Recent reviews by graah

It's a crafting MMO, but you can ignore it all if you want and get nice gear via pvp or pve. Zones are fun enough, gameplay is alright, PvP is fun. The biggest downside is a near total lack of endgame PvE, so it's not a great game to power level through.

It's basically what you see is what you get. Either way most people will get their $40 worth.

Relaxing puzzler with nice art and chill music. Try and complete the simpler tasks or spend more time setting up spaces that will allow you to place 'perfect' tiles to go for longer games.

Enjoyable to see the map grow and fulfilling to unlock new tiles.

If the trailer makes it seem like something you'd like then you probably will. It's definitely the right price point.

After 185 hours of meandering solo play I have effectively seen what the game has to offer. Defeated its bosses, explored its biomes, sailed the oceans, defeated all but one elusive critter that I am aware of, crafted a grand hall for feasting, resting and mounting both my weapons and equipment as well as most of the heads of my foes. I have fought with weapons primitive as well as truly exotic and rare.

I tackled this game knowing very little. The teaser video was enough to entice me and I wanted to savor the experience. I completely avoided the wiki as I played the game, I didn't know how many biomes there were, or really what to expect beyond a viking themed survival open world sandbox. I have to say that from the start I found the game pleasantly immersive and quite enjoyed the aesthetic. Though the game may use what most would consider to be outdated graphics they are used in a stylized fashion that I was never distracted by. Ambient weather, such as rains, fog, sunny days or raging storms were all noticeable and enjoyable. You can either brave the elements or stay inside the shelter you created, cooking food to prepare for the next day, or when the storm breaks.

While the game has more breadth than depth it is balanced very well. The inherent design means you will have a reason to periodically visit all of the biomes, even those you eventually 'outgrow'. Some item gathering for recipes, such as food, can feel a bit tedious, but for me it struck a fine balance, not requiring so much time gathering that it felt like it detracted from 'playing' the game.

The vastness of the game, and the need to explore and traverse the different biomes as I progressed through the content felt like just the right amount of openness and agency.

The diversity of creatures, both hostile and neutral, felt good. It could definitely benefit from more variety, as can most games, but each biome seemed to come with the right amount of creatures to adjust to, as well as a few rare surprises. Combat is straightforward enough, but also allowed me the satisfaction of rewarding positioning or timing of my different weapon attacks depending on what and where I was fighting.

The building mechanic should be very familiar to those who have played 7 Days to Die, Ark or any other similar game. The snap-to building pieces require adequate support or they crumble, but it allows a generous amount of flexibility. I lost many hours to building homes or outposts just because I found it enjoyable balancing form and function, not 'completing' my central base until close to day 200. I made roads connecting docks to inland forts, for easier transport of resources, built docks for boats and enjoyed every moment of it.

The boss battles all felt great with them having visually fun, powerful and destructive abilities, that required some preparation.

The game is early access, the current content is indeed unfinished, one biome has zero creatures currently (although the ambiance has me dreading their introduction.) That being said, what is available is an amazing amount of content, especially for a $20 US pricetag. The incomplete content has only served to wet my appetite for what is to come.

I would personally highly recommend this game for anyone that enjoys survival sandbox type games. I would consider it an amazing value at its current price, and look forward to what is to come.

Unique shoot-em-up bullet hell. Lots of different fun build choices and likely several that will suit your personal preference.

Could use some more variety in the enemy roster but that's a small quibble. Fun game.

Pro's: Explore, gain research points, unlock recipes in the order you choose. Build a shuttle to get to other planets for their unique resources. Unlock automation equipment. Eventually build elaborate bases and manufacturing. Relaxing. All content is fairly easy, even the difficult planets. Progression in unlocking new tools and vehicles tends to constantly add nice quality of life as you play.

Cons: Seems to still be latency issues with multiplayer. No hardcore / survival mode. All content is fairly easy, even the difficult planets.

You won't be fighting hostiles, except for plants which are incredibly easy to deal with. Most deaths that you encounter will be due to being too relaxed and getting reckless.

For the price its a great amount of content for a sandbox / open world game. Nice flexibility, no rails, but the main draw is to unlock all recipes and just play around with base building and automation as the 'end game'. No giant challenges to overcome but lots of exploring to be done and planets to build outposts and harvesting and automation setups. I personally would prefer better dedicated server options that would fix latency issues. The issues are not horrible with two player, but they are noticeable, it's not a show stopper, just annoying.

Microtransactions for cosmetics.

Minecraft + Ark. Enjoyable pixel art with sometimes unforgiving gameplay. The devs have abandoned this one so regular price is a no go. If you want to smash blocks, plant crops and tame dinos only to watch them die horribly the first moment you get reckless then wait for a Steam sale to pick up this title.

*Edit: I should add that the game has good value at their sale price of roughly $16. And it's not entirely abandoned, as they do put out updates. However bug fixes are very limited, developer response is nearly non-existant, the wiki feels abandoned and all the Ark bugs are there.

That said my hours played should also show that there's plenty to do. However out of the half dozen people or so that were playing constantly on the free weekend only two of us are still playing.

Slow grind, but satisfying for those who like the idea of free form creation of vehicles and machines to help maximize efficiency of your resource gathering. Chill soundtrack, nice stylized graphics with decent view distances and a huge randomized world to explore.

The mob variety is minimal but fine for what it is. This is a sandbox game, if you are looking for a story driven narrative or in-depth characters then this isn't for you. If you want to figure out cool ways to configure a rock harvesting, tree chopping, spud shooting Herkimer Battle Jitney then this just might be your thing.