Recent reviews by purple

Elite dangerous is a key demonstration of why kickstarter games often fail.

Tons of promises, few fulfilled, most of the game left in a placeholder state that slowly gets filled in as people get ideas or wrangle the skill to finally approach some.

Lots of random systems bolted together with no thought for how they are supposed to make a cohesive game.

Tons of performance issues, unsupported or lacking content, broken VR support that was once hailed as a big reason to get the game. Terrible antialiasing the devs have said they *don't know how to fix* so they just leave the game with horrible looking wavey lines everywhere and if you want to fix it you get to look up how to yourself by messing with some other graphics settings your computer might not do well with.

Empty planets with the same boring few things to do. How do you get iron, something critical in some stuff? Shoot rocks. Not mine, shoot them. Oh but you can't just know where the rocks are you have to do a horribly boring mini game to even find a couple. Buy iron? Haha you're funny. You can buy advanced fuel, servents, ship parts, mass accelerators, but screw off if you want to buy a basic element, you're gonna need to trade for that with other elements! Why? Because the developers have no idea how to make the in game economy work (Hi traders, there's no point in trading because the system is so broken you can make stupid amounts of money doing random grinds, with intelligent trading and routes basically nothing by comparison).

All the missions are repetetive, space 'battles' are just a bunch of ships plopped into the void with basically never any interesting space terrain (no fights in asteroid fields, around starports, or anywhere other than space outside of a few very specific niches, sorry!) No fleets moving as one, just a jumble of ships that have all decided you are the target they should focus because you're never taught how to manage aggro and now you're dead.

No end game! Since they screwed up making normal money, the devs had to scramble to add end game currencies and content, which only revolves around making your ship better, to the point where grinding for the necessary materials becomes just part of the game as once you have 'engineered' your ship everything else feels terrible to use (this also completely destroyed any lingering possibility of fun PVP in the game, sorry pirates, you'll either never get anything or everything will be comically easy! Also piracy pays like crap and there's no point in doing it aside from RP, and it sucks for that too trust me). So every time you get a new ship you'll feel forced to spend several hours grinding just so it can feel not terrible to fly.

Co-op and mutiplayer are laughably bad and so broken, to the point where if you want to be in a squad/wing with your friends *and* have a friend helping man your ship, you just... can't. You have to pick one or the other, so you *cannot get rewards for doing a multi person mission for everyone in your squad if you also have a friend manning your turrets)

Also the combat is so boring once you learn its ins and outs, the most basic combat is like an RPG where everyone has multiple health potions so until those are depleted nothing even matters. Oh, I'm taking a lot of damage? Shield cell. You just use shield cells until you run out, then you run away. If you don't you'll just die cause there's no hiding behind anything or fun manuvers, the ai pilot is either good enough to hit you or not as determined by their skill ranking, so once you have a good enough ship fighting is just who has the most effective HP through shield cells. (To those reading this saying it's more than that... yes, but not in any way that feels good or lives up to any more of a shadow of what a good 6dof space combat game could be)

This is getting too long so I'll just put the last and possibly most important part:

The game seems great at first. So much to do! So much space to explore! Then as you do the things and explore the space you realize most of the things to do are the same thing with a different view, and all the space is just different arrangements of the same or slightly different visuals. There's nothing out there to see or explore, you're not gonna feel like you're in star trek exploring. The void is cold and empty, so for finding anything interesting you'll find things that seem interesting for a while only to probably eventually realize it's all hollow, they spawn the same weird plant assets across multiple planets thousands of light years apart because they only have so many unique alien life form things that they spawn, you're not gonna find some cool life form no one has ever seen. As much as I might not like no mans sky for various reasons, they do that so much better elite looks pathetic in comparison.
So yes you'll find a new star system never before seen, but I promise you everything in that star system has been seen before, from how the planet looks to how cool the star is to the weird brain trees you'll start to find everywhere. Sure it could be invasive but not every 'unique' life form in the galaxy should also be present across hundreds of worlds.

And to wrap things up; when you do some of the most mysterious suff in the game, discovering Guardian ruins and wondering what could them mean??! Yeah the main way you interact with this ancient archeological space site full of undiscovered technology and strange alien artifacts is... shooting control panels and things.
If you started shooting buildings around a normal archeologist you wouldn't get the third shot off before you're being strangled to death.

TLDR the game is typical kickstarter bait that's been around a while, that came out when a lot of people hadn't caught on to kickstarter stuff can go down yet: full of unfinished poorly working features, bad performance, and bare minimum gameplay that's slowly had various systems added on top of it leaving an unstable mess that has plenty of fun potential in some areas, but is in no way close to achieving its originally stated goals of being an immersive, unique space sim with tons to see and the whole galaxy to explore. If it ever achieves even half the things that they said you'd get *at launch*, that will be different, but until then it's just another broken promise that had the gall to release multiple expansions charging money before even fulfilling its initial goals.

The best game that's too hard for me to play.

An excellent snack sized game, the writing, sound track, and presentation along with being able to make your own characters (or add your favorite tv characters) face the pixel zombie apocalypse is truly an excellent treat. The only bad thing is I currently do not have the energy to play it.

If you have the desire for this humor style with excellent music that's moderately to incredibly difficult with rng that likes to remind you how good of a chance you'd have in a real zombie apocalypse, you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to check this out. It's great, and if you will want to refund it you'll know within 30 mins.

Nice chill building game that can become less chill and more difficult if you choose. After you complete a town you're brought back to the map screen to do it again, which I find fun but if you want to just build a single town you can't do that.

Fun art style and mechanics. The amount of different resources and recipies can get overwhelming, but the game doesn't do a good enough job slowly introducing that and showing it's not actually that bad, it's quite managable for most people imo.

Also a friend of mine said from the trailer they thought the game would be fast paced and difficult and weren't gonna get into it, so if that turns you off of it know it's only like that if you decide to, otherwise it's pretty chill as long as you keep the queen happy.

This went from a dlc I did not like to one I really enjoy, after it was changed. (Quite a few of the reviews are before the changes.

The good:
1. the new government positions that vary based on your civics is a lot of fun for me and opens up a lot of unique ways to run different parts of your empire, and also a lot of nice RP feeling. I can't overstate how much more fleshed out it makes things feel from an RP perspective or just enjoying having a space empire, honestly slightly more should have made it into the base game, but such is the way with paradox
2. The changes really make leader nodes being a lot more interesting for hive minds, a lot of very nice stuff quite worth it
3. The new agendas depending on tech and gov type are quite cool, I like them a lot
4. Some of the legendary leaders have some neat traits, and can bring some (small) amount of personality to your government
5. Picking traits on levelling up is really nice
6. The new events and stuff are fun

The 'bad'
1. As I said earlier, some of this I feel should have been in the main game
2. Some of the leader stuff can feel a bit overpowered in some cases, it depends on how much you care about that.

The bad:
1. Some leader traits do feel a bit game breaking, some can start feeling necessary when you have them so if that leader dies it sucks
2. This isn't specifically new here, but it hurts more when they have a lot of good traits: sometimes you get a really really bad negative trait on a leader that is crippling and you just have to either get rid of them, or wait for the gov project to clean it off if you are gestalt
3. Feels a bit pricey for what it adds, I'd recommend getting on sale unless you really want what is offered, which is decent but if you don't have disposable income your 15$ should go to something with slightly more meat
4. Some things can be buggy, some mini events and stuff seem to be triggering every playthrough
5. The AI can still be buggy or act against its own self interest sometimes. Not unique to the dlc but yeah
6. The balancing of the leaders and their traits can get a bit silly when you get a ton of high level leaders, this is not good for competitive play or if you don't want to deal with a lot of RNG having a *large* effect on your empire. It can be good for things feeling unique and having different choices and obstacles and keeping things 'fresh', but it can definitely be a negative and really hurt in some cases. So far I haven't ever had it be so big of a problem it made me want to uninstall the dlc or rage quit the game, but your mileage may vary.

Overall it has added a lot to how much I enjoy the game at the cost of a little, so it works out to be worth it for me. But, if you like a balanced or competitive game, this introduces wayyy too much rng and potential power imbalances for just getting lucky with how good some traits are vs some just being meh.
Very good for people who like to play this game for the stories etc.
Either 6 or 7/10 depending on how you feel about the balance changes or bugs.

Good game, but YOU CAN ONLY HAVE TWO PLAYERS FOR THE MAIN GAME. THE SIX PLAYERS IS ONLY FOR 'ARCADE MODE'. Do NOT get this thinking you can play with any more than two players at once.

Will review in more detail later but I figured this is important for people to know.
General game is normal first person shooter stuff, but there are several things which make it more fun then standard run of the mill FPS's that I would skim over without a second look:
-Takes place in America and has... relevant themes
-Facing off against a powerful religious cult trying to take over, again relevant themes
-I can blow a lot of things up
-I can have a mountain lion as a pet
-I can own a seeking rocket launcher

It's just fun to play. It's definitely not "the best" at any amazing feats of story or innovation in games as an artistic medium or whatever but if you just wanna have a fun game to play with a friend and drive a truck through a horde of cultists yelling you're going to suffer in the afterlife while chucking c4 out the side and your friend turns them into a fine red mist from a mounted gun, it's just a good feeling.

Highly recommended if you like the idea of protecting your home from extremists, or exploding things. Also magic drugs but it's ubisoft so that's basically expected.

This is one of the best multiplayer games, hell, best GAMES of all time.
Everything feels smooth as long as your computer is up to handling lots of particles.
The weapons all feel fun and fantastic (except the subata without the auto fire mod), and can be changed to feel different and do different things with some of the items you unlock in mid-late game, which works well timing wise as that's around when you've reasonably mastered the base items.
The different classes all feel unique and interesting, and there are rarely times where one feels useless. Additionally, it rarely feels that a mission is unplayable without a certain class, more that if you don't have them you'll occasionally wish you had one, which speaks to them all being pretty well balanced.
The progression feels fun, everything is available for unlock just by playing the game aside from a couple skins which come in large bundles at very reasonable pricing. But you get more than enough cosmetics just through spending the gold you mine or unlocking through in mission events (that's what 'insert tritilyte key means, once you reach the max level of 25 on a class and prestige/promote them (you lose nothing on them) you can access in mission events for a cosmetic reward or weapon modifying equippable item.
This is also an incredibly atmospheric game. That can be lost in the chatter of a voice call with friends, but in singleplayer it's easy to get lost in the atmosphere in the times between combat, when the music really lays on the mood and the pale lights of the stunted trees eerily illuminates the rock in the radioactive exclusion zone, or the creaking of ancient branches as you make your way through petrified wood and hostile vines hissing through holes in floor... it's truly great.
Finally, the teamplay elements are fantastic, the beers are great, the voice acting and dwarves are great, and the story that you experience and the corporation of Deep Rock are really just all around phenomenal.
Definitely a must buy, especially on sale without a question. If you like danger, darkness, dwarves, and shooting space bugs with friends, or just being on an alien world to mine minerals, it is truly one of the best out there.

This game is absolutely fantastic. It's not The Most Perfect Game Ever Made, but heck if it isn't some of the most fun I've ever had in my decades of gaming. The story, the atmosphere, the characters and acting, and lets not forget making extradimensional horrors explode into resonance mist by telekinetically throwing a drinking fountain at them.
Seriously, the game is quite spooky but being able to go through the game destroying all before me by yeeting anything and everything around me into my enemies is one of the most enjoyable and hilarious experiences I've had. It brings back memories of Half Life 2's gravity gun, but much funnier. Evil corrupted entity that would strike fear into the hearts of some of the most battle worn soldiers charging you? THWAK, garbage bin. Nightmare creature screaming into your very soul eviscerating the room with a red death beam? BAM! Table to the face. Zombified mold people stumlbing towards you menacingly? POW, meet my good friend high velocity lamp.
I love this game.
And if that's not enough for you, the other powers and weapons the game has at your disposal for aiding your battles against extradimensional terrors are quite enjoyable as well.

I give control a 9/10, the missing point only for a few minor things that do not in any way detract from this being some of the most fun I have come across on steam or gaming in general.

Just remember, you are a worm through time...

Brings nothing new that is in any way worthwhile, also it's done badly, optimized badly, isn't fun, isn't rewarding, and doesn't have any gameplay loops that make flying your ship (the point of the game) more interesting or better. Plus, they couldn't even make you able to walk around your ship, AND the walkable part of space stations is EXACTLY THE SAME ON EVERY STATION MINUS SOME VERY MINOR COSMETIC VARIATION.
I got this with a 2% hope that it might have on some level been even remotely decent, but it most certainly is not. Buy literally anything else and your money is much better spent.

A wonderful sci fi mystery adventure with compelling characters and a very enjoyable atmosphere. It's obvious a lot of love and hard work went into this game. It's slower paced than a lot of current games, so it's not for anyone who wants constant action. But if you like something more paced with a lot of intrigue and an interesting universe, this is a great game!

One of the best free space games I've found so far. And it ranks up there among the paid ones, maybe I haven't been looking hard enough (I've been looking pretty hard) but I have not been able to find any good space trade fight rpgs since frigging space trader on my palm pilot. This is good, and it does all of those and more. It's fun to play, and difficult to master (which apparently a lot of reviewers think makes it a bad game? I mean, really? Does every game need to explicitly tell you exactly what to do every second now? Back in MY day...) anyway, it's a great game, I love it, it may have some rough spots but that's what happens with unpaid indie games of this scale and any issue is usually barely noticeable or doesn't effect things much... compared to what you get with a lot of AAA games these days, and I'm gonna put naev ahead, at least they fix bugs and the devs are active on discord happy to just listen to reports!

The difficulty could be a turn off for some people, you start in a very weak ship that you have to spend a bit of time trading to upgrade. But that's how this sort of game usually works, so like I don't really consider that a con? Worst case you can just trade a bit in the starter systems on trade lanes till you get some cash and you'll be fine.

EDIT: There have been a LOT of updates since I published this review, and at the time of writing this the beta/nightly has even MORE cool stuff coming, development is moving really fast for naev right now and I couldn't be happier! Keep an eye out for updates, or use the steam beta feature to try out the nightly now! Save compatibility has been basically flawless for me, so just back up your save and go ahead and try it, I've been having a lot of fun (:

EDIT 2: Also I just noticed steam says I had 24 hours in this game at time of review- that is incorrect. This game has a non-steam version I had spent a lot of time in before the game even went on steam. No idea how long, but at least 100-200+ hours, in addition to what I have now.