mid at best one of xboxs worse games Grounded Review – 1/10: A Disappointing Survival Experience

Grounded had the potential to be an engaging and thrilling survival game, but unfortunately, it fails to deliver in almost every aspect. Despite its promising premise of tiny adventurers exploring a backyard, the execution is severely lacking.

Gameplay: The core survival mechanics of Grounded – crafting, gathering, and building – feel incredibly tedious and repetitive. Instead of providing a sense of progress, the game quickly becomes a monotonous grind where you’re constantly stuck gathering the same resources, making tools that quickly break, and struggling to survive against poorly designed AI enemies. The combat is clunky, with little depth or satisfaction in defeating the enemies, and the hit detection feels off.

World Design: While the idea of exploring a backyard from a tiny perspective is unique, the world itself feels lifeless and uninspired. The environments are repetitive, and after a short while, the sense of awe that the tiny scale may initially inspire is lost to the dull and empty landscapes. The backyard that once felt exciting becomes a series of uninspired locations that feel disconnected from the survival experience.

Multiplayer: The game’s cooperative mode, intended to be one of its strongest features, falls flat. Many players experience frustrating connection issues, poor server stability, and bugs that make multiplayer sessions more of a chore than an enjoyable experience. There’s no real incentive to keep playing in co-op once the initial novelty wears off, as the gameplay is still fundamentally flawed.

Graphics and Performance: While Grounded does have a unique art style, the overall performance leaves much to be desired. Frame rate issues, long load times, and frequent crashes make the experience frustrating. The game's visuals don't offer enough in terms of artistic appeal to make up for its technical flaws.

Story and Quests: The story in Grounded is almost non-existent, with a weak narrative that offers little to keep you invested. There’s a sense that the developers rushed to make a survival game with minimal story depth, leaving it feeling shallow and uninspiring. The quests, mostly fetch tasks, are mundane and fail to provide any real motivation to continue playing.

Bugs and Glitches: It’s hard to ignore the abundance of bugs and glitches that plague Grounded. From invisible walls to enemies getting stuck in terrain, the technical issues detract significantly from the overall experience. These bugs are not only annoying, but they often break the immersion and make the gameplay feel unpolished.

Verdict: Grounded fails to live up to its potential in nearly every area. What could have been an intriguing survival experience is bogged down by repetitive gameplay, lackluster world design, and numerous technical problems. The lack of a compelling story or motivation to keep playing means it’s difficult to recommend, especially considering the many other survival games on the market that offer a far more enjoyable and refined experience.

Overall, Grounded is a missed opportunity, and its faults outweigh any positive elements it may have had.

Rating: 1/10.