Recent reviews by Javin

The game is effectively abandonware. Which is a shame, since I'm a huge fan of Space Engineers. However after 2 1/2 years, a minor bugfix update is all that has taken place, so the game has stagnated in an entirely unfinished state. Sad. I was so looking forward to it.

Great game. A verbal note from the developer at the credits was a very nice touch. It'd be neat if more games did that.

I will say, the last level should be a platformer game all on its own. Vaguely "Noita"-ish, but good fun. I felt like just when we learned a new mechanic, and a good game shift happened, it was over. Still, worth the money and time if you enjoyed the other creeper games.

As someone who has logged over 2000 hours in the original KSP (I know, it's bad) I came into KSP 2 with some very specific expectations. Yes, they have promised things like multiplayer in the future, but that's a huge lift and not one I would expect any time soon. But what I would expect would be things like the following: A more polished interface, keeping the old things that worked (overall R&D systems, way that stages are separated, etc.) and fix those that don't (the TOO minimal interface while flying, the clunky mission system, and the difficulty in building complex vessels).

Thus far, only minutes into it, and already on my first orbit, I can say that I'm VERY happy with what KSP2 is looking like. If you're wanting a completely different game, or multiplayer is a deal breaker for you, this isn't the game for you. If you're wanting KSP with some nice graphical upgrades, and some needed mechanics overhauls, you're going to love this. I didn't jump into this until after the science update, so perhaps that's the core reason people have for disliking it, but so far, this is everything I would expect from a second generation of KSP. I can't wait to see what they continue to add in early access!

This game is a shameless cash-grab. Following the same "free-to-play" pattern of most "click-then-wait" games like "clash of clans" and "boom beach" the whole premise is that it gets you hooked into the "sunk cost fallacy" by making the game semi entertaining up front, but quickly slowing things down to a crawl to the point that you're no longer actually playing the game. 99% of your time is spent waiting. This is where the monetization comes in. You could very easily blow through a few hundred bucks without even getting to mid-game.

Fortunately, on PC, you can use a save editor to change the amount of "nuka cola" (the pay-to-speed-up mechanism) and the lunchboxes (the gambling-loot mechanism) and then speed things along at a normal pace. It's then that you'll realize that there's no real "game" here. The "quest" minigames are decent enough, as you explore through simple wasteland locations, but that's the extent of it.

Where it become REALLY obvious that they don't expect you to actually play the game without shelling out tons of cash is when you get into late game. After you've spent insane amounts of time and real-world cash to level up your crafting room to make legendary weapons, then created enough storage to collect all the stuff to make them, then equipped the necessary dwellers with the necessary pets to reduce the time/costs to craft them, you've at this point either spent hundreds of dollars, or months of time to get to this point. To create a single weapon that's no better than what you could have gotten from a gamble-box. And then you start the crafting.

12 days. No, that is not 12 in-game days. That is 12 real-life days of waiting for this weapon to be built, after all the work it took to get here. Alternately, you can purchase with real-world cash the 150+ nuka-colas necessary to speed up production.

Just don't bother installing this game. It's one of the worst pay-to-win games I've seen to date.

As a huge fan of the Overcooked series, I really, REALLY wanted to love this game.

And at first, my wife and I did. The first few worlds, you very much get that feeling that this is going to be "Overcooked" in VR, and it's a lot of fun trying to 3 star all the levels.

Unfortunately, then you realize that this one, single mechanic is the entire game. Forever. Once you've added the concept of washing plates and grilling food, there's not a whole lot that's going to change for the rest of the game. Sure the "recipes" may change, but they're literally nothing but the same mechanic just with different graphics. Every ingredient in the game may or may not be grilled. Every "sandwich" starts with a piece of bread. Every "sandwich" requires you to stack items on it. Forever.

There are VERY minor changes in the game as you go (rabbits need to be fed faster, werewolves eat large sandwiches, raccoons steal items from other sandwiches, cats need 'perfect' sandwiches, etc.) but other than that, there's not a whole lot going on here.

We realized almost immediately that as soon as you get the "knife boosting" potion (very early) you're going to literally have to use that every time, meaning the second potion slot HAS to be reserved for whatever 'challenge' you need to complete for that round. Then when you realize that every new knife, cutting board, or fridge you earn is nothing but a skin that does nothing to change the mechanics, that's when the grind of the game becomes really obvious.

This has an insane amount of potential, and created by the same studio that brought us Angry Birds, the odds that it'll have a sequel are pretty high. Here's what we need to see in future iterations:

- Different foods. Why does it always have to be sandwiches?
- Different cooking styles. Give us different chef stations. Sometimes we have to steam food, other times grill, other times boil, etc.
- Different challenges. Doesn't always need to be a lazy susan. What if only one chef can serve? What if there's no conveyor between chefs requiring them to throw foods back and forth to each other? What if each level has a unique layout requiring them to figure out a different mechanic to solve it? What if some chefs don't have knives and have to spend their time assembling and serving while the others prep? There's an absolute TON that could be (and should have been) done here.

The graphics are beautiful, with a great style. The VR mechanics are passable (nothing more frustrating than chopping an item only to have it glitch and fly off the table, or disappear entirely when you're in a pinch). The VR tracking is "okay" (the knives are held at an awkward angle. Allow for players to adjust the angle to suit their wrists.) But where the game really hurts the most is in the replayability, or lack thereof. Once you've gotten through the first 3-4 worlds, it just becomes so repetitive it feels like "work" instead of a game.

This game isn't outright BAD, per-se. It's just so... Dated. Even for a game released in 2019.

The basic game mechanics are there: Mildly tweak a mech, go out, shoot other mechs. That's it. That's the entire game right there.

You can't "build" your own mechs in any meaningful sense. You have a mech that has a slot that can take medium lasers? You can put medium lasers in that slot. That's it. That's the extent of the customization. I mean, you could also opt not to put a laser in at all, so there's that. Even the varying levels of medium lasers you can purchase are so insanely similar that a low level medum laser and a legendary level medium laser only differ like by 10%. It's pointless to "customize" your mechs at all. The same goes for every slot in the game. This mech only takes level IV jump jets, but you've stocked up on level V jump jets? Tough. "Ballistics" slot? Oh, you mean machine gun slot since about the only thing that can be put there is a machine gun, since every other ballistics weapon weighs 10 tons and the mech's loadouts are so stringent that you can't "afford" a 10 ton item.

Why can't we build our own mechs? Even small indy games have made this possible by now. Choose a chassis, buy different arms/legs/etc., dump money into heavier engines to allow it to carry more weight, stronger frames to allow for more armor, etc? Nope. None of that. You get the mech you get, you put on the obvious weaponry, and if you want to customize, choose from one of the 10 paint schemes. That's it.

The actual missions are absolutely no different: "Assassination - Go to the locations and kill mechs." "Defense - Go to the location and kill mechs." "Destruction - Go to the location and kill mechs... AND BUILDINGS." The assassination one is particularly annoying, as the "procedural" nature of the mission is that there will be 3-4 random locations that your target or targets may be located at. And no matter WHAT order you search those locations in, the target or targets will ALWAYS be at the last location. Always. Every single mission is the same. Shoot tanks. Shoot mechs. Repeat. After 22 hours, I just couldn't handle the repetition any more.

Then there's the acquisition of new mechs. With this "salvage" system, you can rarely pick up a new mech when a battle is over, however, there's never really a reason to after early game, other than to sell it for a few more credits. Once you get 4 decent legendary or rare mechs, your acquisition of new mechs (and even new equipment by that point) is mostly pointless. They may as well just give you the money equivalent at that point instead of giving you the hassle of now having to go and sell it in a shop. Again, the mechs have no unique, and especially, no interchangeable parts.

I could talk about the "storyline" but there's a reason I use quotes there. It's non-existent. The entire storyline is nothing but occasionally talking to an NPC who verbally gives you an update before giving you a mission that has you... Get this... Go out and kill mechs.

The game IS graphically beautiful, so it's got that going for it, but even there there's weird little things that break the immersion. For instance, if you switch your view from in-cockpit to 3rd person, the speed that your mech takes steps changes dramatically. I assume this was done to keep players from getting motion sick while inside the cockpit (there's a significant "sway" when the mech steps, and it's much slower) and then making it visually look correct when outside of the cockpit (the steps are almost twice as fast) but it's just jarring. It's just not very enjoyable.

Earlier mech games (not necessarily mechwarrior) even from the 90's had much more interesting gameplay. Some would allow you to EMP grenade a foe, ejecting the pilot from their mech, and allowing you to jump out of your own mech, get into a shootout with the other pilot using your own mech's foot for cover, then run and jump into THEIR mech, which could then be used to disguise yourself as the enemy. Absolutely NOTHING of the sort in this game - not even close. And that game was from 20+ years ago!

Tons of potential here, but totally wasted on a cookie-cutter game that has gameplay that's a step backwards, not forwards.

Okay, imagine if RimWorld, and a 3D engine met, fell in love with each other, and had a baby. But one day their marriage fell apart, because the 3D engine realizes that the baby looks too much like Stronghold 2 to be his.

That's what this game is.

The influences of RimWorld here are undeniable, from the interfaces to the mechanics, but it just WORKS as a completely separate game. I'll definitely still be playing RimWorld, but I'll also be racking up as many hours in this.

Then, if you're like me and were also a huge Stronghold 2 fan, with its medieval setting, and ability to build multi-story castles, you're going to find yourself with the Stronghold 2 itch being scratched as well. It's actually such a good match I'm surprised nobody thought to take the RimWorld mechanics and build a Stronghold-esque spin-off sooner.

In short, if you like RimWorld, and you like Medieval colony builders, you're going to LOVE this.

I want to tell you I love this game. I sincerely do. At the time of writing this, I have almost 700 hours logged in the game. But the developers for the past years have made it clear that they have exactly ZERO interest in anything even remotely resembling optimization. The .UMAP files appear to be unoptimized meaning they're roughly 100 megs each, and there are THOUSANDS of them.

For what ARK contains, there's just no excuse. It's a great game, but the volume of content vs. the size on the harddrive just doesn't make sense.

Currently, I have an SSD dedicated just to ARK. Not because I want to, but because it is currently 180 gigs and growing. This is more than 10x the size of large AAA titles.

It's a fun game. It's pretty enough (a good bit of graphical glitches still, particularly in the lighting. It's virtually unplayable if you don't turn off "bloom" with no way to modify the strength of it.) There's plenty of bugs that haven't been addressed (Dinos/players glitching through walls, dinos being able to attack through walls that they can clip through, etc.) but it would all be forgivable if the thing wasn't creeping up on a QUARTER OF A TERABYTE of harddrive space.

If you have a computer you can dedicate to Ark, and Ark alone, go for it. Otherwise, wait until the devs decide that optimization becomes a priority.

If you don't regularly uninstall and reinstall this massive game, it will continue to grow on your harddrive.

What a surprisingly fun game! It's your standard 2D builder, along the lines of Terraria or Starbound, except this one is more focused on actually accomplishing a mission (eg: build a ship to escape the planet) and less on the actual building a base aspect. Indeed, once you have a simple base built and protected, there's little you need to do to modify it for the rest of the game.

The game has a good progression pace, and an interesting mechanic where species that you attack will come to find you and attack you at night. So you'll find yourself camping out at your base and doing your upgrades and building while your defenses take care of them at night.

You have to steadily upgrade your gear as you go deeper, and eventually fight the four world bosses to accomplish your goals.

It's not the scale of Starbound or Terraria, but for the price, I still really enjoyed it. I would recommend giving it a shot.

Unbelievable...

So to start, my general rule is that a game should give me about an hour of play time for every 50 cents spent. Thus, I should get a minimum of 80 hours from a $40 game. At $6, and two hours of play time, it would seem I should be disappointed, but I absolutely was not. Include the fact that my wife played alongside me, and the game took 2 hours, that's 4 hours of play time. Additionally, the game has no replayability (unless I suppose someone wanted to do a speed run?) so that 4 hours is all you're going to get. BUT IT WAS SO, SO VERY WORTH IT. My wife and I both had huge grins on our faces, and hours later are still saying, "That was SUCH a cool game!"

I can't tell you much about it as nearly anything I say will be a spoiler. It's just an experience you have to have for yourself, and at this price point, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't get it, and play with a friend.

The game is coop in a way I've never seen before. No client/hosts, no need to connect via the internet. I've never seen a game crafted like this. You both log into the game separately, and each choose a different player (Player 1 vs. Player 2). Each player has a unique experience, and both players have to work together to solve the puzzles to advance through the game.

The best description I could give is that it's like a digital escape room, but without the added stress of a timer ticking down. This allows you to enjoy the beauty of the art, while giving the puzzles a good amount of thought. The puzzles themselves are VERY well thought out, with every puzzle making perfectly logical sense, and at not one single point in the game did I feel like the artist had taken the "cheating" way out of artificially making the puzzles "harder" by just changing the rules, or making a "puzzle" some obscure guessing game. Many real-world escape rooms make this mistake even.

However the puzzles in this game were perfectly constructed, zero cheats, and ramped up in difficulty at exactly the right pace. It was just... flat... FUN.

Even as I write this, my wife and I are talking about how we desperately hope this team continues to crank out tons of these in the future. Even if the price were bumped up to $10 per, we would absolutely purchase every single one.