Recent reviews by SkiRich

If you like RPG Survival, Crafting, Exploration and Challenges then you will have a fun time with this one.

This game ticks a bunch of my favorite genre and ocd game loops.
There is progressive FPS.
There is crafting.
There is base building.
There is exploring.
There is Melee without modern tech.
There is magic, the alchemist way.
The game is beautifully crafted and huge, even though only 1/3 the map is open.
Lots of replayability as well.
Multiplayer is a bonus.

I'm over 646+ hours into my very first game on NMS.
Its addicting.
It has a steep learning curve but there are in game progression tips and the game pushes you along with tasks to complete that sort of give you the lay of the land.
The community is very helpful on reddit with a lot of information if you search. Steam I guess as well but I stick with reddit due to the game being available on other platforms first.
The game combines elements of base building, galaxy travel, some combat, and exploration.
It has several deep story lines to follow.
If you like stellaris, surviving mars, satisfactory and space engineers this game will not disappoint.

Truely a labor of love. The devs handcrafted a large open type world to explore and exploit.
Its a factory game like factorio but in RTS mode and 3D. Offering fsctory, exploration and a bit of combat fighting off things in the world that just want to kill you.
I'm 1500 in to the game and I'm just on my second playthrough.
The devs are active and reachable via their website and content is updated frequently.
Great game, great value.

Great game.
Easy to get into.
If you are a city builder enthusiast you'll feel at home, but with the twist you are on the knifes edge of survival at all times.
Watch a few first plays before diving in will help, but after the first game you pretty much understand everything you need to and then the second game is a better playthrough.

Its entertaining and will hold your interest for about 12 hours a game playthrough on normal speed. Faster if you use the higher speeds.
Lots of replicability and the DLC's add some great new scenarios.
The endless open sandbox is fun as well.

Nemesis adds:
Become the crisis, except you could have done that before in version 2.8 of the regular game.
Even the assets that they give you to eat stars are low quality.
We had these and many more in a free mod called GigaStructures, which now doesnt work, convenient huh.

Galactic Custodian - You are paying for the privilege of a title bestowed to you in the galactic community.

Espionage - You are paying for a copy paste of the archeology mechanic but now its called espionage and has some interaction. Its utterly weak and hides important information about other empires early game until you spy on them with an envoy, which you cant spare because all your envoys had diplomatic duty, glactic community duty, federation duty and they now are used for first contact instead of science officers.

New Ship set: Flying bricks with antenna.

All in all very disappointed in a $20 DLC. Should have been part of the free update or maybe $7 like the skins sets.

Version 3.0.3 Review:

As promised I would alter my review and recommendation if the developers fixed and listened to the player base concerning their changes in 3.0.0
They did and to everyone's surprise they instituted a change that people were demanding.
Sliders to control the new pop mechanic that was a big fat nerf to the game in 3.0.0. That nerf caused many gameplay styles to become unplayable.
3.0.3 was created and gave back this control to the player.
A wonderful and thoughtful patch.
Thank you developers!

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The below is for Version 2.8
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What is there to say that hasen't been said before in another review?
You dont want to read that from me?

Here is how I felt about the game:

If you combine elements of the original Star Trek Series, add in some Episode 4 Star Wars, and sprinkle it with a little Expanse (the series), this is what you get.

Its a fantastic game in the true sense of Epic Grand Strategy.
There is a little for everyone, from politics and federations, to the Galactic Senate from Star Wars, to 4x grind your enemy down with cool lasers.

Its a tough steep learning curve to play right, but that doesnt mean its not fun when you start out.
You will have an early advantage if you liked playing Crusader Kings 2/3 and Civilization 5/6, the concepts of 4x Grand Strategy mixed with realtime, not turned based dynamics is really special.

The game is quite mature so you really need to weed out all the stale youtube videos that dont apply anymore, or take things you watch and then try and apply them.
Read, alot. Lots of forums, wikis and reddits with tons of info. Dont go nuts trying to watch a lets play video on this, unless its 10 minutes or less. You cant cover this game and be quick, so all the videos that try, well their probably missing something. Find the shorties about a specific mechanic and then try it.

The game has been around since 2016 and its grown quite a bit in content and complexity.

It took me 4 aborted games, 2 half games, and one long play before I finally got to the point I knew most of the mechanics of the game.
I'm on my 8th game now and its been going for two weeks straight daily to get to 3/4 of the way through the game.
Epic for sure.
And you never stop learning because the AI is always throwing something new at you. With a mature game like this, you have plenty of help online in the forums if you have questions. Nice folks there too, wiling to help.
I play overnight since I work durinig the day. If I had to wait 5 minutes before I got a reply at 3AM that wass long.

Daily, the steamdb counters say overnight there are 15,000+ players running the game. Its a 5 year old game and that many still play daily? That tells you something.

Yep, I'm hooked. This is the game I can see playiig for the next 6 months easy.

As for content ... The base game is nice, and complete, but you really really want to get the game changing DLC's like Federations and Relics. I cant see playing this game without them now.
Juts buy it all, even if you need to wait for a sale.

Worth every penny. I can see myself putting in at least 1000 hours of playtime on this for sure.

I wasted 30 minutes trying to get past the startup screen. The one that asks to connect a bungie crossave account.
First off I dont need that, I only play steam.
But what the hell, its not letting me past, so lets go through the motions.
Bungie account ready, working, launch Destiny 2, still cant get past the startup screen.
Hit Agree and it just does nothing.,

Nice job devs. Make it free, get everyone to download it, and then it doesnt work, and no option not to use crossave.

Out of the 30 Minutes, 7 minutes wass just siting on the start screen, and 23 minutes was looking for a solution online, which there was none, but lotss of folks with the same problem.

Uninstalled. Even though it was fre, I feel like you own me money.

This is an Amazing game.
I havent played any RPG style games in a very long time and decided to pick this up on sale.
I wish I bought it sooner.

Rather then tell you about the game, which you can read in countless other reviews, let me tell you my experience.

I certainly didnt know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised.

One playthrough I'm on now is about 90 hours in and there are several ways to end this game depending on your choices.
That right there is replayability.
Thats a great value for the money in terms of hours to dollars spent.

The game combines rpg style player choices, with some nice turn based combat, along with base building, character development and missions.

Finally you can tell, the devs are huge fans of the 1980's.
From the soundtrack, which is amazing btw - get the digital deluxe version - to the references to movies and politics.

Due to the factions within the game I also find the choices you make are always tugging at your moral compass.

Some tips ...
Toss your moral compass, you will soon find the game putting into play real world-like poltical choices for you to make.
If you intend to try and complete several different playthroughs for different end game acheivments, you will find out quickly using your personal moral compass is a hinderence.
There are a lot of ways to play this game.
The biggest advice I have is to study character/team development. A mistake I made early was not knowning the effect of my choices here.
There are plenty of guides and wikis to read.
Get that part right and the game is much more enjoyable.

I give it a 10 out of 10

I bought it one sale. It fits my prefered genre of surivalist strategy game.
I'm not going into detail in this review over how to play or what the games about.
There are other reviews for that with plenty of detail.
Instead, this game holds a special place in my top 5 over how it made me feel. Its the first time ever, that a game pulled me in like I was part of life and death struggles.
I almost gave up on this game.
First of, if you are an fps combat game player, you need to throw out everything you know and all your strategies.
This is by far a polar opposite of "shoot first and kill everything game"
It is from the perspective of civilians during a war time conflict just looking to survive.

The default pre programmed choices were so hard and so gut wrenching I thought there is no way to complete the game.
My lack of understanding the mechanics as well as the game playing in an unchangeable ironman mode where onice you start there is no whoops, reload the save.
The story and character development sucks you right in to the point you feel empathy for each character.
And thats the beauty and the frustration all balled into one.
My best run was 22 days before all the characters dove into a depression over the death of one of the pack.
I played eight heart wrenching games in a row where I learned so much about strategy I never would have considered.
It wasnt until I played a customized start with preferred characters and playstyle metrics that I got into a groove and progressed.

This is an excellent and very unique game. Worth every penny. Disregard the downvoters complaining and just buy it and try to beat it.

As a tip, read the wiki on every character before starting. I wish I did that in some of those earlier games to understand how each character affects the others.
10/10 a guaranteed replayable game for a very long time.