Recent reviews by 0xDEADC0DE

basically what space marines 1 should have been. Worthy successor

(Review text hidden)

aaand its DLC-locked.
Well.
It had a (unbelievable) run - buy if its cheap, it is very worth it -- even without DLC.

PROs :

* looks pretty good

* interesting game-mechanic in which you can teleport whenever you like

* finally some space-ships which dont explode after 0.001 seconds in battle

* the developers seem to target a strict role for your chosen ship - which is always good because hundreds and hundreds of similar ships would only clutter the screen and reduce fun; nevertheless im hoping they will at least double (or triple) the amount of ships, that'd be awesome

* not really fast-paced, the typical, spasmic movement of your arm in hectic battles wont be needed here - THATS what MOBAs really need. Although a battle can end quite fast there is an overall relaxation in everything you do, yet it stays competitive and is fun


CONs:
* inexistent performance -- literally : if you dont own two processors with 8 cores each and at least two fast GPUs your game will stutter unbelievably; we're talking 2-3fps during combat here and its like that for most people ... its alpha, obviously but this NEEDS to get adressed sometime

* the game still is missing quite some content - its obviously a very early alpha so dont expect a full game

* they actually plan to release the game in 2015 .... um ... if this is gonna happen the game will be totally incomplete - lets all hope they change their mind

UPDATE :

PROs:
* performance problems are now somewhat resolved - i happen to have an octacore-CPU BUT i remember the game running much more smooth before i upgraded

* a few new ships have arrived - yet most of them still have no upgrades -- big room for improvement

CONS:
* Now that the performance got fixed the netcode appears to be sub-optimal, it will lag very often, depending on the server you are currently playing on - thats the next big thing they need to fix


UPDATE :

PROs: lags are not quite resolved but its much better now - one does not even need VPN anymore!

XENONAUTS FANBOIS BEWARE : THE FOLLOWING WILL BE A HARSH COMPARISON TO THE CLASSIC XCOM (1994 - 1995), DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOUR WELLBEING DEPENDS ON CONSTANT GLORIFICATION OF THIS GAME OR IF YOU GET UPSET EASILY :

(scroll down if you want to read about reality, please)







































1) in parts buggy

2) bad, miniscule research

3) interesting aircraft-recovery, losing a craft costs nothing but WILL cost time (usually 72 hours)

4) difficulty-progression is worse / more steep than in XCOM (yes, the real, classic ones) - basically you have 2 years ... which is far from good and isnt any fun --- unlike XCOM in which the player has at least a decent amount of time before ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan

5) available money seems adequate at first - but if you dont want to lose after 2 years you will need to invest EVERYTHING and fear every loss because that can (and will) end the game. Thats XCOM on high difficulty, in this game its medium. Thats sad.
(i dont remember the exact difficulty-names, sorry)

6) research doesnt make much sense - the results are well explained but its senseless to gain knowledge about ARMOR during PLASMA RIFLE reseach, for example - that should've been available after "alien alloys" .... and its only a small example

7) air combat is a bit more fun than in XCOM - but its also a bit harder

8) air-retreat has a big bug : the match ends only once the UFO (!) has left the screen, even if your fighter has already left

9) ground combat is ... not bad, it basically looks like XCOM with high resolution but in that case i prefer a lower resolution - either polish the classic combat in ways which make it better or keep it like it is .... there is no in-between, everything else looks pretty cheap to be honest and thats exactly what this game is -- even the dying-animations (if one could call em that) are cheap and consist of .... one (?) single step - in XCOM it was at least 2-3 per alien.

10) Music is good but the soundeffects are pretty bad - most sounds are missing or replaced by very bad ones

11) It has no XCOM-like feeling, the ground combat does not instill fear, there is zero tense anywhere and it looks like ... something boring.

12) ground combat-view is not rotatable. Yes. One of the most important features in tactical, turn-based games is missing. XCOM had it. Because its necessary.

13) the world map looks bad - even XCOM had a (much) better one, even in 3D

conclusion : its worse than the classics in some ways. The few additives make it worthwile for a few hours but thats it ... if you want a new (and ACTUAL) XCOM-follower this is not your game, its basically a bad version of what should've been released from the original XCOM-developers a few years after the last of the (original) series ... not bad but also not really good.

this game still has MASSIVE issues - you're forced to take a class which is assigned to you if someone else already took your preferred one, there are random disconnects for some people, literally no game-modes other than PvP are available, forced voice-chat (wtf?) which cant be deactivated (only the volume can be set), extremely annoying ads if you close the game, exreme loading times, extremely low performance on the "high" setting, virtually no options except for 2 or 3, massively overpowered monsters which are virtually indestructible after they reach level 2 (which is easy) and so on and so forth .... this game will need to be changed BIG TIME if they want to release it in 3 months .... which i doubt will be possible. Methinks this is yet another game which will be thrown onto the market in an unfinished state and gradually gets acceptable or even good - it definitely has a lot of potential if all the major bugs and weird things are resolved someday, but for now : its a very, VERY good techdemo, it might be worthwile 1-2 years after release.