Recent reviews by Hybrin

This product is very much a tech demo and not in a good way. I know game development is expensive but they heavily reused assets from Planetary annilaition, the User interface is not only confusing but it overwelms you... quite honestly they should of waited into at least 1 full faction was playable before going Early access, right now this product made by the industry professionals is very basic the ideas behind it are not even well intergrated into the rts.

But that said this is a barely functional tech demo not really a game.

I would recommend other rts games made by Solo developers that do a far better job then this, I recommend picking up other games and pass on this for now at least into it's out of early access maybe by then they will have a game. I will update this review after early access.

Risk of rain returns is certainly better then the original risk of rain (2013).

The developers took great care and time to touch up the graphics and animations while adding new content and cross over content from risk of rain 2.

Plus sides

This game crashes far far less then risk of rain(2013)
the graphics are vastly improved
They got this new wonky climbing animation that looks absolutely terrible but it works.
Mod loader is ether in development or has been released by the community allowing you to create mods (unofficial)
Better multiplayer net code that actually works.

Negatives

No workshops integration yet.
Seems like the game is on the back burner, no announced dlc, patches.... in comparison of the love that risk of rain 2 is getting (which announced free item patch, level and a new paid dlc)
- Probably won't get dlc or more more additional support compared to risk of rain 2...

Now after all epic tall tales of bob are now out, I will run down the good and bad,

This micro expansion pack is required to play on PVP servers and has some really good PVE addons and fashion.

You get 5 New dinos, 1-2 dinos for each of the expansion packs.

Scorched Earth
The moving island creature that revives creatures (useless but looks cool, it's mostly used to steal peoples raiding dinos, if you kill a dino that is far far better then your own you can steal the dino and revive it)

The Tremor style dino, have not really tamed this, it's used to collect rocks. have not seen it used in the meta or on pvp.

The new items from scorched earth where not very useful other then Great PVE items.

Aberration


Now this part was far better it was more balanced between PVE and PVP content

The Cosmos, the little cute spider, this is a great replacement for the whip and allows for quick escapes, this is a good early game tame, though late game it's mostly a whip that can't be stolen. you would rarely pick this over a pyromane for the shoulder mount.


The new items for this expansion are a must have for the PVP content, there late game and incredibly useful.

The Tesla coil is a must have with it's 3 settings it makes your defense stronger as a support tower. Pair the 3 types with your Heavy and tek line and it will make soaking your turrets a lot more difficult.

Transfer Box, you can have a total of 4, this was used as a way to farm easily as you can put up to 50 stacks of items inside withdraw them instantly at your base, you can also escape wipes by having one at a remote location with a transmitter next to it, so you can escape with all your tames and gear long before they break into your base.

The Robot... it's useful if you design your base around it, it gets stuck on everything... so if you design the base correctly it would be a great way to automate the base. (it least for depositing and withdrawing items.

Extinction.

Cars.. fast customization, downside, i think there far too expensive, there cost puts them at very late game, i think they would of been better at midgame, they require at least 45 element to have to make the building then you need at least anther 15-20 element per car.

The new titan killer dino, looks cool and very durable, but super annoying to tame.

The killer bee hive defense building really good versus humans and small creatures, not great for dealing tanky dinos or large creatures.


--- Previous Review.
well my expectations where pretty low from the start for the new content, this is mostly a PVE pack with 2 dinos and some Ported atlas features (Cart Dinos) and Shovel / Treasure (from atlas with no changes)

They don't even use UE5 to it's full advantage no chaos physics for the carts. Now for the actual new items... well there mostly good for PVE servers and builders, I can see the new Bell being placed around just to annoy players inside Fob's but that's about it. The Skins for structures do have some pvp advantages (such as making a wall transparent even if it's full tech / metal)

and as for the trains, they work just like land rafts, if you jump... you will go though the entire structure... and there fairly easy to grief and very large targets, so very likely won't be used in a pvp server.

To fairly judge this, i will have to wait to see what they do for the next 2 chapters of this dlc, but judging from this it won't contain much PVP items if any but it will most likely contain items that would be great in any RP server.

I liked Jurassic World Evolution 1 this seems a great reboot to the old operation genesis, the promises of the sequel like better park management and better Dino AI, All seem to fall flat, They had a few game play regressions from even the first Jurassic World Evolution game, but just like the movies the Sequels are not always better.

The note worthy improvements are quite minimal and I personally would avoid buying this game for 60$, the quality of the animations and AI problems have remained from Jurassic World Evolution 1.

IF you have never played Jurassic World Evolution 1 or Operation genesis and where looking for more jurassic park themed missions with there voice actors, then this might be worth it just for the lore. I will expect this game to last as long as the previous game which is roughly 18-20 hours of game play.

What we needed from this sequel was a vast improvement in park management but instead of that we got that's effectively a repackaged Jurassic World Evolution with slightly better graphics and New dinos and completely new missions.

I like jurassic park but I can't support minor improvements like this.

They are billions is a simple rts, where you build a base and defend agenst the zombie horde, very much like the free custom maps from starcraft, starcraft 2. the main difference here is the amount of units on screen, you have to defend agenst at least 1000 units. this is both challenging for defende placement and building a good base.

Improvements, i would like to see in the future

Larger maps, the map sizes really remind me of warcraft 3 there very small and compact.

Multiplayer?, Co-op Multiplayer versus the zombie horde. (sure to balance this you would need larger maps and more zombies per wave)

Mod Support.

I have finally beaten this game, though the changes between the kickstarter vision and the final product is very large. The game is very interesting however the games engine falls apart when you have 20+ hearthlings.

Gameplay when converstations where introduced, i found this a annoying gameplay element, the workers will drop what ever there doing to talk to the nearby hearthling, they can't multi task such as work and talk.

from the Riots point of view, i can't see this game as profitable, the kick starter funding must of run out a year ago the only way to continue development was to sell the studio to Riot, I'm sure this allowed us to get a complete version of the game. which i can say it's in a better state then the game known as "towns", However there still needs to be more improvements to the engine and gameplay to ensure the experience is fun and entertaining.

Note: this is my own guess work as as soon as Riot took over, we had never seen Tom or Tony again, so it's hard to say if they where even apart of the development from that point of time.

Everyone remebers the old jurassic park operation genesis. I have played the old game and most fans will compare the two games.

So, here is a group of improvements that have improved over the operation genesis game

Better park management systems
More Dino's to choose from and hatch.
Vastly superior graphics (of corse that's just the difference between the games age, even with mods operation genesis can never look like this due to engine limitations)

and the downsides

Simplified dino ai (no more group killings from dino's and dino's don't try to interact with one and anther other then meat eaters killing other dinos)

Dumbed down in some areas (such as you can no longer manage ticket prices or look at each persons rating of the park / experience, But you can expect this kind of thing in modern games, they simplify games to make them more appealing to the larger crowed),

Lack of content after you beat all islands... - after you beat all islands, the game ends. the replayability with no custom islands and no hardmode or increased difficulty settings the appeal wears off fast.

- I personally felt this game was too easy, once you understand the pattern to gain income, it becomes too easy. Just get a few photo's worth 5000$ then your good for mining operations, I feel like there will likely be challenges but without custom maps, let's play challenges will not happen.

But if your looking for a game that's overall better then operation genesis. this will last about 20 hours of playability currently without mods.

Well, I enjoyed the first few hours. The game suddenly crashed on me, I felt even on hard the game was too easy it's nearly impossible to actually lose even when your trying.

It reminds me of that one simcity game where you just build the city and it's really really hard to lose.

If they add expert mode and make this game more challenging, i would recommend it but for experienced gamers looking for something new and challenging this is not it.

This game is quite fun though suffers from bugs and some balance issues, Risk of Rain has seen countless improvements and I still remeber when they where developing the net code.

This game suffers mostly from strange issues ether from the engine being updated to a newer version of game maker, I recommend this to play with your friends or people who live within the same state, The net code has been improved from v1.0 though it still has issues.

I would most certainly be interested in a Risk of Rain 2 featuring mod support and a new engine that's not game maker :D

This game was interesting but rather short, The good parts of this game was mostly the art style and gameplay, I mostly enjoyed it.

After you beat it once there is very little reason to play it again, it's also possible to recruit soo many archers to make the game completely freeze up, So The optimization with large numbers of archers cetainly needs to be improved.

Developers should also give us more to do after people beat the game other then Achievements.

IF there was anyway to tell all the archers to attack one side of the map, it would be possible to clear this game within 13 days.

-Updated to reflect bug fixes and engine improvements
Be sure to get kingdom: New lands instead.