This WAS a good game. Or so it seemed. Yet, it has some massive problems. I am just revisiting it in 2019 (April). I realise now that a lot of people were probably alienated by the poor technology choices. This game is utterly outstanding!. I wish it were more modable, so the textures and graphics could look better. If there is one thing that could have taken this from cult classic to legendary, that would be it. The graphics are seriously ugly. I suspect this is to do with engine and voxel space bleh bleh. Graphically, it is very barely acceptable. Unless you like retro stuff.

But the game, the concept, the freedom.... PERFECT! Do this, do it more, win! win! win!.

I dont love the execution in some ways. But enough of the mechanics attempts to deliver that concept that it is infectious. Thanks for the memories, thanks for the experience. I dont think I have said that for 10 years. Could be more, it was, more than enough. Please do something that goes further in the same direction.

You will make Bethesda wish they still care about games when they become irrelevant and their share price utterly collapses. Not just Bethesda (sorry to kick an obvious victim when so far down).

A totally open world game, in the purest way possible, which allows infinite possibilities. This game is delivering upon the potential of the ambitious concept. I cant recommend it highly enough.

You want an open world game?. This game allows you to do almost anything. You gather resources, many types of resources. You can make everything and anything. You can use pre made designs. Download others designed by players or design your own from scratch. The only limit I found is that I couldn't build the nuclear missiles I wanted. Battleship? Fine. Stealth fighter, fine. Motorbike, Star wars style land speeder, Monster trucks and madcap mash ups all fine. Works really well.

You want base building? You can do anything! Literally. Thought the style is a little tiny bit limiting the freedom of expression is vast. It is somewhere between the complexity of Landmark (which most people cant use well and the latest owners destroyed) and other games with more simplified base building such as Ark. A nice middle ground allowing the free use of imagination to create some awesome settlements towns and fortified structures. Great fun and probably the thing I get most distracted by. I am crazy about base building in games like this and Ark.


You want to explore? Ok, 2 sides to this. It is a massive area to explore. You will soon realise you need to develop and get vehicles though nothing stops you wandering on foot. Hostile alien races and local wildlife abound and the whole thing feels very nicely balanced. It doesnt feel like a world setup to support your game but a world you literally found yourself in and now you have to survive and thrive. This works well too.

Sound? I love the title theme loop (now with some beautiful vocals to make it one of the best game themes I can remember) and the in game sounds are all well done. I think overall the sound effects could havemore attention to atmospherics but it is a small criticism and it was done well enough not to be any sort of problem. One absolutely stand out moment is the (in my opinion) very beautiful opening title music. It really sets a nice an atmosphere and is a beautiful piece of music in its own right. I wish it was a longer track as I like it a lot.

Probably the only real criticism I have is the NPCs in the game. They just seem like props. This was a lost opportunity. If they actually went and did more with astmospheric sounds supporting it, settlements would have felt much more alive. This is not a major issue because of the nature of the game,. later they will be doing stuff at your direction but for a long time they feel less alive.

Graphical? Erm. Interesting one this, It uses nothing in terms of the capability I have, yet somehow, strangely, it is enough. Its not great, it's not bad. Its passable. This is odd for me as I am a bit of a state of the art graphics guy. I am a bit split on my opinion on this point. I would have loved it to be way better looking but, I find I like the game so much it bothers me far less than it normally would and I am glad of a game that doesnt use the Unreal engine. (An engine which was popular but gets on my nerves for many reasons).

I should say, that the only relatively limited aspect is character creation but this is not a big deal, though I try to stay in first person.

I have been having a smooth experience for a while for the most part but there does seem to be a few serious bugs still in the game but not so many that it stops me playing and miles ahead of many other games.

This is a game you will have installed for years and will keep coming back to. Bang for buck, fun and for the open world nature of the game, I cant recommend this enough to people who like;

Open World
Resource Gathering
Settlement Building and Development
Designing Vehicles and Equipment
Exploration
Longevity and good value.

One of the best games of its type and the best pre release game I ever purchased in terms of meeting all expectations and delivering the game that was promised at the end of it.

Overall though, This games development reminds me of PC gaming pioneers in the days before you just wrote a game to rip people off on Xbox Live. This is a magnum opus and you should all be very justifiably proud of yourselves. I dont think I have ever been so effusive in my praise for any game and nor would I be if it did not deserve it.

If there is one criticism I can make of this game.. It is hideously unoptimized. The graphics are pretty mediocre at best. Yet, it sucks so bad in terms of framerate. Using watercooled 2080Ti doesnt really matter as it just has problems. However, the upside of this is that anyone can play it and it will look the same. I do not understand why it runs so badly. Such a shame. Still, I'll not down vote because it is brilliant beautiful. Look at my primary rig specs (profile, sig) I get 23 fps hehe. This could be great for everyone else. Not everyone has multiple watercooled 1080 TI or 2080TI etc etc.

If this makes this game more popular then so be it. I would be delighted.