Recent reviews by Pudge Cake

Help, I can't stop playing. I just keep doing one more mission, one more redesign, just one more monorail.
I am trapped on Mars, someone send a rescue mission!

The new behaviour system is a blessing. People are far less toxic and you have tools to avoid those that still are. It's not perfect, but it's better than it has been and much better than other online games I've played.

And then the game itself: it's one of the most engaging, complex, satisfying, and beautifully balanced titled ever made. Run by a team that cares very much and does a spectacular job of always keeping it fresh and fun.

But you will need to invest hundreds of hours to become barely competent, so don't go in looking for a casual experience. It is sweaty in here.

*EDIT after 150 hours*

They gotta sort out their weapon balancing. Everytime we find something fun it gets removed. All my favourite guns now suck, so I go find another loadout I like, and next patch it's nerfed as well.
They don't follow the philosophy that you need to make your players feel powerful. That it's fun to feel like Doom Guy.

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Original Review below
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It's a very competent shooter, with excellent replay value. The movement and general controls feel a bit sluggish and it takes some adjusting to if you're used to snappier shooters, but once you adapt it works quite well.
The game currently has some crashing issues, but the devs are bringing out patches and fixes quite quickly.
The weapons and enemies are varied and interesting, the locations and missions are exciting, and there's huge scope for expansion and growth.
And on top of it the business model seems reasonably none-predatory by modern standards. There is a premium currency, which I don't like seeing on a paid-title. But it can be earned through playing the game, albeit somewhat slowly.
Overall it is worth the asking price right now, and I'm expecting to see a lot of new content as the storyline unfolds over the coming months.

I'm torn on whether to recommend or not.
The core gameplay loop is superb, the mechanics are fun and well polished. The aesthetic is beautiful and fitting. And it manages to set a really good mood and tone. It draws you into its world masterfully and gets you in exactly the right frame of mind.

Then then it kind of does nothing with it.

The gameplay and mechanics never stop being satisfying, but what's it all for?
Its for a story that isn't finished. A story that is barely even there.

When you play it you can see a dozen unfinished paths. A dozen ideas that got cut off before they could become anything. None of the side quests amount to anything. None of the characters change or do anything, but a lot of them look like they're about to.
There's clear and apparent moments of conflict, or tragedy, or hope, that just suddenly stop. The next scene is missing, and the character just goes back to default behaviour.

It's crushingly disappointing. Because I LOVED playing this game... I kept waiting for it to drop the story on me. For the "oh damn" moment when things go Lovecraft... but they don't. It doesn't ever do it. Because it's not finished.

If this game was finished properly, with quest-lines that build up and characters that change and a proper lovecraftian darkness, then it would likely be my game of the year. It would be worth $50 easy.
As it stands its still fun. It's still good... I still enjoyed it.
But it's disappointing to see the potential thrown away.

I'd suggest waiting and hoping that they finish it in the future.

Chugga chugga.

The puzzles seem far less satisfying and more tedious than the previous games.

Super chill. Sits in a corner of your desktop while you do other stuff and irresistably pulls your attention away from that other stuff. Play it slowly and passively, or try to actively optimise your farm. There's more to this little package than you first think.

Very Very Stressful.
It's so hard to track everything that's happening, and the sound and visual cues all merge together.

edit after a couple more hours play:
I decided to give it a fair shot. And I'm still not sold. Going into the settings and turning off Hints helps a LOT! I strongly recommend everyone turn off hints. The hints popup box is just a huge visual distraction. It still suffers from bad visual and audio communication - the text boxes from the crew should be icons that replace their faces so you can tell at a glance what they mean without reading them.

The game feels very inconsistent and frustrating. One mission will be a quiet walk in the park with nothing really to do. The next will be an absolute hellfire of bullets and malfunctioning systems. All it takes is for your electrical system to go down just before a fight and you're going to get swamped and die. All progress is wiped out with each crashed mission - crew levels, aircraft upgrades, and all the money you invested. It just doesn't feel worth it to keep trying. You might as well just hire random people and dump them in the unupgraded plane because if you take 5 minutes to customise and upgrade everything it'll all be wasted.

Super frustrating as well as stressful.

With that said... I do feel a compulsion to go back and try some more. I suspect that's the trap of this game: it feels like something better is just over the horizon, but I've felt that feeling about games before and my guess is that it doesn't improve.


EDIT 2:
The navigation aspect is complete BS. I go to a mission location, I hit my target, and then I want to go home... but I can't. Because my navigator won't give me a waypoint. And I cant tell my pilot to circle, or to manually go in a direction of my choice. All I can do is blindly fly straight in whatever direction I'm heading until either a) my navigator decides to provide a waypoint or b) I die. It's usually b. It's so frustrating because you can't do ANYTHING about it. Just sit and wait and see if the game decides to let you return to base or not.

No tutorial, but you figure it out very quickly. It's a really neat example of intuitive design. It's short, it's silly, it's fun. It's better quality than you'd expect.

_edit after 8 more hours_ and it's actually quite competitive with a decent skill ceiling. I'm now wishing for a bit more depth to the navigation: there's a lot of shortcuts to take but it's still mostly about being good at the gunplay. Being a great horse driver isn't rewarded very much.

A peculiar mix of hands-off Real Time Strategy and Nature Documentary.
The core mechanics and gameplay loop is well thoughtout and implemented. Managing your little nest of ants is quite simple, but with satisfying moments as your colony swarms all over food and foe. It is sometimes frustrating that you can't micromanage an ant to carry a crucial larvae, or grab that bit of food you desperately need. But on balance its enjoyable and satisfying.
The aesthetic and theme is where it really shines. Its like an interactive nature documentary, with a narrator describing the attributes and behaviours of the creatures you encounter. The entire presentation gives you a feeling of observing the insect world with depth, detail, and fascination.
(although the Formicarium missions feel a bit wonky and out of place, maybe could do with a rework)

I really love it. Highly recommend.