Recent reviews by Talltrea

I am writing this review as if the game in its current state is completed and will not be receiving another update - with that lets get into it

Is there a tutorial? yes, bare bones as it is you will learn one way or another. at least your less likely to die while running it in its current state.

Are the controls Janky? Absolutely, its apart of the fun if you ask me as you are not a ship. so why would a vessel with several hundred hands run exactly the way you want?

Graphics? Everyone loves graphics, and these are great for a one man show - wait till the modding community gets even more in there.

Gameplay? There is mining, combat, suffocation from no life support, base building, exploration for wormholes. plenty in there to keep you busy. Even a training system that can take a little to long to get some where.

Did the Dev abandon the game? absolutely, don't they all when life calls them to another place. lets just slap 1.0 and call it good, some times they are polished some times they are not. ignore those that are mad about signing up for an investment called "early access" then hardly putting any time into the game and exceeding steams return policy. So my mind was change as a friend did argue with me on this point - I consider all games abandoned when they are finished as they wont get updates again, they correctly pointed out that the dev has promised a handful more updates.

Here's a tip if you want to speed run the game, dock at a ship yard save the game. sale the ship, load the game. sale the ship again, load the game, sale the ship again, saying it wasn't patched out... Now you too have a way to test the game and determine if you want to keep with it or not.

It was only 15$ and ill probably break 100 hours. worth my time and money by that point.

Game is good, Arrow Head in partnership with Sony has added Cross Play to my formal black lists. the rest of you should do the same.

Edit: this review will not be changing now. The response was less then impressive.

I guess I accidentally speed ran the game.

Ether way, interesting game. I believe it could be worth the money to some and others will get annoyed with the interface. If more colonies or systems got added to the game the first interface that needs work is the trading interface, it gets rather difficult to find who is moving what once you get into it.

Second thing, the trade ships can get stuck on each other when landing/taking off at the same time on the same landing pad.

Beyond those two major issues to me - I would enjoy this being more expanded.

I mean... that play time... and that only encompasses what i played on steam. I have been playing this game sense before it hit steam for a while.

If you really are concerned with how enjoyable it is, the vanilla variant of the game is as shown in probably a only a few images and videos. Its a top down colony management game which can include but is not limited to:
-Building
-Farming
-Trading
-World travels
-Researching
-Birthing fortresses from stone
-Fending off friendly neighborhood cannibal tribes men
-Saving those whom still live
-Selling off their organs for wealth
-Becoming a cannibal off the dead cause forget morals and that damned blight wiped out your food supply
-Beat that one guy that decided to mercilessly kill your pet goat over eating humans
-Eat him too cause you killed him by accident
-Cause an international incident cause visiting traders stood in the middle of a war zone
-wage war and crush all that oppose you

And that is just what you can do in the base game. Mods can add so much more... Such as and not limited to:
-More power
-More raids
-More races
-More plants
-More factions
-Slavery
-Race crimes
-Drug empires
-Even more organ harvesting
-Sky net
-Nuking any one and every one that enters your boarders
-Nuking that one colonist that got upset and killed your pet goat
-The regret from nuking your nukes.
-The dream of building starships
-The crushing reality of how expensive it is
-The realization the game has mod support and runs 100+ mods alright
-The Frustration when one mod breaks the game in that list of 100+
-The level of difficulty can be increased... Or decreased.

Disclaimer:
In reading this review you agree that I am no way responsible for the idea, design, or committing of such warcrimes regardless of increase of frequency or moral outrage that will occur on your local rimworld due to this review. In the event of an issue, Please locate the nearest organ liberation facility and take a number, A compliant associate will be along shortly to assist you with relieving you of the source of the complaints.

So lets be heard...

I love this game! I am glad to support the devs further!

I however, disagree majorly with the functional blocks being un-usable by players that do not have the DLC. We know the mechanics to prevent players from building/rebuilding blocks exist with the progression mechanic, Why not expand that further to prevent players on the other side of the "pay wall" from placing/building them.

However, to talk about the pack it self a bit the blocks are pretty and nice to use.

the cockpit did not miss out on the LCD update that was added to the game though again !! Other players need to be able to use it and simply not build it !! due to this one reason i am annoyed as i will not be able to use it my self in most servers as a lot of people that i end up playing with will not get this pack.

The Holo Table, I thought we weren't going to more advanced tech? Isn't that the argument to turn down putting shields into the game?... As compared to the modded options to do the same thing the impact this has actually seems less and I'm glad to see it make it into the game officially.

The Table, Planter, kitchen, armory, toilet, lockers, and bed (The set of other decorative blocks). Not much to add to these, they are nice to look at and add several options into the game in terms of making things look nice, some of these blocks probably should have a conveyor port added to them as they have inventory but no way to make use of it with out touching the blocks your self. Outside of that, they have no functionality to add to your base.

Just my thoughts. which for me the above is enough to say no, I do not recommend this. change it so that people can use the blocks that have functionality to them and not build them and I will consider modifying this review.

Dev response:

Blitzzz333 [developer] Posted: Apr 24 @ 3:54pm
Hi Talltrea,

Thank you for writing this review.

We really appreciate your feedback.

After carefully evaluating feedback provided by the community, we have decided to make a major change to the functionality of the Decorative Pack. Soon, all players will be able to interact with these blocks regardless of whether they own the Decorative Pack or not. In the case that a player doesn't own the Decorative Pack, they will just not be able to build with these blocks. This change will be made in an update very soon.

We are also continuing to release free features for Space Engineers via updates, (Customizable LCD Screens, Replay Tool, Steam Badges. Steam Backgrounds, etc.) and optional paid DLC (the Decorative Pack), which is designed to not split our community. For more information please see Marek Rosa's blog: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2019/04/space-engineers-customizable-lcd.html

Additionally, we are continuing to optimize Space Engineers and fix numerous bugs in the game.

If you are experiencing any issues, please message us via our support site: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general and we'll be happy to assist you.

Kind regards,

Keen Software House


My Response:

Hello!

Thanks for getting back to me! Its always a joy to know my feedback is not getting read :)

If you bothered to read it you would know i do not care for this response as what you state will happen has yet to happen so my review will not change much other then the update including your waste of bytes to write basically nothing. This information regarding updating the pack was all ready sent to me via email and does not matter sense it has not occurred.

I have an issue with the following phrase "which is designed to not split our community." If this was really the case wouldn't we not be having these conversations now?

Additionally, If you bothered to read my review you would of seen I did not have any problems with bugs or optimization in my review. So this in turn leads me to believe some one just wanted the "Developer Response" on the comment to make it look like you guys actually responded with something constructive which was not done in this response.

My request is pretty straight forward. Update the pack then I will consider updating my review. Not before, Only reason it is updating now is to respond to this generic response that does not actually fix the issues listed.

Looking forward to the actual update that i was aware of well before now.

Thanks for your time.

I feel bad putting a not recommended rating. So i am going to clairify. It is NOT worth 30 dollars.

A little on me as a gamer, I love RTS type games. Trying to solve puzzles and even resolving them differently tickles me silly. Kinda feel bad not rating up more games i do enjoy but nothing really stands out any more these days however i will point out a "complete" game that needs work...

First the bad;

BUGS!

-Agents get stuck in walls/objects/stairs/offmap
-AI get stuck walls/objects/stairs and still spot and attack Agents
-Some componets dont react correctly
-Some objects can be shot through are see through but its not the same every game
-Security doors open when they shouldnt
-Not all restricted areas are properly marked
-AI and Agents can shoot at all ready targeted enemies once they are out of range
-Cameras glitch through stands to follow Agents/followers

This list alone is a deal breaker for me even wanting this game... thankfully for me its free, So i might grind through the head ach to finish it.

Issues i have with it;

-AI respawn in cleared sectors of base locations before i trigger alarm
-AI scales HP and damage a bit steep and sure you can wait around for the skills to do something but good luck otherwise
-make a slight mistake and your team is wrecked, even with the slow down its almost to fast pace for my self.
-Lag spikes every time something respawns
-I Personally have issues where the difference in damage types actually ruins my experience. takes to long to change out and to run all needed reduces DPS far to much when things well, explode. I dont play with the pausing available, I have to use the skills to get the effect and there is no easy way to change weapons i have discovered
-why should i care for my Agents? Most of the time my missions ended in failure simply cause i didnt care. Once they are half way out just let them die then send in the infiltrator to extract the needed matierals. Alot less of a head ach.
-mission system is a tad vauge when you target your targets.
-Skill trees have typos that can make them hard to understand.
-is cover actually cover? or am i squishy? Cant answer the first.
-Need help? Just throw civilians at the police. Or police at the police, more the merrier as some would say.
-When activating a skill i dont want to move every one from cover to stick them back so my idiotic hacker will get down once done.
-Cameras in bad locations
-Lack of instant killing abilities, Expect reinforcements.
-I quit trying to assinate targets as they simply snap around and spot me to often
-Once the factions start fighting you might as well do something else, They wont stop and the base will be crawing with hostiles.
-Im trying to hard to be nice.

I really wouldnt pay for this game with the above issues. It looks pretty but the above really kills the game play.

The good.

-Scenery is actually pretty good for a gods eye view of a cyber punk city in a distopian future.
-Learning the location, I found having to go around to each beckon to learn about the location to be helpful
-The skill trees are reasonable however there are typos that can make them hard to understand
-Your not a god. your quite squishy
-The cloths looked nice, Gave me a good laugh some times
-Cover looked like cover
-Animations acted correctly most of the time.
-"Scanning" things was pretty cool, its a near core aspect of the game. Though you could beat it with out it.
-The Research tree added a few hours to my game play and drew me deeper.


Yeah, Its a short list and i had to grasp at straws. good and bad should be atleast one good to one bad... for an early access game

The Neutral

-The game has stealth... This is supposed to be pretty important from what i can tell.
-Explosions look nice, i guess. could kill better if your atop a satchel charge and thrown a few dozen feet. Don't worry, you and them can walk it off.
-your a clone i guess? just steal another skin if your stats get to low from dying to often. The market is rich in stock.


Who am i kidding? I cant even say nice things about this game and i was trying... Hopefully a few bug fixes may occur and it will be better but what do i know? I want to try multiplayer, But i refuse with how my single player experience was i can only assume its far worse or about the same.

I again am pleased I received this game from the humble bundle for free.

So im going to start by stating i am probably going to counter several other reviews, Do i care? not really, and yes i did read several before getting the game.

This game is a game thats ment to be completed 100% There is alot there as the game is ment to be replayed atleast 6 times, (thats right multiple endings) I personally found plenty of story their for this short game that explained several mechanics that out right confused me as to why they existed i would love to spell it out for every one but to do that would spoil the very last ending which is well worth getting your self.

The game is very FreeSpace like but instead of managing every ship that you will fly with you give them an overall lay out, this allows you to jump from one ship to another with out having to stop and check your weapons to see which style you will be playing.

EVERY THING CAN DIE! Thats right, if you are good enough at the game you can kill literally every thing, including your own ships or that big bad boss that shows up at the end of every level. It honistly shocked me to look at the global stats of the game to see that very few people managed to do such a thing when its so easy once you have the right formula.

Pilot or tactical view? I played both, there are some instances like a bombing run that its better for the player to do it instead of the AI as unguided bombs are certaintly not a robots strength. There are also time were keeping your eyes on every thing will help you catch those kamakazi fighters that are about to slam into your capital class ships. Sure there are perks to doing it one way or the other and i certaintly did not use the tatical as much as i could. But based off of others i have seen play this game, i used it more to keep a check on my surroundings so i knew what was happening.

Fighters only? Yes! Why? its explained in the story, for me to tell you would simply ruin it. I personally believe the game would of been ruined had they permitted you to fly the capitals. The AI is not overly dumb, some time it screws up but look at it this way your human. you screw up just as bad or worse some times.

You can be a kamakazi fighter. 3 words. THIS IS GLORIOUS! I have not had alot of fun with deaths, even in games where death will push you on, i hate it. But i have never felt so satisfied when i died, simply removing a road block with that one options makes it great, i dont need to live to win the game. Oh, and escape pods wont kill you if you decide to cleave through them in your ship, it was pretty funny.

All in all this is a great game to me;
Would i recomend it for the impatient? No.
Would i recomend it for the easily angered? No.
Would i recomend it for those who do not posses higher thought? No.

How ever if you dont meet those three no's then by all means get it! (when its on sale or something :P)
I personally got it on sale for 12 USD My rule of thumb is if i spend an hour per a USD and meet or exceed that the game is potentially good and considering i have almost exceeded that end completed every achivement i find it well worth the buy.

Now for some of the negitives comments/tips to be aware of that i have read,

This game is unbeatable - This game is a bit of a puzzle game. The wrong upgrades WILL GET YOU KILLED. There is no way around it, you have to be flexible to play the game correctly.

Some weapons will one - two shot kill you - Learn to dodge. there is nothing more to it.

You can not be every where at once - This is a lie, use tatical. every fighter is you, you can be in all of them at any point in time.

There is nothing more then three difficulty levels - actually there are four. and each one changes how the game plays almost entirely. cant go guns blazing when every thing is designed to kill you at certaint ranges.

Last note from me, 10/10 would complete again.

Thanks!

Played through on a few different styles, Beat it once and my little brother is enthralled by the game him self.

The Conquest system at the start of the game is probably one of the few things i have spent an hour or two before i actually started the main game it self, It really does as the game states. " gives you the most control of the way the game world works for you."

I then find simply the character creation screen to be quite indepth and fun to play around with though once your in the game some classes can feel underpowered in the start if you dont know what your doing. I would run around up to the first boss fight just so you know what your doing before you really ramp into the game.

Personally i love the way they did the ending as well. I will not state what happened for me the first two times :> go play the game or watch youtubers.

Starting from the top.

Start the game Hold the button and get introduced to a very pretty and bright planet. repair your ship gather resources and do some combat, fly to a different world. blow up some larger ships. Rinse and repeate...

Well...

Flight controls suck, Combat is boreing, Every thing can take a gernade, Upgrades become a bit tedious, Auto pilot is stupid, oh and every one else can fly lower.

im done. 14 hours is enough. i gave it two trys and it still is the same time waster i feel like im doing very little. just remember if you learn 200 ish words of a different languge you are suddenly a translator...

Probably one of the better games like this in my opinion, unlike many of the others the lack of actually working as a team and play thing game smartly can actually make your job far more difficult then it needs to be! think about it most you will see at once in game as trap currancy is 6k~ in 10 rounds me and a team of four (one DC'd the poser) were hitting 10-12k in 3 rounds... thats alot of money! and the only reason we lost was cause sappers.

10/10 would replay that exact game! Made new friends then lost the next match but thats how life goes :E love it and recomend it.