Recent reviews by Mr. English

A surprisingly addictive little side/vertical-scrolling shooter game that hearkens back to the classic days of Gradius and R-type. The powerup system works almost identically to Gradius III. Dozens (possibly hundreds) of obtainable ship upgrades, a good selection of base ships, and a decent variety of enemies makes this a good time-waster. For ten bucks, it's probably one of the better choices out there for shooter fans who don't want a game that's going to require a considerable investment of time and skill to get into. It's not a bullet-hell shooter, but it'll still challenge both casual and advanced players in its own way.

A brief pro/con breakdown:

Pros:
- MANY, many upgrades and unlockables that will encourage you to play through missions multiple times to try for the rarer weapons. Seriously, an absolutely insane amount of unlockable attachments and weapons. If you liked playing around on the loadout screen for R-type, after a handful of missions there are going to be times that it'll take hours before you even press the start button to begin a campaign.
- A good number of stages split up into 3 main routes (A-la the original SNES version of StarFox) ranging from easy to hard. Some of the stages offer a fairly steep difficulty curve, but for score junkies that can be a good thing.
- The backgrounds are well-drawn and the art is pretty decent for an indie shooter game. Not up to par with later installments of Touhou or B-tier console titles, but not hard to look at.
- The music is catchy and energetic.
- The game will occasionally surprise you with optional semi-secret missions that throw a real curveball at you by changing the mode (Like putting you in a hovertank instead of a spaceship for instance),
- The game occasionally varies stage mechanics, forcing you to adapt to new rules and environments, which greatly helps reduce the 'been there, done that' factor that many shmups tend to have.
- 3 different gamemodes (casual, normal, hardcore) that allow those of us who are used to bullet hell shooters to up the difficulty a bit.
- Multiplayer support lets you team up with other people, and provides a matchmaking system that lets you create public lobbies.
- Multiplayer mode lets you hurl an absolutely unprecedented amount of ordnance onto the screen.
- Component sorting system makes managing the absolutely absurd number of weapons and upgrades much easier.
- The developer has very clearly made this game a labor of love, and actively hunts down bugs, updates the game, and playtests. The devs are very open to community discussion, and actively participate when they can. Major bugs are quickly squished and patches put out to fix them.
- Constant and steady stream of new content.
- It has that absolutely badass purple laser from Raiden III.

Cons:
- Replayability is somewhat limited by the number and types of stages. Once you get beefed up, you'll find that the earlier stages get a bit stale.
- Grinding for parts can be irritating sometimes.
- The music, while decently composed and fairly catchy is somewhat limited and you'll find yourself substituting it for something else in fairly short order.
- The part/upgrade system can be somewhat overwhelming sometimes as you quickly become swamped with multiple components.
- Some of the optional alternate-mode scenarios are a bit glitchy sometimes.
- The later levels (especially on harder difficulties) can be overwhelming and in some cases nearly impossible with some weapon loadouts. (Whatever you do, don't enter the minefield stage with a massive spread weapon. Trust me, you'll regret it)
- The story is a bit thin at the moment, and some of the conversation text can be a bit janky sometimes.
- Boss battles can sometimes be a bit underwhelming for hardcore shmup fans.
- It also has the MUCH less badass yellow laser from Raiden Trad.

If they had the rights, the developers could well have called this Gradius Online and it would have been a very well received addition to the series. Yes, that's a compliment.

Clearly the developer loves this game very much. Often, you'll see indie developers throw out games like this as a way to try to snag some quick cash, but this is very obviously not the case here. Between the open communication process, transparency and absolutely relentless drive to add new content, I think that by the time this game makes its way out of Early Access, it'll be far more than just the sum of its parts. The gameplay is somewhat repetitive (as many shmups tend to be), but with enough variation and unique concepts to not quickly become stale. If I had to ask for any one specific thing, it'd be more additional levels and maybe a level editor; I think I'd probably lose more than a couple weeks of productivity if I had the option to submit/play new levels through the steam workshop.

I received my key through a steam-key giveaway, but I've paid twice as much as the going price of this game for a fraction of the content in the past.

Alright, I feel that since this game has received so many bad reviews from people complaining about bugs and content rollbacks, I should post a review summarizing my opinion of where the game stands right now and where I think it'll go.

Pros:

- Scenery, while clearly using a wide variety of Ark assets is actually quite beautiful even on medium settings. Some of it is absolutely gorgeous.
- The PVE survival aspect of the game never becomes trivial, leaving you feeling as though you really have been dropped into a hostile environment. Combat is usually more than just "Stand and stab until it dies".
- PVP combat is surprisingly engaging, requiring some forethought and preparation. While you can indeed wade into a fight 'guns blazing' and hope for success, it's not often the best choice. Melee combatants can combat roll through some slowing spells, interrupt their own movement tech with right-click special attacks and come at you from surprising angles.
- The building system uses a modular point-and-snap design that allows for both functional and attractive buildings. While the tileset changes for some of the pieces has been polarizing, the pieces still remain almost universally above par for almost all early access projects.
- Content updates are frequent and fairly extensive. New art assets are added on a weekly basis, sometimes more than once per week (although not all art assets are added immediately in the form of usable content) which implies a highly active development team.
- The magic system is easy to learn and not overcomplicated with internal mechanics. You have a limited number of uses of a spell before it breaks and requires repairing. By essentially making spells a type of consumable it theoretically places spellcasters and physical combatants on more or less the same playing field.
- There is no limitation other than your stat build on what you can use when it comes to magic and equipment, thereby allowing you a great deal of freedom in how you create your character.
- Taming is very similar to Ark, but tames creatures lack some of the oomph that the higher end dinos tend to have. The game seems to do its best to make you feel like the hero, rather than just a person riding a heroic dinosaur.
- While many of the game's glitches and exploits are negative, a few have led to emergent gameplay. For instance, firing a hook arrow into a goblin and then dragging it behind your mount can actually be pretty amusing.
- The PVP system gives you access to tools that theoretically ensure that you'll have at least 1/2 a day of warning before someone wanders in and starts kicking your door down to steal your stuff.
- The endgame content is HIGHLY nontrivial. The single current dungeon boss, and even his 'trash' leadup monsters, as well as monsters spawned by world events or meteor falls can and will wreck your day if you take them lightly. While possible, endgame content is endgame difficult.
- The game's current worldmap is reasonably sized and well planned out. There are plenty of good locations to start a base, and easily hundreds of options for any playstyle. Whether you want something scenic or defendable, there's always something out there.
- There are few restrictions on build locations beyond terrain layout. The game often allows you to build in or near NPC villages (but not the three main cities or any dungeons) with little restriction at the moment.
- Interface is tried and true, largely uncluttered and likely very familiar to most survival fans. Easy to learn for newcomers.
- Even during major updates, the developer leaves the decision to server-wipe up to the server owners, never enforcing a wipe date as of the posting of this review.
- You can ride a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unicorn.

Cons:
- Terrain is often glitchy, especially in locations where slabs of rock overlay large sections of mountain or hills. The meshing in some of these locations can allow you to fall through and become trapped, leaving your only recourse being a recall rune or suicide.
- While content does roll out very frequently, only MAJOR game changes tend to make it into the release and patch notes. This can be absolutely infuriating for anybody trying to develop community resources or guides for the game.
- Community management is verging on nonexistent. The steam forums lack developer interaction and if there's a community manager assigned to the Steam community, I have never seen or heard from that person.
- Frequent updates and a lack of enforced wipes can often result in your base being swallowed by terrain, sinking into the ocean, or being subsumed by a newly added dungeon entrance. While the developers have begun adding warning signs near 'volative' areas where changes are planned, minor map tweaks will still play havoc with your base placement any time terrain is altered nearby.
- Public servers are not ACTIVELY admin-monitored. This does not mean the developer does not notice hacking, exploiting, or griefing but rather chooses not to emply a community or company moderator to deal with it in realtime. This means that a less-than-honest individual can often exploit glitches or bugs to ruin your day and while they may be very likely to get banned for it eventually, you're equally likely to not be compensated for your loss.
- The 'faction' system currently feels under-used and somewhat trivial. Your choice makes little difference beyond where you start and only the human city has any unique vendors. Joining an opposing faction will make other factions 'aggressive' to you, but this really has no practical effect on your interaction unless you're RPing. You are freely allowed to attack and kill members of your own faction with no repercussions at this time.
- The inability for 'houses' (the ingame clan system) to recruit from outside its faction means that if you don't make arrangements with your friends beforehand you may find yourself remaking your character just so you can team up.
- While one-on-one and even group PVP combat is fast and brutal, PVP base raiding is currently VERY difficult, as few weapons or tamed creatures deal enough damage to even begin to dent top-tier structures. "Manor" tier structures alone could easily absorb hours of your creatures' attacks without even making your opponent begin to sweat. (This seems VERY likely to change in the future as balance becomes a more central focus)
- The decay timer on public servers (and by default on private ones) is quite low, even for top-tier structures. It's likely that unless someone else in your clan can log on to reset the timer, if you go on week's vacation you're going to come back to a pile of rubble. (NOTE: This only applies to the OFFICIAL servers. Private servers can set the timer to any interval they choose, or turn it off completely. The developer HAS said they are going to extend the public decay timers.)
- Modding is minimal at this time due to the early state of development.
- While the game can run well at low or medium settings on most gaming computers, high or very-high graphics settings will bring all but the most robust and powerful of PC systems to their knees.
- There is currently no way to transport a tamed goblin other than walking with it.
- The game tends to become VERY unstable on very high graphics settings, especially with nVidia cards.

The developer seems to be very focused on making a game that is fun, challenging and that minimizes the negative qualities of other survival games like offline raiding or uncontrolled power scaling. The game is VERY team-centric and is best played with several friends but just exploring the world can easily soak a few hours of your time. I suggest a private server for best results and the most fun.

THIS IS AN EARLY ACCESS GAME.
You are not paying for a COMPLETED game, you are supporting the developer and getting to play the game as it gets MADE.

It's glitchy right now but still fun. Keep an eye on this one.

So I went into Fragmented expecting more or less nothing. I've seen a lot of Ark and Rust-like games and they rarely bring anything new to the table. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually pretty enjoyable.

Pros:
-Crafting is reasonably complex, but not overly so.
-Resource farming isn't overly arduous, drops and locations are predictable and markable on the map.
-Ranged combat is decent, gunplay is smooth, responsive and quick.
-Heavy focus towards group/squad-based play.
-Building system is solid, with a reasonable variety of structure options of various types/appearances/purposes.
-Graphics are excellent for this stage of development.
-Survival aspects make themselves constantly known.
-There's no really bad choice when it comes to skill focus (except maybe melee).
-Raiding/pvp/base defense are reasonably balanced (but still skewed towards the defenders). You're not likely to lose your base in a 30 second offline raid.
-Game's pace is pretty well thought-out and progression is steady and rewarding no matter what style of gameplay you prefer.
-Developers are very open to feedback and discussion, actively engaging the community. (after reporting a bug at 8:00 AM EST, I received a reply from a developer in less than 15 minutes. Now that's service.)
-Monsters have some cool features like adaptive behavior (passive/aggressive/etc) based on who/what they kill and when/where/how often.
-Experimenting and testing new skills and content is fun and finding new uses for things is actually very enjoyable.

Cons:
-Some content isn't yet fully supported by the game at this point. Vehicles are temporarily disabled, and player pets don't have fully implemented AI (or so it seems, though they will defend your base).
-Gameplay is addictive at first, but slowly wears down into the endgame due to lack of endgame content.
-Raiding in PVP is exceptionally difficult right now, due to weapon damage against structures. (The devs have stated that this is a work in progress).
-Graphics are nice but some are clearly incomplete with placeholder textures. Certainly not what UE4 is capable of at its peak.
-Monsters are limited in type. There are currently about 5 different enemy types.
-Survival can be absolutely brutal sometimes in Normal mode where your items drop on death.
-There are still some fundamental bugs with the game (losing your armor on death, monster AI, etc)
-Currently a very small playerbase, especially on PVP servers where guilds are a central focus.
-Melee combat is lackluster. Ranged combat is fun against players, but repetitive against monsters.
-Monster combat AI is still very basic with even most boss monsters easily confused by terrain, other monsters, or shiny objects.
-Crafting, while well thought-out is quite kludgey still. You'll find yourself clicking the craft button a lot (or holding enter). (Update: It's been stated that this will be addressed very soon)
-No in-game voice chat (yet).

Overall, I like the way this game is going and I'm going to keep an eye on it as it progresses. I wholly endorse supporting these guys and my only concern for the welfare of this game is that the developers might burn themselves out from their rapid development process, or that it might simply get abandoned when "The Repopulation" makes its comeback. I don't feel that either of these scenarios are LIKELY, but these sorts of things are always a concern with any Early Access game. Regardless, it's got my vote.

Thumbs up, guys.

UPDATE:

I've played the game since this review, but with less frequency than when I first wrote it. I still feel that the game is going in a positive direction, but has a long journey ahead of itself. Such is the way with early access games. The development team still regularly updates (With fairly sizable updates) and I actually enjoy reading the feature lists weekly/bi-weekly. It seems to show a steady line of development towards a game that's enjoyable and playable.

To defend my position on this game, I want to note that this is NOT a throw-away account by any means (as some comments have suggested), nor am I in any way associated with the devs. I'm active on the forums for the game and I like that the devs seem to listen to the community. I only have one review, because this is the only game I -wanted- to review. If you read the review and still don't want to buy the game, then don't buy the game but I don't believe anything I said in my review is either misleading or inaccurate.

The game at this stage of development -is- flawed in many ways, but this is how early access games work. Starbound (which I also own) has been in development for 8x the time. Rust (which I also own and play) has a much better funded development team, and still updates with only equal frequency. At this stage in development, Rust Experimental only had the thompson, two biomes, woodpiles and rocks.

Keep in mind that with early access products you're not paying for a completed game, you're paying to SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS. If you feel, after playing this game, that it's not going the way you want and that the devs aren't listening to the community or developing the game, don't fund it... but I don't feel that this is the case here. Each update is slowly pushing the game further away from an ARK clone and towards something different and creative.

Everything starts somewhere.