Recent reviews by Genosis

I recommend Breathedge for the sole reason of what it begins as, and what it's sequel could be if the developers learned their lessons.

Chapter 1-3 is an open world survival crafting game in space. The subnautica influences are directly in the game, so yes the influence in intended. Apart from the grind that drags on a bit, it's a solid game. Until it isnt.

At one point it is no longer a survival game. It just... stops. It then becomes a puzzle FPS. Oxygen isn't even a factor anymore for the last half of the game. You follow the objectives, follow the same formula. Walk down LONG hallways, find out you need to craft something at the end of the level, walk ALLLLL the way back to your ship to craft needed item, walk all the way back then leave. Repeat several times.

To reiterate the 2nd half of the game (give or take) feels like a completely different game, and it isn't a good game. I continued ONLY because the first half made me want to see the story through. It stopped becoming just playing the game and it turned into stubborn hate-playing.

The ending made me interested in what the sequel could be, and if they make the game more consistent and listen to the abundant feedback on this issue.

So, while I am recommending the game itself, I believe the game as a whole falls short. If Breathedge 2 is good, watch a playthrough on YouTube to find out the story without spending the time and money on the questionable first installment.

I'm glad this was free, I was concerned you guys were going to charge for literally nothing lol.

Enshrouded is an adventure game full of possibilities and a very personal experience each time you play. There is a vast world with seemingly endless points of interest that tell stories in their own, immersive ways. Signs of battles, tragedies, and betrayal.

On the flip side, you can carve out your own pieces of this land and make it your own. A wide variety of building materials, and an extremely flexible building system lets you shape your own, workplace, or even a dungeon exactly how you imagine it. You can have a lush garden which you can view from your lavishly decorated living space. Or, you can look down on your domain with authority from atop a stronghold built to your specifications. You can even create a secret laboratory for your alchemical experiments.

It has been a long, long time since I've been enraptured by a game, and this compelling blend of RPG, Survival, and Adventure games has me excited to come back for more every time.

I am going to recommend ASA, however it comes with several reservations. First, the issues:

- Constant crashing
- The server browser is laughably flawed. Doesn't remember passwords, adding a server as a favorite is useless as it is often forgotten and doesn't show up in the favourite list unless you search for it. So... why favourite it?
- Forced to host with Nitrado.

Now, the crashes are the biggest issue and makes it painful to play. I bought a new system for my wife explicitly so she can play and create content for it. High end system using a GTX 4080 card. Plays 60 FPS on max settings. Great, right? Still crashes constantly at the worst times, often losing tames and inventory.

We wanted a server to host for the patrons to play along with my wife's adventures, and we immediately signed up to Nitrado but in no uncertain terms I would cancel *immediately* the moment we can switch providers. You are winning no favors by forcing people to over pay for hosting services at one provider.

All of that being said, I am recommending the game because it is gorgeous. The work and detail on the map and the environmental effects are breathtaking. I regularly stop and take pictures when something strikes me and it happens often. I enjoy the new modern systems (dino tracking, map, waypoint system, etc) that refresh game play to an extent. I am extremely excited to see the new maps as they come out. The gameplay itself is mostly the same, as it should be, as it is technically a "remaster", despite the issues they have after rebuilding the game.

If I wasn't so enraptured by the environment; the almost living, breathing island that feels new again after years of exploring, I would not recommend the game due to the aforementioned issues.

I hope the game is fixed, and the monopoly Nitrado has is resolved before what respect I have left for it is lost.

Night of the dead takes the fun of the zombie/tower defence horde games, and cranks it up with tons of fun and dynamic traps. Not only that, the best electrical system I've seen in a survival game. Logic gates, load balancing, splitters, etc.

In terms of being abandon-ware that is absolutely not the case. In fact, that's why I gave it a try. I originally saw the game and thought "What do you do here? Why are you doing this? Is that it?". So, I left it alone. Then, last december, I saw a major update announcement where they added vehicles, a massive map update, etc and though, "Dang! They are really working on this. I need to give it a look".

So, I gave it a look and I was hooked. Massive map to explore, most building you can raid for supplies, tons of varied zombies with unique abilities, a decent building system, farming, resource miners, fishing, and the largest, craziest horde nights starting on day 1.

Lots of fun, give it a try. In fact, look for Genosis on YouTube (http://youtube.com/Genosis) and watch my series on it! I will show you what the game is all about as I discover it for myself.

A satisfying crafting game, with a creepy threat to keep you on your toes.

I adore the manual crafting system, where it really feels like you accomplished something when you admire your creation. The "vambies" and the villages you find them in needs work, and there needs to be a serious look at end game. There is a nose dive in interest the moment you get all the blueprints from the towns. There is little reason to go back. This was addressed with the 9.0 update where loot respawns in towns every 10 days, but I feel that may not be enough.

Either case, great game! Developer is very attentive and very present in the development. Keep an eye on this one, buy it early!

Man, this game is difficult to gauge until you play it. But when you do, only then do you fully understand the scope of game play this title offers.

On the surface, it is a low-graphic indie-style game that just looks like a bunch of bobble heads flying around doing various things. But, when you start looking at the details, it comes into focus. You have a vast world to explore, and shape as you see fit. You have hundreds of factors that come into play and offer a unique experience each time you play.

You can accidentally mine too deep and get swarmed by mechanical nightmares from a time past. A settler dies in the battle, despite a valiant effort to drag his bleeding form back to the medical bay. One of the tamed dogs goes berserk out of grief and begins attacking other colonists. The doctor gets a grievous wound before the animal is put down, and collapses to infection. While you're distracted, your power reserves dips too low and your solar generators flicker out leaving your colony in darkness as a cold snap begins, giving frostbite to your settlers while they scramble for warmth. One of them needs to have a leg amputated, and now has to hobble around with a prosthetic.

That's that a snip of an unfolding story that happens as you play through, while building a thriving colony and managing power requirements, comfort and recreation, and a steady food supply through farms and hydroponics. I can see now how people put hundreds, even thousands of hours into this game while crafting their own stories and experiences.

I'm glad I looked past the graphics, and the somewhat steep sale price comparatively, and felt like I got my money's worth. Do yourself a favour, don't bother waiting for a sale (the developer chose not to do sales, which I can respect), watch a few gameplay videos, and pick this game up.

Ark is a game difficult to describe.

At first, I didn't like it. "Wow these are big rocks. OH DAMN THAT ONE HAS TEETH. *bleh* Oh damn, it's cold out, and dark. Why am I punching trees? What are those glowy things over there? Why am I doing any of this?"

Then, I watched a video series on it with some entertaining folks (Neebs Gaming), and realized how much more there was to the game. I returned to Ark.

I built a stone house, I built walls. Ok, I feel safe now. I knocked out a thing! Now it's my friend. Ok this is kinda cool.

I kept going until I got some decent weapons, took to the air with flying dinos. Found some ruins with notes, found out there is a story. Overseer? Prime species? There is a reason my wrist is bedazzled? Once I realized there was a DEPTH to the game beyond pooping yourself frequently and bloodying my hands on some trees, I was hooked.

Give yourself time to be hooked. Find the right settings for your system. Tame something, give it a name. Protect them with your life, and mourn their loss. You will find what ark means to you if you give it enough time.

All the flowery stuff aside, it's a diverse game with lots to do, and more so if you have an imagination. Build, expand, create an empire. Leave the Ark, then realize what the ark really is.

Spent the first couple nights huddled in a cabin in the desert, low on water and food, our only light source is a candle in the corner of the room. We hear footsteps on the deck outside and scratching in the distance, spending the night preparing for the door to crash in and the inevitability of being overwhelmed and dying horribly to the gnashing teeth of the undead.

Lots of fun!

I saw this game through the Game Society YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdhMqFFPqKd54ZMcxzRq5Qg) and it looked rough, but lots of fun. I got a few copies and played with my wife and son, and haven't been able to put it down since.

Comparisons have been made with Minecraft and Fallout, and I suppose this falls in the middle somewhere. It has a fantastic mix of exploration, survival challenge, crafting and suspense. There is a wide variety of places to explore and things to build, so if you enjoy sandbox games this will keep you busy for quite some time. I have started a couple games already (owned for PS4 I play with my son, and PC with the wife) and I feel connected to the strongholds I create with them, keeping me drawn back to play late into the night.

TLDR; highly recommended, lots of replay value.

As a caveat to the above, this is not a AAA title. Don't expect the same polish you find in games with teams of 100, 5 years of development, and a multi million dollar budget. The game has rough corners, there is much work to be done and *so* much potential. With a focus on animation and art direction, this could be one of the definitive zombie survival games out there. Give it a solid try and you may be a fan as well.

I am going to share a recent experience I had with this game, which may outline my impression of it more clearly than an attempt at a concise review.

While traversing this unforgiving wasteland in the post apocalyptic future, I came across a series of portable fallout shelters with bodies scattered about. Seemingly, surviving for a period of time and finally emerging to find a nice glass food dispenser in the center, with one perfect piece of pie at the top. I imagine they were starving after hiding in those mini bunkers for what felt like a lifetime. Upon emerging, I bet they saw this pie as their salvation! But, why was the pie intact? I attempted to retrieve this tasty prize, imagining how torturous it might have been watching this slow retrieval claw delivering it to several starving people anxiously awaiting sustainance. It failed, however, ever close to the tips of their fingers. Time and time again, the little metal claw picks at the pie, only to leave it gleaming and perfect behind the glass. I imagine, given the scene, they all died in starvation, or killing each other to see who would get it first, while the pie safely watches in safety, forever preserved behind this faulty vending machine. I bet it would have been delicious, I wondered, as I walked away chewing on my iguana-on-a-stick.

I love this game.

Seriously though, I am a long-time fan of the series. I played the original fallout on a Windows 95 machine at my friends house, deeply immersed in the situation. Alone, wandering out of the vault, looking around every corner for something to attack me whiile constantly being aware of what little I have to survive. What became of this world, and what horrors await me while I try and save my people? I played each sequel over the years as they were released, eager to discover the remains of humanity, and finding ways to better prepare myself to survive it.

This feeling remains intact in Fallout 4, deeply immersing you in a rich, almost endless world to explore. I have played this game through, from character creation to each alternate ending, coming up on 4 times now and I still find things I have not noticed from one play through to the next. A cabin in the woods, an encounter in an alley while scouring the remains of a city, a secret cache of supplies underneath a once bustling boardwalk.

There are attractions for many kinds of players here, yet my favorite feature is managing the settlements. Even if the primary narrative was not present, I would still enjoy this game as a "post apolacyptic settlement survival simulator". I thorougly enjoyed unlocking each settlement, scoping out the possibilities of defense and resource generation. Overcoming the obstacles each location provides, and picking my favorites out to spend hours setting up every detail.

One of my favorite projects was setting up a proper pool table in my shopping center I created in my hometown of Sanctuary. I had a jukebox playing, a bar set up with scavenged booze carefully placed on the shelf behind the bartender. I had a pool table set up on the opposite side with pool cues, and a complete set of pool balls I scoured the wasteland for, finally completing my collection after looting many, many establishments over my adventures. (though, I did later find a full intact set in a preserved location you may have discovered as well). I looked forward to each return trip home, appreciating my little respite from the horrors outside.

Beyond that, this is a great shooter, and a fantastic RPG.

Many will argue it is not perfect (Oh gee, tell me more problems a settlement has Preston. I just came back to grab my Power Armor, leave me alone!), but many works of art are not about perfection. It's about a vision and an experience than an artist, or several artists in the case, has toiled over for your enjoyment. I noticed the extreme level of detail and dedication to immerse the player in this rich world, and this game remains among my favorite of all 30+ years I have been a gamer. While not for everyone, this game does have much to offer many kinds of players, if you buckle in, turn the lights low, and breathe in the radiation while you enjoy adventuring through the wasteland that is the commonwealth.

Edit: I originally purchased on the PS4, and only recently bought this on sale on the PC. I did not have a proper gaming system at the time, thoroughly enjoying my 4th playthrough. Dude. Aiming with a mouse is way easier, and it was nice cranking up the graphics.