Recent reviews by Tabriel

I've played just over 100 hours of Darktide and loved it, and this was Pre-Skill Tree revision... so it now feels even better!

Fatshark keep patching, updating, and fixing, and hopefully it will become as beloved as the Vermintide series over time.

The Soundtrack is amazing, the combat is fast and frantic, and getting swarmed by Plague Hounds always sets my heart racing... more of this!

I'd love to see more Classes or even Sub-Classes, and even the addition of the other Chaos God Cultists and Demons in future updates!

Just what I like in a Game: ARPG crossed with Survival... Vampheim!

The setting is dark, atmospheric, and immersive, and I like that there are a lot of Combat/Power options!

I know it is early access, so things will change and improve, and I look forward to draining the world of Blood & Resources much, much more!

I was a fan of the original Geo, so when Windybeard released Galactic Mining Corp (Geo 2), I had to pick it up... and I was not disappointed!

I've played 18 hours of it in the last 2 weeks, almost reached the end, and I've had a blast drilling out the Comets, Moons, Planets & Gas Giants. For those coming off the back of Geo, it's more of the same in essence; with a cast of quirky characters, amusingly named locations to drill, and a whole lot of drilling!

Pros:
+ More Geo, More Better! (Same awesome drilling action, with new power-ups, enemies, base building, and crew & drill upgrades!)
+ Head-Nodding Soundtrack! (Sometimes Chill, sometimes Pulse-Pounding!)
+ No Pressure Gaming! (With unlimited lives, if you lose... you grab a new drill and get back to it!)
+ Comedy & References Galore! (If you're a Sci-Fi nerd like me, you'll be happy with the amount of "I get that reference!" chuckles coming out of your own face-holes!)

Cons:
- Some Quirky Interface Moments! (The only bad thing I have to say is that sometimes I'd get irritated waiting for the Research screen to load, or the Collection screen not having a search bar... and that's it, the only Con I have!)

Conclusion:
I've really enjoyed GMC! I've unlocked all the maps and drilling locations, and all I have left to do is 100%ing a few drilling locations, and levelling up the in-game collection & research screens... which I'm more than happy to do.

I'll have it all done in around 25 hours, however if you want to take it slower over time... do that! There's no penalty for taking it slower, so get drilling!

Completed on "Normal + Veteran" - really enjoyed it!

Loved the level design, the music and atmosphere was haunting, and now I just have to complete it on the other difficulties to level more and get more rep.

Would recommend just for extra stash tabs, and a transmog vendor! :D

I found out about GEO from a Friend (who's friends with the Developer; Windybeard), I however did not receive my copy free, I paid for it like a functioning member of space-society! :)

Ok, so now that's out of the way, I've played roughly 10 hours of the game and I think that's enough to leave a decent "Early Review" of the game. So here it is - it's pretty darn good. More? Ok fine... Really? Ok, Ok...

I'll divide it into Pros, Cons, and Final Thoughts. This will probably also include a few tips for the new players.

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+ Classic Art Style. (Not the largest of Pros, but the aesthetic works wonders - it's clean, fluid, suited to a game like this where you don't need an overly complex style that could cause frame drops, fps issues, etc. And the mouse cursor reminds me of the Drill key from Gurren Lagann!)
+ One More Drill! (I've lost count of the amount of times the thought "If I just get one more Resistance Crate, I'd have that Core..." or "Man, if only that smug spikey alien wasn't eating my face..." and gone back for, as I said, "One More Drill!". Roguelike so infinite chances!)
+ Balls-Out Humor. (Theres some funny stuff in there; references to other sci-fi, and also other made up stuff that's a little on the less than family-friendly side, but if people can't take that... what year is this? Oh right, it's 2017 on the internet; I'm sure someone'll complain about something. But just wait until you meet Peeping Marv. It's nothing over the top overall, but just be aware not everything is small-kid friendly toned.)
+ Dig Dug, in Spaaaaace! (Alright, alright, it's not really Dig Dug, it's far much more than that... but I thought it reminded me of something from my wee-days!)

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(Which I'll be honest, is more a "Game is Hard, not really Cons" section):
- Not for the easily disuaded when the going gets rough. (It's not easy, and this is coming from someone who claims to be vaguelly competent at games. It took me about twice as long as it should to complete the tutorial as wrapping my head around the way the game worked, and how I "thought it should work" were two different things. Read the tutorials. Read the discussions. Watch the Developer Video. Prepare yourself. You'll thank me later.)
- Monster Aggro is Real. (The monsters in the game are painfully aware of where you are while you're on screen, even if they can't see you... so watch for their patterns, how they move, and learn to outmanouver them or avoid them completely.)
- Outwardly Complex. (Kind of related to my first Con on the list, as there's a lot of stuff you have to learn to "git gud" at the game. But don't stress about it. You can start with a basic understanding from the tutorials, and then build up your knowledge as you Core your first few drill sites. It's a very steep learning process on the power of your drill, hardness of the specifc blocks, Elemental Resistances, and all the other game systems such as Research and Fusing Blocks. So "Outwardly Complex, but Inwardly Rewarding".)
- Balls-Out Humor. (See Pros. May not be suitable for a younger audience, unless they're too young to understand some references.)

I'll be honest, it's been hard thinking of "actual" Pros and Cons rather than just think of them all as tips and advice for those just starting. So I think I'll leave that there and go on to the final thoughts section.

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Ok so if you stuck around to read that, thanks and congratulations! I hope you know if you want to buy the game now as I'm sure you'll have read what I advised above, watched the videos, etc? Right? Yes? No!? Well go do it if you haven't. I'll wait.

You done? Great! Overall I believe GEO has a chance at becoming a favorite among the thinking-gamer who likes a challenge and a bit of a chuckle along the way, complete with the occasional frustration when you get stuck... but that comes with the territory! I've been bashing my face against it for the 10 hours, slowly but surely getting my head around the things that confuse me and hold me back, and I'm starting to Core the drill sites with health left to spare to even backtrack and pick up extra cash.

Plus if you like mining and space puns, Windybeard is a fine developer for that. I've been back-and-forthing with him a lot today in pun-form when things happen in-game. A few choice ones we came up with were:

• Windybeard: " its like my mama used to always say..... quadrants are like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get"
  
• Tabriel: "<raises fist> FIIIIIIIISH!" (a'la Will Shatner in Wrath of Khan)
  
• Windybeard: "Your puns are "boring" (as in boring a hole......forget it)"
  
• Tabriel: "Call me Bruce Willis, because you could say I really got right to the Core of the matter.
  (Edit: Wait, damn, the Core wasn't Willis! Well I guess Armageddon outta here...)"

So what are you waiting for? Get Mining people! :D

I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but after waiting for this game for so long now... after playing it I am a little disappointed. When I say "No" to recommending the game, that's unfortunate because I really wanted to recommend it for my love of fighting games, but just not how it is now as it doesn't stand up to current-gen titles. I'll give my 2c on the pros and cons as I see them.

I don't mean any insult by having the cons list larger than the pros, and the development team should be praised for bringing out a fighting game with their own IP; this is just an opinion.

Pros:
- Love Letter to the old-school fighters. Basic combat that is relatively easy to learn, even more so if you come from a fighting-game background.
- Good Musical Arrangement. Techno-Japanese? I'm down for that! I could watch the intro over and over.
- Fantastic Manga/Anime artwork. The intro is pretty cool, and the character art on the selection screens and in the story mode is well-done and finely detailed.

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Cons:
- Too much of a Love Letter to the old-school fighters. Too basic in it's combat, and while I put that as a Pro it is also a Con. Too often do I find myself wanting to do air-dashes, air-recoveries, counters and all the more new-age utensils the modern fighters provide.
- Reso-what-now? No resolution options... AT ALL. When you start the game an external-launcher will let you select windowed or full screen, but not at what resolution. Then in-game in the options menu there's no option for it either. When played in Windowed Mode it is a startling 640x480! So don't play it in fullscreen, especially if you have a widescreen monitor as it looks really rough.
- Sprite Detail. Hand-in-hand with the low-res nature, the sprites don't hold their own when scrutinized closely, especially in full widescreen mode.
- Character Cast. Only 11 characters. Not too much of a big deal.
- Character List. You can't press down. Only left and right, which alternates you up and down through the characters on both rows. Why is this necessary?
- Announcers. They put some form of "announcer" system in the game where you can choose an announcer (who I assume are pro-fighter players) to say random things like "Stuffed!" during the matches and pop their very rough-pixelated faces onto the screen. Too much of a disconnect during rounds.
- Text. The in-game text for things on the main menu, continue screen, etc, look like they were just run through photoshop and had some basic outer-glow filters slapped on them. Minor, but seems very quick and dirty.
- Menu Screen Confusion. Two arcade modes? 1st one is Arcade and the 2nd one is Story. There's no help-dialogue when you mouse-over them to let you know, so that could be changed to ease confusion.

There we have it, that's currently what I think of the game. So sadly, it's a No from me. A good effort, but just not enough in my eyes. I'll play some more, maybe get some more perspective, but that was just my early impressions.

Dropped 5 "Floaters" in my Escape Pod, which phased through the wall/floor and attached themselves to the hull... and somehow managed to gyrate so much they pushed the pod into the crashed ships radiation zone. So I was forced to abandon my home, lose all my materials and ability to craft anything.

10/10!

(Seriously though, when you're not messing up like me... it's pretty fun! Crafting Submarines and Sea-Bases is an interesting mechanic I've not really seen in any other game yet. Hopefully future updates will bring more goodies, and fun ways to scupper your own survival efforts like I did! :D)

Got vomited on by a Pigman, got Syphilis.
10/10 would get Syphilis again.
(Ok ok, I'm not sure if it was the Pigman vomit... but one of my characters got it somehow!)

All-in-all I've played over 11 hours of this in the past two days and I can barely put it down - I'll likely end up streaming it too!

The fact that there are no public reviews of this game do it an injustice. I recall reading an article from the guy who designed it (I think on kotaku.com) where he said they made it when they were at a dark place in their lives... and well, World War style games are like that, and even if they may regret being at a dark place, the game itself is worth playing and supporting. I want to see more from this studio when they are at a bright and happy place.

I may not have played this game as long as I've played others, but I believe this is one of the greatest casual games I've played on steam. And when I say "casual" what I mean is a "pick up and play" game - you don't have to spend hours min/maxing your characters, grinding reputations... you just go out there and Rouse.

When you unlock different parts for your Rouser each part has it's own challenges - and when you complete them you get harder and harder ones, so if eventually you get to one you're not doing great on, just switch to another part that may have easier challenges, do those, get better at the game, then go back and do the harder ones you were stuck on before.

The gameplay feels responsive, and "Rousing" as it's called where you essentially turn off the engine and free fall feels great; dodging cannonfire and enemy missiles only to re-ignite the engines seconds later to gain a burst of speed. It feels great.

The soundtrack is ace too; I can't think of any recent game that's made me think "This music is kicking!" but this does. I'd liken it to the "Jets'n'Guns Soundtrack" by Machinae Supremacy... however please note, the soundtrack to Jets'n'Guns is great... the game... utter poo-poo. It's available on steam, but I'd say listen to the soundtrack on Spotify and ignore the game.

Well enough of me rambling. Buy Luftrrausers. Rause those Lufts!

When I played the GG games back on the Playstation I was amazed; wonderful Anime style artwork, brilliant characters and a rocking soundtrack, so when I saw this on offer on the PC I paid for it without hesitation and when there were 0 reviews up... I was a fool. I thought that they'd have updated the game for PC, but they didn't, they ported it... and ported it badly.

- Controls: No way to re-bind the basic controls. You can re-bind "in-game" controls, but no possibility to re-bind things for the menus, and it seems that my controller (official microsoft one) thinks B or Right-Stick Click is Start, Back is Jump, X is back, and other oddities. Went into Burst Mode, and the default button to jump wasn't clear... but it was Back.

- No Resolution Options. This is the real biggie... you can't change resolution. It launches, looks really badly with graphic "fragmentation" (can't remember the real word for it), and you can't change that. Going into matches looks horrible in the resolution they have it set to, so it looks worse than it did on the Playstation.

- No way to exit the game. Really? Really? I had to alt+f4 out of the game because there was no exit game option on the menu.

In effect they have done NOTHING to this game aside from pull it onto the PC and make sure it runs. No updates to make it worth buying for the PC. Save your money, buy a PS2, and get all the other GG games on a console. I have trouble saying that because I stopped playing consoles around 6 years ago, but even then this game was infinitly more playable back then than it is now on PC.