Recent reviews by Spaced Cadet

Time spent in a game isn't always a good metric for one's enjoyment of their time. This game had some good highlights and had some really bafflingly dull design decisions. This is not to say anything of any technical issues, in fact it was technically decent aside from severe performance issues. For reference, I was playing on an AMD 5800X3D, with 32GB of 3800MHz RAM, and an RTX 3080 12GB card. I have had better performance in large open world games like Cyberpunk 2077, No Man's Sky, and Star Citizen.

I will concede that the ship building facet was probably the highlight of my game time. Everything eventually wound up feeling hollow, if not weightless.

Overall, everything felt disconnected and did not feel like a living, breathing world.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

The main questline felt very contrived, bland and derivative for a couple reasons.
a.) A multiverse is not a new or novel concept in science fiction writing
b.) The 'big reveal' felt like it was very heavy-handed in its foreshadowing and never really quite reached the highs it had hoped to achieve and relied very heavily on cliches
c.) There were a lot of 'this could have been an email' instances, despite there being conflicting information on the existence of FTL communications
d.) The ending seemed like it was trying to emulate the magic that was the ending of the Kubrick film: 2001: A Space Odyssey and delivered so flatly I could have called it tap water. This is because the 'epilogue' is self contained in a couple of very plastic dioramas and the direct results of your actions feel like they were swept aside instead of having very tangible in-universe consequences
e.) I felt like I was on rails most of the time despite having what was touted to be a huge campaign with choices

The NPCs frequently felt plastic and did not have much emotional depth of expression, possibly a combination of writing and facial animations, at no fault of the actors portraying them. Sarah's writing felt like she did not have much of an arc in terms of their perspective and was 'all crimes bad no fun' and didn't have any flexibility in terms of how they were written.

The combat mechanics had annoyingly spongey enemies coupled with treadmill-style loot progression. The 'special ability' stuff felt like it was just a design copy of the shouts in Skyrim.

The spaceship combat was not particularly well balanced.

The quests were largely, go here, walk 10-15-30 minutes in various environments which, as a result of proc-gen restrictions, wound up feeling very samey.

Inventory management quickly became a chore and felt tacked on or just artificially restrictive. Lacking ammunition crafting and other resource sinks probably contributed to the tediousness.

Establishing an outpost network felt disconnected from the game whereas in Fallout 4 it felt very important.

Skill progression should have been shortened.

By the time I had completed all of the faction quests, I felt the game had overstayed its welcome.

The Ryujin questline was the biggest offender in terms of fetch quest feels. Only towards the end did the 'corporate espionage' vibe come through with the writing. I was annoyed after having played through it, feeling somewhat cheated of my time. This was the 3rd faction questline I had completed and could have easily skipped over. The impact on the world felt minimal and the consequences did not feel like they had any tangible effect. Yes, some of the stuff Ryujin was doing was morally dubious, but it lacked impact.

As someone who dumped 800+ hours in Fallout 4 with mods, I don't see mods resolving the core design issues with this game.

Valheim gets that magic mixture that many survival games don't quite achieve.

A balance of combat, exploration, progression, and building that paces the game well.

You start off with little to nothing, and the game gradually introduces mechanics to you with increasing layers of complexity. Once you fight your first boss, it ramps up in difficulty and complexity.

You take a risk by fighting enemies and not retreating when it's in your best interest for self preservation, as the skills you worked hard to improve may set you back several levels if you die. It doesn't introduce many new mechanics to the world of survival games, but it does it well.

The sailing and oceanic exploration, in its current infancy, handles sailing really well. Granted, the longship really deserves implementation of rowing mechanics and there could be more variety in that area, but they'll expand upon it.

It's promising so far, since the mechanics seem really well-established and there's much more potential for new and interesting biomes.

Pros
Really great introduction of mechanics and easy to pick up
Unified art style works well with the volumetric, dof, bokeh and lighting effects
Combat is solid and easy to pick up
Food is a buff and not a requirement

Cons
Limited explanation for progression may turn off new players
Limited content variety at this stage in development

Overall
Great price point and gameplay, highly recommended!

Bravo to Iron Gate Studios for their 5 man team capturing lightning in a bottle!

I didn't start playing this until nearly 2 years after release, and waited, and waited, and waited because it was a total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at launch. My brother bought this game for me.

Most of the gripes people and myself included have had seem to have largely been resolved. It's still buggy, but far less than what it was when I played it in Beta, while it was a horrible mess of a game.

So, the good things
-It's got a lot of places you can visit and see (typical of fallout games)
-It's no longer an empty wasteland
-Gameplay has gotten significantly better and stuttering is a lot less frequent than it was
-There are still some quirky questlines characteristic of the Fallout series, now that there are actual NPCs and what-not
-Still stands on its own as a decent (not amazing, but decent) game for solo play
-Some of the goofy ♥♥♥♥ you can pull off while playing are great fun

The bad things
-Sometimes with server desynch you can run into stationary enemies that won't die
-Occasionally there are issues with collision
-Sometimes there's server outages at inconvenient times
-Limitations on building imposed make building CAMPS mildly frustrating if transitioning from Fallout 4
-Essential quest locations i.e. the Crater and Foundation require you to spend caps to fast travel to
-Nuclear Winter is super derivative
-You can't sell ammo to vendors
-Inventory management is laborious at times

I've enjoyed it so far - will probably make 2 different characters for 2 different builds

Deep Rock Galactic is one of the best cooperative games available on Steam, so it sits very high up on my list of go-to games.

What's great about DRG
-The core gameplay loop
-Beer and their effects
-No one class is ever really 'the worst' in all situations
-You can solo it if you want, but the cooperative gameplay is fantastic, bar none
-There's a lot of options for tweaking loadouts to your playstyle
-BEARDS AND BEARD PHYSICS

What the core gameplay loop consists of
1.) Mining
-You break minerals and pocket them or carry large chunks, and deposit them either on a robotic, semi-autonomous minecart, or at a designated deposit point.

2.) Exploration
-You need to find the minerals you're looking for through exploration. Caves are procedurally generated with lots of hidden levers and buttons, so no cave is the same as the last (except the tutorial cave). Digging, using ziplines, grappling hooks, or foam platforms allow you to find your way through most. You do have to get creative sometimes.

3.) Fighting
-There are a LOT of different invertebrate enemies with different strengths, weakspots, and behavior. Learning the best way to dispatch them will ensure you survive. No encounter is exactly alike. Some fly, most crawl, and some even happen to be waiting in the dark ceilings to grab you.

With this blend it might sound like some high-level voxel-destruction jumbled together with games such as Left 4 Dead, but really, it's more like if you mashed Red Faction's geomod engine with Starship Troopers and foul-mouthed dwarves.

It's not for everyone, as the pacing or difficulty might be skewed one way or the other, but the game is really well made and it has been supported by some of the most dedicated developers I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with. They're very passionate about the project, and continue to refine the game.

If you're on the edge of the fence about it, consider buying it while it's on sale and refund if it's not for you, but I've found many people really get a kick out of playing the game, even if they're not great at it.

A passion project made by just one person that has turned out to be one of their greatest successes.

Pros
-Lots of gameplay depth, lots to do, requires prioritizing each day or pre-planning, but it's very rewarding
-Has a lot of variety in gameplay mechanics. Fight, farm, fish, build, socialize (with NPCs)
-Great cooperative multiplayer, among the best I've played in the past couple of years

Cons
-There's a lot you have to either learn by making mistakes or by researching. This can be a turnoff to some people, but the gradual introduction of gameplay mechanics eases the learning curve.

One of the best cooperative games available -- as long as you don't mind the complexity.

It's got a steep learning curve, it still is easier to learn than previous entries in the series.

There's a lot to do in the game and you really get your money's worth, with the number of things you can do in-game and the variety of the game mechanics, and its relatively quirky humor

The Good
LOTS OF DEPTH
Lots of gameplay
Great cooperative play
Can be played offline reasonably well

The Bad
The game is unforgiving when it comes to hardware requirements. Low-end users beware.
Steep learning curve for new users with its mmo-lite mechanics

The Ugly
The handler is annoying

Game still highly recommended

Doesn't really deliver on what it promises. Or maybe it does, a little too much.

I'm sorry devs, I wanted to like your game. I purchased it to support you guys, but I just can't bring myself to enjoy it. I do hope you use this money to improve the game for other people.

Dodging is anemic, vehicles feel anemic, and weapons don't do much to differentiate themselves from one another.

It's a UT reskin in many ways.

Sure, some things are pretty, but even an ugly game can have good mechanics.

I've thousands of hours in this game, and I still enjoy going back to it every now and then. While I've exhausted most of the gameplay that I want to explore in the game, there's still a lot of depth to it and it's pretty hard to have 'completed everything there is to do'.

If you find yourself tiring of the game, take a hiatus. Come back in some time and you'll have a refreshed view on the game. A reason to play.

When playing the game, don't cheat yourself by taking shortcuts, and don't burn yourself out by trying to farm for a single part. Do alternative things.

The Good
-The flow of the game, the speed and fluidity of movement is still unparalleled
-Still one of the best free to play games out there
-It's still really pretty and gets prettier pretty frequently (alliteration all the way)
-There's a LOT of content to play through
-Each mission is generated differently
-Best with friends
-Pay wall can be bypassed through trading
-Game steadily gets better

The Bad
-Content trickles in
-Some of the recipes are ludicrous and require a lot of playtime to craft
-Some things are really grindy and/or locked behind RNG walls
-Some design decisions are convoluted and take months to correct
-Balancing is infrequent for the PvE element of the game, making the game either too easy or too hard for long periods of time and sometimes devs don't seem to pay attention to it
-Story content is kinda lightweight and dialogue can be a bit cheesy
-Can't replay quests yet

The Ugly
-I put over 1800 hours into this game total, got about 200 hours in before open beta.
-Power creep is prevalent and a major problem

Nicholas (Cage)*(Tom) Hanks is the protagonist.

You cannot unsee this.

While I don't think it should at all be called a sequel of the series, since it's so wildly different, it does share some similarities in name and in lore. It's an OK game, but it's a shootoff, not what one should consider an official installment.

I can appreciate the work that the team put into developing it, and the boss-fights were at least well-thought-out. I had very low expectations going into it, but have since been pleasantly surprised.

Do not go in expecting any similarities, other than superficial similarities to Lost Planet.

The gunplay is mostly decent, the enemy design is decent, but the weapons are somewhat bland, and it has lost any sense of outlandish caricatures of robotic weaponry that the previous games had. It is a cover shooter and a robot beat-em-up with some additional collection features.

The game does have its good points, though.
-Attention to detail
-Characters (other than the main character)
-A sense of... coldness
-Boss fights are engaging and well-designed for the team's level of development experience
-Enemy design means you have to engage each one differently
-RIG Combat is actually pretty fun (when you do fight against large Akrid)

The bad parts, however, plunge the game into mediocrity
-Pacing in combat sections isn't very-well thought out for some instances
-The game feels like a cover shooter that borrows many elements from other games without making them its own
-The upgrade system for the weapons is shallow and wasn't explored deeply enough by the development team
-It's not really Lost Planet other than names and lore
-Some of the weapons (esp. the Pulse Rifle) feel clunky.
-Some explorational/collection mechanics aren't explained very well

I cannot recommend this game, however, due to how much of an offshoot it is from its predecessors, quirky and zany as they may have been. It's a completely different game and doesn't really come into its own. Plus, a lack of co-operative play is a big no-no since MP was DOA.

A brilliantly simple RTS game that deserves more attention on the eSports side of things due to its well-balanced design and unique approach to the somewhat stale RTS genre.