Realism here is cranked to 9000. If you are a fan of space games, role-play, hard, realistic survival, lots of resource-managment and are patient AND calm, it is right up your alley. Brilliant idea, yet the execution leaves some-things to be desired. (Keep in mind that this is a very early version, for a very complicated game!) Be prepared for some bugs, and a taste of the wonders to come.

Pros:
¤Fun alone, even more so with friends
¤No boundaries. Be the good or the bad-guy
¤Super realistic
¤Realistic visuals and sound
¤Lots to explore
¤Great procedual-generation
¤Keeps you on-the-edge

Cons:
¤Lots of bugs
¤Poor performance
¤Limited base-defence
¤Wall-hacking turrets
¤Terrible NETCODE

*As of 0.2.7


Please keep in mind, that this review must contain unfortunate spoilers, for me to explain this to you, as a person who doesn't know/understand the game-mechanics.

1. Inroduction
2. A critical bit of the story
3. A snip of gameplay
4. Perfomance
5. Bugs
6. Before you buy

1. Inroduction

While browsing on steam, looking to find another game, since I got fed up with the ones I owned, i stumbled onto HELLION. A Zero Gravity game from 2016. I was very sceptical at first. Mixed reviews, a 2016 title and still in early accsess... Lots of red flags, if you ask me. BUT! I rolled the dice thinking that i'll just return it, if i don't like it. But it pulled me in, deeper and deeper.

With the aid of uncle-Google, i learned a whole lot, and wanted to play it more, and more, AND avoided a ton of deaths. Using google, to find out, and learn the mechanics in this game is critical for your charecter's survival, and ease of gameplay. (You may try though on your own, if you're that hardcore).

2. A critical bit of the story

The critical bit of the story is, that humanity has left a previously colonized star-system, Hellion. And after cantury you wake up from cryo-stasis. You are noone special. No engineer, soldier or a hero. You are just an ordinary colonist (citizen). Left behind. Alone. You don't know if there is anyone out there. You don't know where is everyone. You know only one thing. As of now, you are alone, and noone will come save you. You have to survive.

3. A snip of gameplay

Well thought-through, is the keyword. Let's cover the resource gathering. The main aspect of the game. It has several different approaches. Mining, Scavenging, exploring and stealing.

---Mining is one of the safest, and most rewarding for basic resources. Wich is a good approach. The player can relatively easily aquire and use mining gear to easilly get the resources needed for survival and limited travel. But first, one has to travel to an asteroid, and make the trip back to base where resources (ores) are refined into usable gasses.
---Scavenging is moderately safe - very dangerous, where a player targets a specific station/area, known to have a better chance of aquiring desired loot. (F.ex.: Mining station area, has mining - oriented loot (ores, eva suits etc.), while a military one contains guns, command modules etc.
---Exploring is moderately safe - dangerous, where a player uses the ship to travel to different, procedually generated "derelicts" wich are half-completed or damaged parts of stations, containing random loot, unless previously looted by the same/other player(s).
---Stealing is safe - very dangerous. Here a player decides that he wants to break into one of the player-built stations and steal the goodies.

4. Perfomance

As of 0.2.7, the pure, hardware-to-software performance is mediocre, at best. The game is not optimized very well for any hardware, and on some hardware people will experience more crashes then on other.

Key points (arranged highest-lowest importance):

---Station size HEAVILLY afffects the perfomance, and must be taken into account as you approach it, as there will be a short-extremely long freeze of the game, where input (your mouse and keyboard) is not registered.
---Render distance is too low for some of the details on objects. This includes turrets that kill players (i'll get back to them in the bugs section).
---FPS ranges wildly from 25-150 with MSI 970 OC and i7-3770K. Better hardware will have a bit better perfomance. Compared with a STRIX GTX 1070 and i5-7600K FPS ranged from 30-180
---Tiny freezes during gameplay, arround every 5-10 minutes. Presumably something to do with a delay of sync between server and client.
---Does not seem to run the full porential of your graphics card and CPU (thermal throttling and V-SYNC off)
---GPU overclocking runs pretty stable using MSI Afterburner, with a benchmark-tweaked, maximum stable OC profile (GTX 970). CPU overclocking, unknown. Some crashes are present, although extremely uncommon (Had only 2 in 5 days).

5. Bugs

The current version (0.2.7), has quiet a few. Most of them it appears to be that the poor netcode of the game is responsible for. Here are a few examples. Again. Keep in mind, that these bugs are in the v.0.2.7, and may/may not apply to the current version. Sorted from common-rare:

Points marked with -#- are mostly fixable with "re-logging" (where a player can log out of the server and log back in to fix the issue).
---Stations and modules with hostile turrets are extremely hard to approach safely. They may in some cases shoot through solid objects, and respawn (only on non-player bases) without warning.
---Sometimes not being able to use your on-board computer to match speed of an object. Manual speed match required. The problem here is, that you can't match it exactly. That means your ship will still be slowly moving in some direction. Although barely.
---Air pollution occurs, even when not in the room, wich you must use resources to clean. If not, air gets so polluted it can suffocate the player. (Can put on the helmet to breathe suit oxygen if air is too polluted)
-#-Desync. A common issue (involving netcode) that causes multiple bugs: Player damage, unresponsive controls, loss of items (that can be reobtained in their original position usually), "jumping" ship (prevents a player from entering it, and slingshots the player in the opposite dirrection), input-lag low-extremely high (makes any 0g player/ship movement extremely difficult), FTL jump not engaging.
---Sudden change of rotation on "stationary" (orbiting) objects that you approach too close with your ship. Does not repeat after occuring. May damage your ship if occurs when too close. Sometimes fixes the "match speed" bug.
-#-Items from the mining drill dissapering/not working, when inserting and/or removing items from it.
-#-Exterior of your ship not loading, when exiting it.
---Catastrophic desync. Teleports player back to the last synched position (can be your position a few secons or several minutes ago). The most worrying part is that your ship will not be teleported with you. Entering a ship after this (if you can find it), is near-impossible as the "jumping ship" glitch appears, and is unfixable at this point. Respawning at your base (dying) is the only option.
---Doors shutting, while you are walking through them, damaging you.
---Unable to approach an asteroid after exiting ship.

These are most of the bugs i experienced during about 100 hours of gameplay (v.0.2.7).

6. Before you buy

*Complete list of current bugs and fixed bugs avalable here: Zero Gravity Feedback Tracker [feedback.zerogravitygames.com]
**Explore the plans and the vision of the developers for the game here: HELLION planned and implemented features [www.playhellion.com]

[h1][b]An in-depth review of HELLION (v.0.2.7)[/b][/h1] [h1][i][b]Summary:[/b][/i][/h1] Realism here is cranked to 9000. If you are a fan of space games, role-play, hard, realistic survival, lots of resource-managment and are [u]patient[/u] AND [u]calm[/u], it is right up your alley. Brilliant idea, yet the execution leaves some-things to be desired. (Keep in mind that this is a very early version, for a very complicated game!) Be prepared for some bugs, and a taste of the wonders to come. [b]Pros:[/b] [i]¤Fun alone, even more so with friends ¤No boundaries. Be the good or the bad-guy ¤Super realistic ¤Realistic visuals and sound ¤Lots to explore ¤Great procedual-generation ¤Keeps you on-the-edge[/i] [b]Cons:[/b] [i]¤Lots of bugs ¤Poor performance ¤Limited base-defence ¤Wall-hacking turrets ¤Terrible NETCODE[/i] [i][b]*As of 0.2.7[/b][/i] [h1][i][b]A deep look from a critical gamer's perspective:[/b][/i][/h1] [i]Please keep in mind, that this review must contain unfortunate spoilers, for me to explain this to you, as a person who doesn't know/understand the game-mechanics.[/i] 1. Inroduction 2. A critical bit of the story 3. A snip of gameplay 4. Perfomance 5. Bugs 6. Before you buy [b][h1]1. Inroduction[/h1][/b] While browsing on steam, looking to find another game, since I got fed up with the ones I owned, i stumbled onto HELLION. A Zero Gravity game from 2016. I was very sceptical at first. Mixed reviews, a 2016 title and still in early accsess... Lots of red flags, if you ask me. BUT! I rolled the dice thinking that i'll just return it, if i don't like it. But it pulled me in, deeper and deeper. With the aid of uncle-Google, i learned a whole lot, and wanted to play it more, and more, AND avoided a ton of deaths. [u]Using google, to find out, and learn the mechanics in this game is critical for your charecter's survival, and ease of gameplay.[/u] (You may try though on your own, if you're that hardcore). [b][h1]2. A critical bit of the story[/h1][/b] The critical bit of the story is, that humanity has left a previously colonized star-system, Hellion. And after cantury you wake up from cryo-stasis. You are noone special. No engineer, soldier or a hero. You are just an ordinary colonist (citizen). Left behind. Alone. You don't know if there is anyone out there. You don't know where is everyone. You know only one thing. As of now, you are alone, and noone will come save you. You have to survive. [b][h1]3. A snip of gameplay[/h1][/b] Well thought-through, is the keyword. Let's cover the resource gathering. The main aspect of the game. It has several different approaches. Mining, Scavenging, exploring and stealing. ---Mining is one of the safest, and most rewarding for basic resources. Wich is a good approach. The player can relatively easily aquire and use mining gear to easilly get the resources needed for survival and limited travel. But first, one has to travel to an asteroid, and make the trip back to base where resources (ores) are refined into usable gasses. ---Scavenging is moderately safe - very dangerous, where a player targets a specific station/area, known to have a better chance of aquiring desired loot. (F.ex.: Mining station area, has mining - oriented loot (ores, eva suits etc.), while a military one contains guns, command modules etc. ---Exploring is moderately safe - dangerous, where a player uses the ship to travel to different, procedually generated "derelicts" wich are half-completed or damaged parts of stations, containing random loot, unless previously looted by the same/other player(s). ---Stealing is safe - very dangerous. Here a player decides that he wants to break into one of the player-built stations and steal the goodies. [b][h1]4. Perfomance[/h1][/b] [u]As of 0.2.7[/u], the pure, hardware-to-software performance is mediocre, at best. The game is not optimized very well for any hardware, and on some hardware people will experience more crashes then on other. Key points (arranged highest-lowest importance): ---[u]Station size HEAVILLY afffects the perfomance, and must be taken into account as you approach it, as there will be a short-extremely long freeze of the game, where input (your mouse and keyboard) is not registered.[/u] ---Render distance is too low for some of the details on objects. This includes turrets that kill players (i'll get back to them in the bugs section). ---FPS ranges wildly from 25-150 with MSI 970 OC and i7-3770K. Better hardware will have a bit better perfomance. Compared with a STRIX GTX 1070 and i5-7600K FPS ranged from 30-180 ---Tiny freezes during gameplay, arround every 5-10 minutes. Presumably something to do with a delay of sync between server and client. ---Does not seem to run the full porential of your graphics card and CPU (thermal throttling and V-SYNC off) ---GPU overclocking runs pretty stable using MSI Afterburner, with a benchmark-tweaked, maximum stable OC profile (GTX 970). CPU overclocking, unknown. Some crashes are present, although extremely uncommon (Had only 2 in 5 days). [b][h1]5. Bugs[/h1][/b] The current version [b](0.2.7)[/b], has quiet a few. Most of them it appears to be that the poor netcode of the game is responsible for. Here are a few examples. [u]Again. Keep in mind, that these bugs are in the v.0.2.7, and may/may not apply to the current version[/u]. Sorted from common-rare: [b]Points marked with -#- are mostly fixable with "re-logging" (where a player can log out of the server and log back in to fix the issue).[/b] ---Stations and modules with hostile turrets are extremely hard to approach safely. They [u]may in some cases[/u] shoot through solid objects, and respawn (only on non-player bases) without warning. ---Sometimes not being able to use your on-board computer to match speed of an object. Manual speed match required. The problem here is, that you can't match it exactly. That means your ship will still be slowly moving in some direction. Although barely. ---Air pollution occurs, even when not in the room, wich you must use resources to clean. If not, air gets so polluted it can suffocate the player. (Can put on the helmet to breathe suit oxygen if air is too polluted) -#-Desync. A common issue (involving netcode) that causes multiple bugs: Player damage, unresponsive controls, loss of items (that can be reobtained in their original position usually), "jumping" ship (prevents a player from entering it, and slingshots the player in the opposite dirrection), input-lag low-extremely high (makes any 0g player/ship movement extremely difficult), FTL jump not engaging. ---Sudden change of rotation on "stationary" (orbiting) objects that you approach too close with your ship. Does not repeat after occuring. May damage your ship if occurs when too close. Sometimes fixes the "match speed" bug. -#-Items from the mining drill dissapering/not working, when inserting and/or removing items from it. -#-Exterior of your ship not loading, when exiting it. ---Catastrophic desync. Teleports player back to the last synched position (can be your position a few secons or several minutes ago). The most worrying part is that your ship will not be teleported with you. Entering a ship after this (if you can find it), is near-impossible as the "jumping ship" glitch appears, and is unfixable at this point. Respawning at your base (dying) is the only option. ---Doors shutting, while you are walking through them, damaging you. ---Unable to approach an asteroid after exiting ship. These are most of the bugs i experienced during about 100 hours of gameplay [b](v.0.2.7)[/b]. [b][h1]6. Before you buy[/h1][/b] [b][i]*Complete list of current bugs and fixed bugs avalable here:[url=https://feedback.zerogravitygames.com/print_all_bug_page.php] Zero Gravity Feedback Tracker [/url][/i][/b] [b][i]**Explore the plans and the vision of the developers for the game here:[url=https://www.playhellion.com/features] HELLION planned and implemented features [/url][/i][/b]