Recent reviews by Viper

I played this game probably as far back as 2003, or earlier, I think. I have also had it in my Steam library basically forever without actually installing and launching it. Until just recently.

It's still a great game. It's aged obviously, but I highly recommend the MGSO modpack to fix that. It's super easy. I downloaded it off of gamepressure (just google gamepressure MGSO and you'll find it. v30_final)

EZ PZ modded-up Morrowind 20 years later, and it's still phenomenal!

why gaem so gud?

played it again after 10 years and it was still fun to play!

Honestly if there was a "meh" recommendation setting I would have hit that. But since there's not, and this game is massively over-hyped and doesn't deserve the "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews, I give it the thumbs down as balance.

Subnautica is a sandbox survival game for casuals that have never played a sandbox survival game. It has the look and feel of a console port, and has a lot of things that are meant to LOOK polished but really aren't.

To put it bluntly, real gamers will not be impressed by Subnautica. Buy on sale, enjoy for a few hours.

Can anyone explain why this game is $200 after 10 years?

There's a lot more to this game than the store page makes you think at first glance. It's a lot deeper, has more game mechanics, and a much more complex and interesting combat system than you think! Try it! It's cheap, I'm enjoying it, and I definitely recommend it. You can't really go wrong here.

A buggy mess with features that seem to cater to the wrong crowd, who would never purchase this game in the first place.

I really wanted to like this game, it's clearly inspired by Task Force 1942 (and there's a good chance you know of that old game if you're reading this), but the problems just outweigh the potential good.

Pros:
1. Hey look, someone finally made a new and "improved" version of Task Force 1942!
2. It has aircraft carriers and subs this time!

Cons:
1. Hot garbage AI. To put it in perspective how bad this AI is, they will literally just run aground. So you can imagine how bad the rest of the AI is if they can't even dodge landmasses. Enemy submarines will aggressively attack destroyer-only flotillas, despite the fact that destroyers counter and dominate subs (as you surely know) and they literally can't even hurt the destroyers because their keel depth isn't deep enough and adjusting the running depth of a torpedo isn't implemented in the game. Every part of this AI is trash.
2. Features that cater to the wrong crowd, such as placement of ships and planes in an "encounter" so as to get straight to the action right away. This results in, as an example, the ability for a submarine to come from behind an enemy convoy on the campaign map and, upon entering the "encounter", be magically warped to a perfect position in front and to the side of the convoy, submerged and ready to launch within seconds of starting, without the 14-knot enemy convoy being aware at all of the 8-knot-submerged, 24-knot-surfaced sub that apparently passed right through the convoy in plain sight to get there. It's almost as if Killerfish Games doesn't understand who their audience is, hmm?
3. Logistics of planes is horrible, management of planes is horrible. Your carrier air groups, once they've taken a beating, can only be replenished by removing the carrier from the game world entirely for a minimum of two days. OR, you can turn that option off, and have literally infinite launchable aircraft at any port that allows re-armament of ships (using this exploit would make that port entirely unapproachable). And despite their patches to the management headaches, handling aircraft is still horribly tedious.
4. Encounters have a max number of planes and ships, and you will hit that max quite often. This results in, for example, you've sent hordes of aircraft from your fleet carriers and arrive at their fleet carriers ready to scratch a flattop. But, oh, so sorry, since you brought too many planes, all your escort fighters don't actually exist, so instead the enemy fighter patrols get to shoot all your bombers down mercilessly before you reach the target.
5. There are so many cons I don't even want to write any more, bleh, I am so turned off by this game right now. I loved TF1942 as a kid and always wanted someone to update/remake it.

Cue Kevin Sorbo: "DISAPPOINTED!"

is fun

seems pretty good

Quite possibly the greatest party-based RPG ever made. If you like this kind of game and you haven't played this yet, stop wondering and just do it.