Recent reviews by Starwolfe

Just under 30 hours on the demo (mostly trying to find bugs) or helping people who are having trouble by getting screenshots to assist them.

Just under 110 hours on the Playtest so far. I've explored a lot, built a lot, captured a lot, and in all fairness...broken many things in the process. Some even intentionally. Every little bit helps when it comes to the data they need to make improvements to this game.

This game is in pre-alpha. They even state in this demo's description "This demo is built to introduce the game’s core systems and capture the sense of adventure, creativity, and discovery that awaits beyond the demo boundary."

In 8 hours, that's plenty of time to get "introduced" to these. So, what do you do when those 8 hours are up? Build a new world and modify the world's settings. Level cap in under 10 minutes, boost the Knowledge points you earn so you can learn everything, Go into free build mode and let your creative mind go hog wild.

I've played several survival builders and for this being as early in the development stages that it is, I have found it more than enjoyable and exceeded what I had expected.

The building mechanics took a little getting used to, but after a little while, wasn't too challenging. An occasional piece here or there that I might have to fiddle with isn't going to make me rage quit. I've had hours upon hours of having to rebuild in other games because things just didn't come together or a stability issue would come up and frustrate me to no end. Go big, go minimal, it's your choice on how you decide to spend your time. Just have fun with it.

Combat may not have pulled me in right away, but once you learn some of the better weapons or even some unique abilities thanks to the guardians, it opens things up for some pretty awesome fights.

Crafting is pretty straight forward. The guardians are a big help and I can even go into lazy mode after placing ghost pieces, which makes life easy.

Airships...oh, the airships. Talk about a unique experience. Sure, I used the pre-made ones initially. They got me where I needed to go. Once you get into customizing your own, you'll lose track of time. Thankfully, they have a blueprint system that you can export to a document or database of your choosing, then import those builds into your next world. If you can build it, you can make it fly. From a 2 floor piece minimalist design to a full on starship replica (not giving the specifics, just because), there really is nothing that can't be done. There's currently a build contest going on in the official Discord too, so get in on that.

I see plenty of people giving some negative feedback on some things that could have easily been resolved if asked. Hit up the community in Discord. Well over 1,000 people there and plenty that will help you.

I knew nothing of this company or the games in their history. I'm seeing what they are doing now and how involved with the community they are. This is so much more than I've seen with even AAA titles where people just go to work, design whatever, get paid, and go home. They're putting their heart into this and the interaction shows it.

So, does it have Palworld feels...yeah. Does it have Valheim feels...yeah. Does it feel like many other survival builders, of course...that's what it is. Inspiration for games goes back to the beginning of gaming. Always something to compare things to. Developers don't wake up one day and decide they want to code something they have no knowledge of or had ever experienced in their career or growing up that they fell in love with.

If you like the game, great...let them know. Don't like the game, give it constructive feedback. It's helpful too.

Do some amazing build in the game you're proud of, come post it in the Discord so we can give it all kinds of emote support. Remember that at the end of the day, this is a demo. I've played shareware games back in the day that I completed in under an hour. Endless 8-hour runs (that you can bring your builds over from world to world) has been a fun way to really explore what they're trying to build here.

Since everyone posts about "optimization" and how crappy it runs, I'm just posting my PC specs right now.
- R9 5950X, RTX 2070S, 64GB RAM, Samsung 990 Pro NVMe
- Resolution - 1920x1080, Graphics settings to default except I turned on DLSS to Balanced.

The game ran just fine for me. Cutscene FPS capped at 180. Gameplay FPS was 70-100 FPS.

The initial stages of getting our campaign going was a bit of a learning curve. Trying to figure out what menu everything was under took a little time, but having played all the MW5: Mercs games, it wasn't overwhelming. Once we understood that, going through and doing upgrades for the mechs, weapons, and characters was pretty simple.

Graphics - Cutscenes - I've watched movies with worse MoCap CGI. This has been very enjoyable so far. Sure, there are a few glitches here and there, but it's not ruining my day and I can enjoy the story being told. Yes, you can also tell that every voice actor/actress were not in the same booth recording their lines. Different hardware setups yield different quality. Can this be cleaned up? To a certain degree, yes. I didn't feel like any of it was so bad that I wanted to grimace and shake my head.

Graphics - Gameplay - I love the biomes. I love the mechs. I love the weapons. I didn't experience anything that made it feel unplayable. I didn't see hiccups from my side of things. The only complaint, was that it was obvious when all my teammates were running ahead of me and I could see which one had the slower internet connection. While other mech movements were smooth, the one player was visually more choppy. Still didn't take away from the sheer joy we had playing the game together and blowing things up. I will say one thing that I wished was better, was the critical explosions. MW5: Mercs brought that effect in and it was glorious. The details of the explosion now is nice, but it just doesn't feel as "big badda boom" as Mercs. Still, a minor thing to me.

Gameplay AI - These bastards are smart. They dodge well and have good aim. Took a couple of us out a few times. Teammate AI, aren't a box of rocks like Mercs felt in the beginning. I'd actually feel good taking a full star of AI pilots through the game.

Lore - Don't know the lore. Can't comment about it. I pilot mechs and make things go boom.

More training on the overhead map would have been nice, but I can play around with it in training and learn the ins and outs of it.

With this being the first part of the Clan Invasion, I felt the inventory was fitting. As we move further into the stories and we see what comes with future DLC, that will grow. Do I want every mech available now...no. I'll just go play MWO for that with the 1129 variants.

I don't feel like the game was rushed. I'm only 6 hours into the game and I'm anxious to get our next game day going. Damn sleep and work gets in the way.

Take this review as you will. Know your hardware and adjust your settings accordingly. If you're going over 1080p, it's going to put a lot more strain on your system.

There will be patches. There will be bug fixes. There will be QoL adjustments. Welcome to gaming.

Side note - whoever did the graphics for the space jumps...you deserve a freakin' award! Music, loved it. Weapon sounds, rocked my headphones! This was fun and my star and I had a great time. I plan to continue playing through to the end.

I put in about 15 hours towards the demo and had to buy it the moment it got released. It's an addictively fun game and I recommend it to anyone who likes a auto battlers. The developers are always listening to their members in their Discord. You can tell how much they love their game with the constant communication with all of us.

You will not regret this purchase.

This is honestly a very cheesy but amazingly fun game to play, whether you're going solo or playing it with friends. Sure, some of the rounds may frustrate you, but some will leave you feeling like you had a wonderful time.

For the base price of $20 for countless hours of entertainment, I couldn't be more pleased.

The graphics are fun and keep you smiling. The music keeps you constantly in the groove.

This game is an absolute blast. The controls are amazing once you get the hang of them. While I am still not able to get anywhere near the top of the leaderboards, the challenge is still there.

I can't wait to see what they have in store for us in the future.