Recent reviews by Very-Fine Art

There's potential here, but mostly limited by either a very poor explanation of some mechanics.
Main ones is how the economy works and issues with pathfinding.
if there was a system for pathfinding and better tutorials, it'll be great

only other thing to mention is that it's really hard to get my friends keep playing because playerbase are using the meta and wiping the floor with them.

It's hard to convince someone to sink time and effort into a game when they get crushed by someone with 100 hours in their first 5 games in a row :(

it's a shame how this game didnt get the time and energy it deserved, yet still came out competent in the end. So much potential was wasted

hope one day it gets remade or remastered but that's really unlikely :(

this was one of my favourite games when I was a kid, completed it a few times! looking back on it, the story was a bit cliche but the gunplay felt really good despite having a weird 90s setup to it

This plays exactly like a late 2000s game developed in Eastern Europe.

Game design elements such as 1 hit snipers stopping you from entering areas too early, assault rifles jamming after less than 10 magazines of ammo, Quests giving out less rewards than what they costed in resources to complete, broken stealth.

This is good, because it feels like a stalker game. the downside is that it plays like a late 2000s Eastern European game that's sold for full price instead of £5

look past the generic UE5-ness and repetitive backtracking (and wait for a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of mods) and you'll have something special

TL;DR Exactly like the good early seasons of The Walking Dead, but the PS4 has been launched and replaced by the PS5 in the time the game's been in Early access.

One of the few zombie games that give a harsh but intense view on the formula. Take nothing for granted. Every single fight can result in death, or having a base you've built and hoarded supplies for hours become overrun.
Outside of a few balancing issues (Not enough bullets spawn for you to be able to get to max out shooting on a single character*, Several hours of painful grinding**) and somewhat empty in terms of content outside of Build/loot/grow*, There's a fun zombie game at it's core, About suffering, loss and pain. Best Enjoyed With Friends.

I've dumped a lot of time into it, I've 100% got my money's worth, but as a word of warning, things are progressing very slow. PZ was part of the the first batch of Early Access games and is currently the oldest game still in Early Access that is still being developed on at over 7 years. Make no mistake, This Isn't another generic Early access survival open world zombie game, The devs care and put effort into it.

*Fixed with mods. As of B41,
**XP multipliers can fix the issue

A great, short romp with some nice Puzzles and Amazing artwork!

Spent $1000s keeping a 19 year old husky alive while my Colony had to make due with herbal medicine and raw potato.
10/10 would spend Entire Colony savings on dog again
I now name the first female dog I have Amore, after that first husky. none have survived as long as she did originally.

A Limbo Clone with a good idea, but no substance.
There's only 4 puzzles in total.

The puzzle ideas are solid: I've not seen many radio based puzzles before. But it's cripplingly short.
You know how in other silhouette type games, there's a story of some description told by the enviroments you visit or puzzles you solve?
Not here. The game has an open field background with a flat level geometry , A pond Background with a flat level geometry, and a warehouse background with flat level geometry.
I would not suggest picking this up, unless you want achievements

The hidden Achievement is gained by idling somewhere. No cool idea or plot detail, just stand by something and wait [spoiler/]

I played a Diplomacy match against 2 bots.
encountered a bug where both of the bots didn't break the alliance or act even when I was bombing their units.
I can't figure out if this is an AI bug or a statement on how pointless nuclear war is and how the only winning move is not to play.

Apart from that, most of the people online are Gods who'll Stack their units up and annihilate you every time, so you'll need to play with friends if you'd want to have fun

7/10 would overthink bug for Anti-war statement again

TL;DR: The game can be fun once you've learned how everything works and team up with friends. Outside of that, the game is let down by missing features, poor UI and lack of player populations. Play only if you can put up with Issues

Pros
+Great core gameplay
+interesting concept with potential

Netural
#Players are either friendly and helpful, or actively grief, no middleground


Cons
- No tutorials

-confusing UI
-Missing Basic features
-global playercount rarely reach above 20 spread over several servers.
-Stability issues that reset delete the items you've bought and generally reset progress.
5/10.

from what I've played, I enjoy the game. It's fun to blast someone down and take their ship for parts, then blow up their friends with a stiched up amalgamation of my ship and my fallen foe. With friends, you have a fun game that can give many hours of intense fun. But as with many Early Access games, it has a lot of problems that ruin the experience.

Lack of tutorials or explanations. The game does not do anything to explain the mechanics of the game outside of a keybind menu, or tell you how the gamemodes work, what the objectives are, what item does what, how to build a good ship? Nothing. I've only found 1 tutorial made within this year.


poor UI choices. What's the difference between a combat station and interceptor cockpit? How much power does this reactor make? what's the difference between a TC25 and a TC65 Engine? Why can't I sell all of an item at once? The buy menu is difficult to extract info from. The item names aren't much of a clue into what the items actually do, and lastly, they aren't organized into categories, Just dumped in 1 scroll menu.

Player Interaction
Half of the players I've met have been friendly and understanding to new players and have oftered to help and explain the issues, while the other half do everything in their power to make your life horrible, from destroying the Mothership at the start to commiting Grand Theft Space while you spend time creating the perfect killing machine. it is really disheartening to have someone steal something you spent the whole game building up.

There are a few other smaller issues like no way to regenerate health to the Varity of gamemodes, but these aren't as serious as the main problems.


Iron Armada is a great game, A real diamond in the rough. But it is a small diamond with a heck'ofa lot of rough around it. The devs will need to put more time into it to fix these issues and drive up the player population Before it will be worth spending anything longer than a few hours playing in total.

Edit: UI Issues Fixed,