Recent reviews by HKRob

I think this game has a very good concept. When things work well, it can be very fun to play. There are definitely some things that need to be fixed, but that's expected given that, as of writing this review, it has been available in early access for just over a week.

There are bugs in this game, a lot centered around the resource harvesting for the human side. The Harvester likes to get stuck. A lot. It is quite frustrating that something that honestly should be automated has to be micromanaged to such a degree. I think what's going on is the harvester registers the resource fields as passable terrain, but it actually can't pass through them, so it gets stuck. I also had a harvester get stuck on a jagged rock poking out of a dune and that was really annoying as it was down the whole game.

This game is also missing a lot of quality of life items that are pretty standard in RTS games as well as shooters. The UI can be a bit confusing, as in commander mode I originally thought there was no way of seeing when a unit would finish building. There is, it's just not very obvious. Most RTS games have more grouping functionality as well. This game has grouping in the traditional sense; ctrl + 1 creates a group of the selected units and assigns them to the number 1 hotkey, ctrl + 2 to the number 2 hotkey, etc. This is all fine, except that in most standard RTS games there is functionality for double tapping a group number to quickly move the camera over that group, and for adding units to a group via shift + [group number]. Having come from playing A LOT of RTS games back in the day, it is quite frustrating not having these. This game also doesn't have the standard RTS feature of rallying units, something it really needs.

I think it would benefit this game to have some sort of utility unit to repair with. It feels like everything is so fragile because once it's damaged, there is no way to fix it. This is the case for buildings and vehicles, though soldiers will heal slowly over time. It would be nice to have some method of repairing buildings and vehicles. As it is now, you could theoretically win a game by just suiciding a bunch of weak units at the enemy HQ a couple at a time throughout the game, and because there is no way to fix it, it will eventually die. On the same note: harvesters suck. I'm sorry, but even without the pathing bugs they deal with, they are terrible. The fact that you can only have 1 per refinery is painful. Beyond that, they have such a huge capacity and won't go back until their capacity is full. This means resource collection drags the game on and just feels bad and sluggish. Smaller harvesters with a lower capacity and more frequent trips with more than 1 per refinery would be much more preferable. That's a relatively small complaint, but a complaint none-the-less.

From the infantry side of things, I think the game is nice. You can definitely see the heritage of shooters like Arma in it. Though it would be nice to have a suicide button. There was a moment where a friend of mine got stuck on some geometry and the only way we could think to unstick him was to have him leave the game and come back. If he had a suicide button, he could just respawn and he wouldn't be stuck anymore. It would also be kind of cool to have side arms or utility gear for players, but I get how that can complicate things, so not a huge deal not having that.

Overall the game is very slow paced. I think it's too slow. The map are a bit too large with no real reason why things are placed where they are. We found defensive bunkers around the map, and they were completely useless because more than half the map was unused in each of our games. This kind of goes back to more of an RTS thing where the maps shouldn't be huge for the sake of being huge. Everything should have a reason to be there. I was involved in competitive SC2 back in the day, and I knew those maps extremely well, so I will refer to them here. Every set of resources on those SC2 maps are placed where they are for a reason. Your natural (second expansion point) is in a fairly safe and easy to defend location. The 3rd is a bit more risky, but still somewhat away from your opponent. Beyond that point, you have to start expanding towards your opponent and each expansion gets riskier and riskier. So control of the map and weighing the risk vs the reward is important. Choke points created by cliffs are placed in areas where you could cut off pathways for the maps, but are still open to somebody with good positioning. vision blocking grass placed in a path that leads to a 3rd expansion spot serves as an obstacle the player who owns that 3rd has to deal with, but also something for them to consider. Xel'Naga Towers placed in specific spots around the map so the player who controls them has an early warning as to what their opponent is doing or when and where their opponent might attack. Player start locations are at specific points so as to properly balance terrain and make the whole map relevant. All of this is map design, and it plays heavily into the pacing and feel of the game. Silica seems to have no real reasoning as to the placement of start locations or resources. The maps are huge, but only a small portion of them actually sees use. There are neutral bunkers that can be activated, which is a cool idea, but it's rather hit or miss as to whether it will be useful to you in any way. I think the maps should be a bit smaller, less open in some areas, but still open in others, with more intentionally placed start locations and resource fields. I think a good rule of thumb with a map is to make a regular unit that will see a lot of play and just run it from one start location of the map to the other. Ultimately, the pacing is up to you, so it's up to your interpretation, but measuring how long it takes a unit to run from one start location to the other is a good way of figuring whether the map is a good size, or has a good layout.

I still have yet to play a game as Aliens, I have only played on 2 of the maps in Strategy mode, so my opinions here are based on just what I have experienced so far. This game IS fun, at times. There is a lot of travelling about in this game that isn't as fun, hence my suggestion that the maps be a bit smaller. Ultimately, I think this game is on a good track, it is early access so I can't be too harsh on the bugs for it. I tried to focus mostly on the core game design decisions for this game and how I felt about them. As a long time RTS fan and a long time FPS fan, this game is exciting, but it needs the work. I do hope this feedback reaches the dev and is considered. If you are considering buying this game, I would recommend it given how new it is at the time of this writing and it having some stuff right. It's certainly no game of the year candidate, but not a bad spend for $20 either. I look forward to seeing what this game turns into over the coming weeks, months, and years.

I have only played the first 4 levels that are free with this game, but man is it good. If you like platformers, this one is awesome and the music is pretty good for it too.