Recent reviews by polaris.ursa

Quite possibly the greatest game ever made. Spaghetti Space Western sandbox game story generator rogue-like which will challenge you, make you laugh, make you furious and make you cry. Your free time will vanish into a bottomless black hole. 'Nuff said.

Not for me. Lacks depth and there's no pause button, so the AI players can just make massive launches you can't cope with while you are completely unable to do the same. There's no way to setup scenario plans ahead of time to automate tasks, either. Real global thermonuclear war runs on a playbook, and this game is too simple to set one up.

I wish Steam allowed for a Neutral review instead of just thumbs up and thumbs down, because that's definitely the type of review I'd leave for this game.

I like the IDEA of the game - I like the story and the animations, graphics, sound, music and the "city-building" aspects of the game. What I definitely DO NOT like is the "1990's ARPG combat" system you have to use, it's just really "not me". I suck at that type of gameplay, and this game is (remember coming from the "I suck at this" perspective) REALLY HARD for that type of game.

So I'm going to say "Yes - I recommend this game", but with the caveat that this is a 2D action-slasher game with extremely complex and difficult combat (think Cuphead style combat without the sidescrolling). So if that kind of game isn't your thing, you should avoid this title. If it is, then this would be a super fun game you will likely love.

I really want to like this game. It's very lovely, the soundtrack's not bad, the gameplay is generally fairly smooth, and it has a lot of elements I really like in a game.

But the balance is BRUTAL. The play map area is TINY and the buildings you need to build are MASSIVE, so you will simply never have enough space, even once you unlock 1, 2 or all 6 of the sectors. Time is critical and crucial, because the crew gets pissed off the longer you stay in one system, so you ride the line of mutiny until the very last second then jump to the next system... only to have people now get mad about LEAVING the last one, and the mutiny happens anyway. No time to collect all the resources you need. No time to build all of the things you need. No time to explore all of the points of interest and obtain the science from them. No time to deal with the seemingly unlimited cryo pod awakenings flooding your ship with population you can't handle. No space to store the things you need to store. No space to grow the food you need. No space for the HUGE buildings you need to placate everyone. No space to build the MASSIVE buildings for ships, EVA and probes.

And no difficulty settings to CORRECT for any of those and enjoy a more relaxed playthrough, you just get brutalized from start to finish. Oh, did I mention the ship becomes impossible to keep working, and breaks down further and harder constantly? It's absolutely insane. I have the feeling that this isn't a game you complete, it's more of a game you simply see how far you can get through before you fail. I'm not sure anyone likes that kind of game... do they? If so, I recommend you play Dwarf Fortress instead, at least you can see the "fun" coming.

If you LOVE masochism and pain, I heartily recommend this game. If you enjoy relaxing city-building and sci-fi exploration games, I heartily recommend you avoid this one. If this game were at least moddable, it could probably be turned into a more satisfying game. Sadly I haven't been able to find any information about mods.

Less fun than text-based roleplaying servers on Discord.

No, seriously, you will "make friends" in this "game" who are chads that will turn on you the first chance they get no matter which worlds you go to or who you hang out with. The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing about "virtual reality" is that it's virtual, like REALLY virtual. People who play this game only care about partying or getting laid and as soon as you develop feelings for them it's a big fat nopeburger.

Also, public worlds are filled with nothing but a seemingly endless supply of under 15 year old trolls who run around screaming cuss words (usually the N-word, but sometimes words about crude sexual acts) and harassing people because it's sadly the first taste of freedom their over-protective parents have ever given them and they simply have no idea how to curb their aspy enthusiasm to go forth into the world and ♥♥♥♥ it up. There's so many Nazi-themed avatars in public worlds as well that you'd think this is where Truth Social people spend most of their free time when they're not making fun of libtards on Truth Social.

Big thumbs down, would not recommend this steaming pile of horse ♥♥♥♥♥ to anyone at any time ever. Wait for a newer, better VR social system to come online, like ChillOutVR or something.

Where to start with this game... I guess the place I'd start is the horrendous UI which is very fiddly and incredibly frustrating to slog through - seriously it's where you'll waste half your time playing this game. The second is the sheer quantity of bugs, the tracking site has THOUSANDS of bugs posted and very few have been fixed because the dev claims they are part of systems which will get re-written anyway...

So in light of THOSE issues, the question which begs to be answered is: Why wasn't this released as an Early Access title? The game could still be sold to make the money to pay for hiring a couple more devs to help fix the bugs, oops, I mean rewrite the buggy systems, while people can have an adequate warning that the game is still in development.

There's little more frustrating than spending 60-80 hours building an outstanding fortress and then watching it get completely destroyed NOT because you made an mistake, but because some random bugs cause everyone to stop working or cause your militia squads to not equip their gear before taking on the Forgotten Beast, or because all this time you thought your archers were training in archery, but surprise! Turns out they were only learning how to dodge and wrestle, which makes them survive a really long time in that battle while being completely unable to do any damage.

And then there's the RICH history of documentation online for this game, but for REALLY OLD VERSIONS (no, seriously, we're talking versions from like 2008 and 2010, pre-tileset) with tons of information and strategies which no longer work in the current version AT ALL, so you wind up spending a ton of time building The Thing and then The Thing fails and everyone dies. While I can't lay that blame on the dev's feet, it IS a stumbling block YOU will run into frequently which will make for a very frustrating experience - which leads back to the horrible UI/UX of this game - there's no tooltips and the extremely limited Help system in-game doesn't do much to really explain the mechanics and what's going on. Which skill is a dwarf going to be using at the Stonecrafter's table? WHO THE HELL KNOWS?!?!?! Not even the 'official wiki' seems to know anymore, apparently because the dev keeps changing it.

I feel an obligation to also note here that the pre-Steam version of the game was considered pointless without some major, major heavy-duty community modding like the Masterwork DF mod. And the DFHack mod. Note that NEITHER of them currently work for the Steam version, which severely impacts and limits the gameplay you can experience. You've seen artists and storytellers recount fantastic experiences battling kobolds or animal-people holding a fort? Or trading with fire-breathing dragons for rare goods? You won't get them in the vanilla game. In fact, the only races you will get to SEE in the vanilla game are Dwarves, Humans, Elves and Goblins. And you won't be able to PLAY anything but Dwarves. The mods are what really make this game so interesting (and playable since they also fix hundreds of bugs in the base game), and until they are updated (if that ever even happens), you will be missing out on all of the fun (and ability to fix bugs when they happen).

For now, I am making a negative review. I may change that in the future if the developer actually, ya know, gets around to "rewriting all the systems with bugs in them anyway" as promised over a decade ago. And cleans up the UI/UX, there's so many simple changes which would make this game so much easier and nicer to work with. More in-game explanations of mechanics (even just tooltips FFS) would help immensely. I also wouldn't mind if this game could natively support a 2K screen, instead I have to put the game into Emulation Mode as a 720p window and use Windows Scaling to make it work at all, which in 2022 is utter nonsense when most people have 4K displays. This game is such a beloved smash hit title (and apparently best-seller on Steam now) that there's ZERO EXCUSE for the dev not hiring a couple more warm bodies to help resolve these issues.

Truly one of the most innovative and refreshing new "city/empire building" games I've seen in many years now. This game is super relaxing while also being very challenging and fun - if managing a factory which spans dozens of stars ever starts to get tedious, take a break and go explore new stars and worlds! Keep in mind the game is in Early Access, but it is surprisingly well-polished and smooth despite that and the fact you can have massive factories on every one of over a hundred planets and the game still performs. I reserve the right to update my review after release as many new systems including combat are slated to come down the pipe, which could upset the balance and enjoyability of the game, so we'll see what changes are in store!

Unplayable mess right out the gate. Purported gamepad support, but couldn't get my Xbox One controller to work with it. No tutorials on how to work a space sim, which is a complex game by any measure. Controls were unintuitive and wonky. Gameplay physics had real issues right from the go. Graphics are terrible. UI is terrible. Gameplay is terrible. Amazed this has any good reviews at all.

Please enlighten me about what I'm missing with this game. Until then, refund requested.

Could not get game to work with any of these controllers: Xbone (wireless), Microsoft Gamepad (wired USB), Switch Pro (wireless). All buttons and directional input would just randomly cut-out for anywhere from a dozen milliseconds to almost an entire second at a time with all three controllers. All three controllers work fine in every other game I have (e.g. Monster Hunter World, Forager, etc.) Keyboard gameplay is terrible in this game as well, and no mouse support so that was not a viable alternative.

This issue has been reported by numerous players since the game released a year and a half ago and still no fix despite numerous updates? Such a shame, looks like a fun game and I'd like to play it, but if it won't work with a bunch of standard USB controllers that all other games seem to support just fine, it's unplayable.

So a little over 20 hours into the game now and just wrapped up all of the goodies and missions and unlocks on the third island, which seems to be pretty much the majority of the stuff to unlock now, so seems like a fair time to write a review.

tl;dr: I definitely do recommend this game, even with the steep price tag because I think anyone can easily manage to get about 30+ hours of play time out of it just getting through the basic storyline and unlock missions, so at $2/hour for cost that's a pretty good return on entertainment investment, I feel. Whereas seeing Jurassic World the movie in a theatre will run you $20 for roughly two hours of entertainment - the game feels like the bigger bargain to me by far.

Summary so you don't have to read on in more detail: some bits about the game like terrain and placement are overly fiddly, size is an issue on most maps, the game could be a bit more immersive (even though in some ways it's already incredibly so), but it is stunningly gorgeous and gives you just enough challenge to keep you on your toes while still getting to take a little time to perfectly plan and do some sight-seeing of your own.

The Good:
- Despite no real tutorials, the missions and guided progression go a long ways towards making up for that fact. There is definitely a learning curve to the game and I'm sure there's still tricks I haven't learned or figured out yet.
- Fun tie-ins from the actors in the feature films is a nice touch and added bonus for fans of the franchise at best, and still an additional immersion if you have no idea who they are and where they're from.
- Holy gods the beautiful grapics. And efficient enough to be able to be run on Ultra level detail with great framerates even with a 1070 GTX that's not over-clocked. The little details like how the rain falls onto and off of everything really make this a stunning game to look at.
- Really excellent and life-like modeling and animation for the dinosaurs, and an outstanding variety of them. Almost certainly more to come down the road with DLC packs like the initial deluxe pack, too, so some future return playability I hope.
- Lovely and clear/simple UI with nice embellishments that add character and life to the interface and give it a nice 'pop' without bashing you over the head with it.
- You can take over some of the vehicles and their occupants and take on some of the tasks yourself (sometimes you will be forced to by the sabotage system as well) which adds a nice level of immersion.
- Really neat database that provides more details about the things you discover and uncover in the game. It's a nice little spiffy bonus and a real goal toward unlocking it all and something really fun for serious fans and curious kids (no matter how old we are).

The Bad:
- The maps are really small. Like, way smaller than you'd think for a dinosaur park. If anyone from Frontier ever reads this: PLEASE MAKE MAPS 50% LARGER THAN THEY ARE TODAY. Or twice the size. Really, either one would make me really happy.
- Ooops, carnivores broke out. Well I hit that Emergency Shelter button pretty fast, and I have full coverage in my park, and yet people don't seem to be running as if their lives depend on it. Which is a shame, because they do. I've never been able to save my visitors from rampaging carnivores even when I know in advance they will be breaking out and get a headstart on evacuating visitors.
- The ability to unlock more ACU helicopters would be essential to saving the lives of visitors, esp given the above. If you get a sabotage that opens ALL of your gates and you have 20+ carnivores in your park, it's going to take forever for just one ACU helo with 4-5 schedule slots to clean up that mess. The ability to unlock having more than just 3 transports active at once would be nice as well. For some highly saocial dinos you need to move them 4-5 at once and having only 3 transports means they will lose comfort until the second fleet shows up.
- As many other reviews have stated, more AI behaviors would be nice. Pack dynamics/hunting/herding would go a long ways to improving immersion. I also expected dinos which are intelligent (i.e. raptors) to get up to some shenanigans, esp when they have genetic intellect boosts - but they don't.
- Limited interactions. Yes a lot of people complain about no interaction with park visitors and I disagree with their point, I don't care about the guests (they are just numbers) they are not the focus of the game. The dinos are, though. And I expect in a real dinosaur zoo/park, you'd have more interaction like animal enrichment activities and maybe even stage shows with trainers/keepers to better entertain the guests. Some more meaningful way as the park overseer to interact directly with the dinosaurs would be nice. Giving them special treats, special events, staged shows and other enrichment activities. Which, hey, gives you more things to try to catch great photos of in-game too.
- No Biomes. While you can see plenty of lakes and rivers and ocean and sand, the only biome you ever get to actually stage and terraform is lush jungle. We know the world was made up of diverse biomes even in the time of Pangea, so why can't we reproduce that here? We even already get biome-themed skins as genetic research for our dinos, but we can't make an environment for them to suit their appearance. Maybe this is coming in DLC?
- Departmental Conflict and Sabotage Events. This I just don't get. Esp on the later islands, where sabotage gets downright wrecklessly cruel. I understand it adds the "keep you on your toes" element, but letting all of the carnivores loose at once seems a bit much. There's a difference between Healthy Competition (tm) between departments and them literally killing dozens of innocent people because they're not getting your attention. I think the sabotage of power stations, infecting of dinos and maybe tampering with ONE exhibit at a time would be enough, but when you go nuts with it...
- Not so much a bad as a suggestion: maybe a little multiplayer? Like inviting friends to come hang out in my park and explore it? My wife and I both play, and would love to be able to visit each other's parks. Since first person immersion is a thing in this game, multi-player functionality seems like a no-brainer. And maybe I drive the jeep/helo while she shoots the dinos, taking that first-person stuff to the next level.

The Ugly:
- You'd think violent dinosaurs are your worst enemy, but no - the terrain and terrain tools will be your worst nightmare in this game. Due to how slopes work and how slopes occlude the ability to build (never heard of concrete or digging, WTF I swear...) you will spend massive amounts of time in a game you cannot pause to try to finagle the land into allowing you to get this one tiny little building in this spare area that it SHOULD easily fit into - but no. "Terrain Placement" will be the phrase that makes you hate this game, if you do wind up hating it. Fixes to building placement and making the terrain fit around them instead of the other way around would instantly make this game 500 times better (IMHO, for me, YMMV). Making the maps 50% larger (or more) would also be an interim solution to this issue.
- Nothing but the above is really bugging me that badly right now. Sure, bigger maps, but that's more of an "I want" than an "I need".