Recent reviews by Neil

Its ok but definitely does not deserve overwhelmingly positive reviews it has at the time of writing.

The core loop of the game (mine, return to base, upgrade, mine again) is a tried and tested formula which, while far from novel, kept me engaged for the length of time I stuck with Aethus.

Just about everything else turned me off.

It is mechanically frustrating at the best of times. The camera is overly constrained, not allowing to actually look at one of the few redeeming factors of the game, its environment. You cannot build bases underground, despite clearly others having done so before you arrived. The controls and UI are clunky and the base management quickly devolves into tedium.

Despite being ex-AAA, which he is keen to remind you, has not capitalised on the lack of constraint to make something creative and has instead managed to make something that is guilty of all the sins that are associated with the modern AAA game. Two dimensional characters, overly sarcastic attempts at humour, overt handholding, fourth wall breaking. The bad guys are literally referred to as "MEGACORP" and there is a faction called "The Resistance". You could hardly be more derivative if you tried. The developer clearly recognises the need for a "reason to dig deeper" and that what will separate his game from the myriad survival-crafting games out there is "the story" unfortunately for myself this was found severely lacking to the point that it is the reason for me leaving this review.

I felt myself wondering if this game would have been better if it had had a silent protagonist and relied solely on environmental storytelling, or if your drone companion would actually have spoken like a robot.

Overall I don't think there is anything this game does that has not been done better elsewhere and would recommend you look further before purcahsing.

Its good, really good, but it doesn't quite reach 'Great'.

Like some other puzzle games you can reach 'credits' fairly quickly but there are clearly more mysteries to solve. Up until this point, and for a while after, I was enthralled and would recommend this game purely on that experience.

The greater mystery however starts to become very tedious. Even when you have figured out a clue, due to the nature of the game, it could be several runs before you can implement it to advance to the next. I found there were many runs where I made little to no progress, despite knowing several areas in which I could advance. I stopped being able to justify spending my time on the game because of that,

Overall it became clear to me that the 'Roguelike' and 'Strategy' elements of the game were at odds with the puzzle solving which I fell makes it fall short of other information-puzzle games like The Witness, Tunic, and The Outer Wilds.

Atrocious UI , UX, and new player experience. Go play Slay the Spire.

Way too many positive reviews for this game which is boring and clunky. Non-compelling (forced) dialogue, ugly models, poor animations, aggressive tutorial. Slightly helped by its artstyle but overall not worth even a try.

The game is ruined by woke writing. You can tell the author has pronouns in twitter bio without even checking.

This game is OK. It does not deserve the current rating it has so I am doing my bit to correct that.

The visuals of the game are good, if you like the style (I do), but this is about where the positives end.

There are some good puzzles but often they are either way too simple, way too obtuse, or way too reliant on spotting something miniscule (especially given the low fidelity art style). For example there is no way of distinguishing which notes/books are actually relevant without combing each room with your mouse to figure out whether you can pick them up or not and the game is full of the same exact models throughout.

More annoying is the ludicrous amounts of text and reading for what is some incredibly mediocre writing. The atmosphere set by the graphics are seriously undermined by the "ironic millennial" attitude of the player character and two-dimensional NPCs. The actual concept of the story I enjoyed but I think the over-reliance on dialogue (given it's quality) really let it down.

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no obvious way to skip sections of dialogue/cutscenes. The game half-expects you to do multiple runthroughs for different endings which results in attempting to skip large sections of dialogue and cutscenes that have already been seen, to little avail.

There was also a technical issue where my save from the demo was transferred to the full game when I purchased it, but continuing that save kept sending me to the "buy the full game" screen, forcing me to start again.

Overall I think the game lacks a holistic creative vision and this leaves it as an OK game rather than a good one.

An extremely well polished game. Puzzles on par with the best. An interactive story that challenges and makes you question your own ethical positions. Breathtaking level design. Littered with easter eggs, you will struggle to do a playthrough without encountering at least a few. Overall top tier game 10/10

Fun base building and many events that keep you playing.
Really makes you feel like you are part of a team of post-apocalyptic survivors such as in in The Walking Dead.

There are several systems in the game that are somewhat annoying, especially to newer players.
The good news is that I havent seen a single system that hasnt had a UI update or redesign and the developers are obviously very passionate about listening to the community and integrating popular mods and idea into their game.

I got bored after my first base came to a standstill but I am looking forward to playing in a few updates time to see how the experience has been improved.

This game is definitely not for me or anyone that enjoys fun. TL:DR; at the end.

First off, It is so slow. There are a maximum of 5 kills per round (unless you team kill) and you will most likeley get no more than 1 per round, (0 if you are starting off) and the rounds can last an age. For example I am writing this review in the time I am waiting for a rounds to finish.The matchmaking system is trash so give it like 10 mins for you to find a game, then for every round it takes like 30 second for people to choose a class, then an hour for people to load in, then another 45 seconds running around as a drone because 'spotting people' is fun, then you have 4mins to lug your fat bodies to the building and most likely doe to someone you cant see. You then resume the joyous activity of spotting people until all of your team die to the same person as you even though you told them where they were and not to follow you.

The movement system is clunky as well. You cant jump. If you fall off an egde whislt running, you can forget any momentum you had. You will fall. It is really unintuitive and is really annoying as there are seveal places that look feasable to get to but it is impossible to get to.

The community is trash. If you dont get instakicked for no reason, you will probably be tked for someone walking in front of you when trying to kill a drone or for no reason at all. Also im not sure if it is a pro or a con that there are cheaters banned in every game. I cant remember playing a single game that someone hasn't been banned. So either there are a lot more that dont get banned or they actually have a decent anti cheat system.

Overall my time with this game has been frustrating and confusing way to often to warrant buying it for the few moments you actually are having fun. Dont buy this game unless you have many many hours spare to spend time devoting your life to this game so that you may hope to , one day , get to the level where it may be possible to get enough kills to have fun.

TL:DR; The game is slow, frustrating and not fun most of the time. Bad mechanics, people and matchmaking.