Recent reviews by thegrandseraph

Really thought I would like this. Graphics look good, gameplay is familiar but fresh. Its the Ark we know and love with a little bit of an upgrade. So why the negative review?

The NITRADO deal. I don't mind one hosting company to smooth out cross platform, but not letting us do it ourselves is a giant, anti-consumer kick in the teeth. Been playing around with server hosting the whole time I have been playing Ark, from its earliest days. But this may be the end for this franchise for me. I had already written off Ark II based on the garbage changes they have announced that make the game decidedly not an Ark game. But now I find the last big thing I expected from them is just as bad.

Don't buy anything from Snail Games. They are the hottest of anti-consumer garbage, and wildcard is now too by association.

This is just... bad. I tried to play it because I love Diablo style games but this just doesn't work. You start the game with your advanced class automatically, with a slew of abilities that you don't spend any time learning, so it just becomes a button masher. It throws you into the deep end but tries to make up for it by making everything you initially face just a giant joke. Not even sure why it gives you potions.

I was excited to see controller support, but that too let me down. Its controller+ at best. You still need to use a bunch of the keyboard shortcuts, and for menus the controller functionality is bound to moving the cursor with the thumbstick and clicking it, essentially emulating a mouse.

This game is probably ok for someone who lives and dies by MMORPG's, and thus has the vastly overcomplicated menu system immediately figured out. But for someone who only rarely plays them, its a giant, overwhelming mess. I see now why the reviews are mostly mixed.

Oh and the priest Morpheus is the vilest character I have ever encountered. I had to mute my audio because his constan't, almost crying voice and eyes that appear swelled shut just made him grating.

This game is fun, a lot of fun. If you enjoy space combat, this game is for you. If you like exploration, again, this should be in your wheelhouse. Graphically it is stunning, gameplay is smooth and interesting, and there is a lot to see and do. But it does have one major, glaring flaw.

If you like to build and craft, erect bases, manage systems, or anything in that realm, this isn't for you. The game is enough fun that I keep coming back to it, but shallow enough that I keep getting bored. Making money is easy, so obtaining the best ships is easy. Exploration never really worked for me, and combat was never my style. And no matter how deep those two aspects are, that is really all there is.

That being said, its just that kind of game. It isn't made for gamers like me who like to build our base and manage our empires. Its meant for people that want to fly a spaceship and make it go pew pew. And there is nothing wrong with that. And it does it so well that even though I hate exploration and combat, I keep playing it. So yes, I do recommend it. And I desperately hope it will add some elements to appeal to crafty gamers as well, but it is still a good game without it.

Its OK, but not great. I love modding the game, but playing it the way its meant to be played is annoying beyond reason. Honestly the biggest problem I have with the game are the colonists. They are ridiculously needy to the point of it no longer being about managing their needs, but babysitting a bunch of whiny children. I have come to play the game entirely without them using mods. Every time I introduce colonists into the game I end up abandoning that play through almost immediately after. Unfortunately, there are huge chunks of the game that don't work if you have no colonists, like the story parts. The Bio-Robots are no fix either, as they are just as whiny and needy as the human colonists. I can't fathom building AI machines and making them just as terrible as real people. Perhaps one day, with future updates, it will be more fulfilling of a game.

I am giving it a Thumbs Up only because, with mods, its actually OK.

Honestly I love the idea behind this game, and was excited to try it out. I spend most of my time in other survival games base building and, where possible, building mobile bases. And this is where I thought this game would be a perfect match. Unfortunately, at least to me, the focus of the game (building a ship) is messy at best. And due to the fact that things don't snap, and the materials look like they were harvested from the settlements in Fallout 4, anything you build looks like a cobbled together mess. No matter how much effort you put in, your ship will look like you built it using duct tape and garbage. And flying it, though functional, is anything but smooth. To be honest, if you are an aesthetic builder like me, and get most of your enjoyment from creating things, this game isn't for you. If you don't mind flying a heap of garbage around as long as it lets you explore and fight, then you will probably do fine.

This is by far one of my favorite games. I just keep pumping hours into it and finding more I want to do. There are bugs, some less than fun aspects, but its well within the expectations of an early access games. Now that I have given my opinion, allow me to state what I feel would be some great things to add to the game.
- Some form of improved resource gathering. Hand mining rocks seems clunky and breaks immersion
- Multiplyer. Seriously, this game would be amazing with multiplayer. And with that in mind...
- An online non-story mode, featuring all of the stuff in game, and a new way to get recipes. Also with procedurally generated maps.

My very first review, and sadly it is a bad one.

The idea behind the game is awesome. I have been hoping for a space survival game of this nature for some time. So when this came available I immediately purchased it and started my game. That is where it all went wrong.

I show up on the planet and it is lovely to behold. The graphics are amazing, the music... nifty but not important. Now to get to work. Set up my inflatable dome, grabbed my survival gear and start looking for what I need for a forge. It started to go downhill when I checked my map. That is quite possibly the most useless map I have ever seen. Find something of interest, can't add a waypoint or a marker. The map itself is bland and without detail, pretty useless for navigation. The only useful part is that you can see your coordinates on it and, if you have an IRL notepad next to your keyboard, you can jot down points of interest. I personally consider that a massive detriment to immersion. Want to navigate by looking at the landscape? Don't, though lovely to behold at first, everything kind of blends together after a very short while. Craters are identical, look another floating rock, etc.

Navigation issues aside, the real killer for me was simply the grind. Now don't get me wrong, I ususally don't mind a bit of grind and tedium. In fact its where I shine on most games. I like building up my stockpile of resources, and then building stuff to improve my ability to stockpile resources. But when the first meaningful crafting recipe in the game is the forge, and I have spent well over 45 minutes slowly trudging across the landscape looking for resources so far flung as to be considered excrutiatingly rare, I give up. You can't expect me to be excited by a twenty minute trek into the wilderness that provides me with nothing of value. And coupled with the fact that you can barely move at any reasonable speed in the game, long distance trekking has proven to be the most exhaustingly boring game aspect I have ever encountered. Though the landscapes are beautiful and the creatures... well lets say mildly interesting... when you can only move at a slow shamble or short, barely faster "float", traveling is the game's worst feature. And with resources so far away, it is what you do the most.

A game needs to hook you in the very first stages, or it will fail. This game fails miserably to be interesting in the early game. Playing a game should be interesting and fun, not a chore. No matter how amazing later game might be, if early game is fraught with so much difficulty and boredome, I will not care to see it.

Now of course this is an early stage release and has a long way to go before it can be considered a full game. Perhaps in time as they fill it out it will improve. My suggestion, remove the whole walking mechanic altogether and let us run.