49am 
Fair review for a game that is not complete yet , but Darkout still stands way above the rest in graphics, and crafting....I believe with stage 2,and 3 the game will be complete. This type of game is still developing in style , and content, the grinding, or exploring for minerals is part of the survival game, there is always the Building mode for those who just want to build, and create, like Minecraft has.