Recent reviews by TomPeregrin

Fantastic game with varying difficulty from Story based right through to very hard combat based. I played it right through on PS4, now glad to be doing the same several years later on PC

To me, this game is a mix of Horizon Zero Dawn and Medieval Dynasty, with a bit of classic Minecraft thrown in for good measure. I read a lot of reviews, and a few were saying things like "not much content, I completed the main story line in 40h," but those reviewers also said they didn't explore the side quests much. I've just reached 40h, and I'm still in the Springlands (starting) biome - just about to venture forth into the second main biome. So really, there is plenty of content, and I think the devs have done a really good job.

I've encountered only a couple of bugs. Now and then items disappear from my backpack - especially lockpicks. I've crafted a few, gone to the place I need them and find they're not there any more, but my raw materials are also gone. I once found a way through a mountain range which was a hole in the wall from one direction but not the other. I've done that twice now. But hey, it is early access.

There are a couple of improvements I'm submitting to the devs, but I'm not a highly critical player - I find games that interest me and play them for enjoyment. I highly recommend this game even in its Early Access state - will be interesting to see what comes next!

I feel like this could be a good game, but I've tried it twice now and just can't get past the most IMMENSE hole - buying something. The totally open, free market economy sounds like a good idea, and maybe it could be if enough people are playing... Instead, it is like this:

"You go down to the local corner store to buy some milk for your breakfast. At the store, the storekeeper gives you a list of all the things that are manufactured anywhere in the world. Then you need to refine the list to find all the places in the world where people produce milk, and what they are selling it for at the moment. You can either choose based on price or location. So I might be able to buy expensive milk in the next city, or I might need to fly halfway across the world to buy milk for a price I'm willing to accept."

This is EVE Online. The list of ALL possible items is shown at every market, but not the things that are actually available at that market. The chances of buying anything you need at that particular market are slim. Even for basic commodities, like ammo for your ship - the closest location for me to buy ammo was 17 jumps away from where I currently was.

That led me to my second biggest gripe. You can set your route, but you have to manually select each jump gate. Even though the game has highlighted your next gate, it can't actually automate those jumps for you. So those 17 jumps to go and buy ammo for my gun, translates into 17x when I have to manually select each jump gate by doing this awkward right-click on the gate to select jump, often while the list length changes as ships jump in or out of the system and you are suddenly not certain whether you right-clicked on the correct jump gate. I would have expected that for a massive universe such as this (17 jumps to buy ammo), the nav computer would automatically jump through each system, (sure, leaving you with the option to break the route if you wanted...)

My 3rd biggest gripe (hinted at above) is the user interface. The first time I played this was on a 1m wide curved screen (loaned to me). The graphics were awesome, but the UI was so small it made my head ache. Second time around, and on my usual 23" widescreen monitor, I found out how to change the viewing size of the UI, which basically zooms up the size and now windows don't fit in my viewable area, because there is way (and I mean WAY WAY) too much information. Let's say you're looking to buy a new gun for your ship. Right-click on the item in the market, and click Show Info. A pop-up appears that has maybe 3 or 4 long, very wordy paragraphs about the item, of which maybe 1 sentence is helpful. Also on the pop-up is about 5 or 6 other tabs, all with different information in minute detail about this particular gun. Lets say I fly across half the known universe to buy the gun at a price I'm willing to pay. Finally I get the chance to fit it to my ship - it is only at this point that the fitting UI says this gun won't work on my ship. It is quite possible that I just didn't read the right part of the info pop-up, but there is soooo much unnecessary, extraneous, pompous, verbose language, and statistics (damn statistics) to wade through that it is very easy to miss the salient information about the item. (Believe me when I say that the order of language in these item descriptions is even higher that that sentence!)

Fourthly, there is no doubt that this is pay to win. They say it isn't, but it really is. They say you can upskill without paying, and that is true but only up to a point. If you stay at Alpha level (free), then you have to log in every day to select the next skills you want to train in - you can only select skills for 24h in advance. And there are many skills you can't select at alpha level - you need to pay to upgrade to Omega level to train in those. When you start looking at the price of upgrades, this game is very expensive. And they are prone to spamming your inbox with special (or not so special) deals...

The Steam Charts tells an interesting story. (See: https://steamcharts.com/app/8500#1y) For a game that has been around since 2012, it has never had more than 10,229 peak players in a month, and the average has never gone above 5,720. There's typically been 450 players on line when I play, and given the size of the EVE universe it is nearly impossible that I might ever see one of them. The learning curve is massive, there are huge problems with information overload. I suspect this game might suit people who are very details-focused, but its not for me.

There's a lot to do and learn here, and I've only just started. Like many have said below, there's a steep learning curve. I started as a medic or engineer, because then you have an excuse to stay behind other players while you try and work out what's going on. From about 30h play time I really started to make progress.

Waste of money even at $4 on sale. Missions don't give enough information at the start to allow you to know if you want (or even can) complete them. E.g. I accepted a gladiator challenge, and only after that found I don't have the ships needed. Instant fail. Or enemy suddenly produces a mega-weapon and wipes me out even though he is outnumbered 3-1. When your flagship dies it is game over, so rinse and repeat ... except the map is different every time so you can never learn from your mistakes.

Note that no-one who has reviewed this game in the last 3 years has even played 10h - that should give you a warning...

A bit simplistic, AI for battles is way too easy. But it's fun if you don't expect too much out of it.

Good co-op first person shooter with good progression and customisation.

Great RTS game, challenging and intuitive. Not worth full price any more - I completed the whole campaign on normal difficulty in 15 hours, and there is virtually no multiplayer community. Well worth it at a 75% discount though.

Great take on the puzzle game. Get all your sheep (or as many as you can) home safely. Your sheep are needed to operate levers and switches - get it wrong and they die.

To my mind, one of the best space strategy games around. In PvP games, it is not always clear whether it is better to attack, or defend, or win an objective with your team, or go solo and sneak behind enemy lines while they take the rest of your team on head-to-head.

With more than 30 ships roughly fitting into nine ship types - light, medium and heavy in each of attack, defense and support - you can select the ship that suits your game style, assemble a crew to maximise the skills you require, and train them up with implants which increase their core skills.

Also has Quick Play and PvE modes where you are teamed up with bots to fill in the gaps. Great way to learn new ships before going PvP.

Active community forums and great developer feedback.