Recent reviews by Boff

I loved this, evoking a dark fantasy vibe and finding out after hand it was a solo developer who was aiming for that.
Starts of small and humble, ends on an unexpected epic high, with all the cute goofiness of some of the characters becoming soberingly haunted ptsd issues.
Now I’m eager for part 2.

I’ve played through 3 times. 3rd time on the switch and noticed the downgrade in graphics and nerf of the sticks(?). I’ve recommended to multiple friends and still on the story high.

My recommendation is more to the developer than the player. One word:
Signposting :) (well playtesting would have led to signposts)

Signposts are physically required to point to the commander office, harbour, commission, northern shore.
I was constantly confused the lift-gate being the west gate and the only way to the harbour.

Signpost to from the northern slopes to the old watchtower, because spoilers.

A major issue for me was the “gating” of the armour, relying on picking the pocket of a very hard to get to guard, and very hard to steal from guard as well.

The armour unlocks the commanders quest line, Silas quests, and ergo finishing off Gusto and Fatale stealth skill set, which become pointless because now you have access to a disguise. First play through,
I had literally had brute forced my way into the commission and solved the spoiler before I even knew there was a quest line and a find the missing spoiler subplot which was accessible with suit of armour disguise. Figured that out on my second play through.

Rolo peppering the player to meet on the northern slopes and not the shoreline. As that line of dialogue is muttered once and never again.

Signposting the importance of the Ranger disguise by a comment from the other mice or Rolo that Tilo is running round the keep like he’s ranger.

Even on my 3rd play through I was getting hung-up on the gating of game-states denying progress, basically how main quests and side quests should dovetail together.

Game development gripes, but from a solo-dev, whose had this in their minds for years, it’s understandable,
the story and world building is amazing.

Patch in the signposts,
Move the armoury key to a guard inside the keep.

Awesome hidden game. Scratched that space exploration itch I've had for years. It harkens back to 8-bit 3d games like Tau-Ceti where you have complex worlds to explorer. The "set-up" of the rover style gameplay, and all the functions of the ship have so much potential for additional scenarios that you wish there would be a whole team of devs working round the clock pumping out additional content. But this is a 5-year long passion project of the developer. And with that comes a lot of heart and attention to detail. For example the amount of depth to every "feature" is stunning,
From multiple descriptions and functions of the researched objects which usually results in an item being installed and applied to the rover. The majority had their own UI that are properly functional, so a friend and foe system actually reacted to the environment showing which structures it was talking to. Sensors, radars, targeting computers, all operate as they should do, and can replace each other if needs be.
The radioactive static of the rovers video, is haunting, as your brain fills in details.

The only negatives is wanting more and faster. After you get a couple of good runs, you start getting into a rythm of setting a timer to get back to the med-bay, to maximize your playtime. The research and travels to and from the surface start to become irritatingly time-consuming, (as you are literally dying of radiation poisoning). There are a few extra scenarios (due to certain objects you pull back to your ship) that really sell the potential of the core mechanics (because all the components of the ship and rover are properly functional) so you start wanting more planets, maybe landing the ship somewhere, more environments, more stories.

10 years old and it's still one of the best tactical space ship games out there.

I'm recommending this game at 666 hours which is the first reason, the second is because you can play with friends and have a lot of fun.

I really like this game. A good balance of fun gameplay mechanics and fast paced fps action. There are tons and tons of jokes, one good example is the so called 'Spycrab' from 2008. There are tons of hats and weapons that make loadouts dangerous, meme'd, unfun to play with or against, the fastest, supports your team the most , the worst, all golden and the most overpowered. the game is kinda buggy and there are some coding oversights but otherwise you should get it right away.

Emotionally faithful recreation of the (literal and figurative) game changer H A L F - L I F E
Some of the later chapters amp up the Epicness, slip in some modern niceties of 2 decades of game development, to remove some of the old-school brutal unfairness, but not to despair, the crowbar collective have added in a bunch of their own, with some areas that are plain, arduous, scream inducing hard work which only work with your hand on the quick save button as equally as the trigger but they are totally satisfying when you beat them.

it is great for speedrunning cuz it is glitchy as heck

I do not know what to say about it. It is just good. It makes you feel like a master.

Loved it.
Starts off pretending to be a typical AAA "open world" survival.
By the end fo the game you are playing Tomb-Raider, with all the iconic weaponry, hub gameplay, timing jump puzzles and some acrobatics.
Innocent Lara undergoes trails of madness and brutality, similar to the islands inhabitants, and comes out a stone hearted killer that will ice a private army to figure out some weird mystery, just like Our J,Bonds or Indiana Jones..... As Lara said herself, killing terrified her, it was scarily easy to do.
Some silly quicktime events, reminescent of Tombraider2 and beyound where more dramatic scenes needed to be time correctly.
So same old same old to be honest.
A valiant and brilliantly executed reboot to this beloved franchise.

Just the one of the best games ever.