Recent reviews by Obsidian [it/its]

The prospect of an exploration game through the lens of an exosuit AI is a very niche offering but it was very enjoyable, though this game is probably better viewed as an exploration-focused interactive fiction title than a game, as the core gameplay loop is simply scanning your surroundings, moving to discovered nodes, and using your other exosuit functions such as sampling, or managing your power and oxygen reserves, when needed. The story was rather short, only taking little over 6 hours to complete alongside fully documenting every species, but unraveling the history of Gliese 667Cc and looking for answers to the mysteries you find was the main push towards completing this game.
If you're looking for a relaxing piece of exploration-focused interactive fiction, where you explore your environment through the interface of an exosuit AI, and are interested in xenotaxonomy, In Other Waters may hit that niche. (But do keep in mind it's a relatively short game)

Neat short interactive fiction puzzle game, all the clues you need can require a bit of backtracking, either within the same page or other pages but none of them are permanently missable.

HOWEVER: The game has accessibility issues, most notably the audio-only cues which lack captions, and the final chapter, which features unskippable QTEs and a time based puzzle which may prove challenging to those with a poor sense of time, where if you fail any of them you need to restart the chapter. (At least said chapter is relatively short, especially compared to chapter 4)
ALSO: There is no save system within a chapter, you need to play a chapter in its entirety in one sitting to progress.

Overall, still positive, but keep those drawbacks in mind, especially if QTEs or lack of captions bother you

This was a very emotional read so far for personal reasons, though not because of the brain cancer.
The only choice you get is in your identity: Name and pronouns, or you can leave it to the protagonist's given name: Isaac
Absolutely will be coming back for more when more chapters come out

Highly recommended if you like having an existential crisis

Karel ruined it for everyone again. Crypto and "play to earn" are not and will never be a viable business model, especially not on Steam

This is one of those games where you are much better off knowing less before going in. You can only experience this game once, and whether you experience it yourself, for an audience, or from watching a streamer, you can only experience it the first time once, so do yourself a favor and play it instead of looking up wikis or playthroughs.

UPDATE: Since this update, I am unable to play in any instance with certain types of video players. I cannot recommend even downloading this game in this state. Chillout may be a better option.
UPDATE 2: AMD has fixed the crashing issue, but now video feeds sometime flicker. The review below still remains.
UPDATE 3: Removed Neos recommendation.

I'd been waiting on updates to make the game better before spending the time to make a positive review, but this one is so out of touch that a negative review is all I can leave now.
EAC in a social VR platform is one of the worst moves possible, it doesn't stop malicious actors (which have already bypassed it, 20 minutes after the open beta released), curbs accessibility mods, and curbs performance due to EAC overhead, as well as blocking Quest virtual desktop and AMD OpenVR FSR dll injection.
The devs have seen the canny post, they've seen the community response, they've seen people unsubscribe from or refund VRC+, and yet they double down.

If ever they decide to revert this decision, I might retract this review, but until then it is final.
Same goes with VRC+, they can limit me all they want, but they'll only get my money if they deserve it.

Also worth mentioning: All content in VRChat is community-made. If you don't have any community left beyond standalone Quest users, you won't have anything left.

New canon lore and an entertaining tech demo. Perfectly playable on a regular Steam controller.

Pre-ordered that game back in 2012, back when the features promised seemed interesting. The beta had a lot of promise to it, but the full release and subsequent updates essentially killed off all the motivation to actually explore. You used to need to dig down and go mining for core fragments, now you only have to drop down on a lush planet for easy access to dozens of them. Underground biomes used to be unique to certain planet types, now you can find any biome on any planet. It is so easy to acquire pixels and ore you rarely ever have to mine, You can loot towns of ores and buy the rest off the outpost. The entire progression of the game has been hamfisted into a story which is not engaging in the slightest, and the only incentive to explore is to scan items to progress through it. Progress otherwise is atrociously slow and poorly paced. You have no incentive to actually build or settle down when every planet is the same. The only saving grace here is mods, and the largest one, FU, is even worse than the base game.
Progression is also a major issue, you don't fight more dangerous enemies as you progress through the game, you simply fight the same ones with higher damage and health pools. High tier items are roughly the same as low tier items, only with higher energy usage to compensate for higher energy pools, and higher damage to compensate for higher enemy health.

Performance is atrocious and the game is horribly unoptimized. Physics are tied to framerate, any player you play with who has an inadequate rig will lag behind you if your PC is decent enough to not die at the slightest bit of foggy weather. Besides, this is the only game where you can experience server lag in singleplayer.

This is all without mentioning the can of worms that was development for this game, including uncredited stolen labor.

TL;DR: Any substance this game used to have has been diluted over the years.

A fun twist on all that algebra you either loved or learned to love at school. Instead of trying to find an answer, you have to understand the operators instead.
Also it's cheap, or even free if you have a .edu email address

Nothing more than a relatively easy 100% achievements game. The final level isn't worth playing with its flashing background and removal of the main element of difficulty, it'll just end up giving you a headache after you reach it in one sitting.