Recent reviews by CHaDOS (Gwylen)

A really enjoyable and captivating MMO from the mid 00's when lots of risky and 'out-there' MMO's were still being released.

This game is something very special. The music, setting and world building is all top notch and it's very easy to find yourself lost in the atmosphere, riding across the plateau towards your next mission or taking some time out to gather and craft. Fallen Earth has a huge playable area, I've only reached the first 2 sectors so far and there are more for me to discover and explore as I continue to level. Despite the huge draw distances and large playable space, the game never feels more empty than it should as a post apocalyptic wasteland. There's always a point of interest, mobs or items to scavenge, even in the far reaches of the sectors. 'Dungeons' or small areas are also done really well and I continue to be impressed every time I come across a bunker, cave or underground facility how seamlessly the game is able to transition from wide open plains to enclosed almost corridor-shooter-like situations without loading screens. The depth and scale of some underground areas in this game is really impressive. The gameplay loop is fun and Fallen Earths character build and crafting system feels really enjoyable and intuitive.

The community is small but friendly. It's an older game and has a few quirks and rough edges to it and in places it's showing its age, but none of this takes away from it overall being a unique and compelling post apocalyptic MMO experience that you can really immerse yourself into.

This game is wonderful and cosy. It has great writing and a brilliant cast of characters in a touching story with lots of puns! Just a lovely short game to get lost in for a few hours <3

This game is a lot of fun! A friend gifted it to me for xmas and I'm glad he did because I doubt I'd have ever stumbled across it on my own.

Positives

- Buttery smooth movement that feels polished and satisfying. Jumps, tricks and gaining momentum all feel like they have weight to them, this combined with the amount of speed you can gain with upgrades and the sheer amount of surfaces you can grind on or jump off makes for some very fulfilling and enjoyable gameplay! The maps are large and well built with a variety of ways to transverse to each location, more becoming available to you as you specialise your character into better grind/jump abilities.

- A great upgrade and build system. Progression in this game feels great! You start out with a basic character and at early levels with basic chips, scaling the city takes a lot of effort. As you gain levels, upgrade your chips and eventually unlock other characters it's something you are able to do without even thinking!

You can specialise your character using chips into 6 different areas (Speed, Jump, Strength, Energy, Hack and Grind) Your save file for the game uses a 'team' where you can create up to 5 characters on your file. This allows you to test out new characters (each have different base stats) as you unlock them and specialise different characters into different things. You can switch character instantly by pressing 'T' and the final two areas of the game are balanced around you having multiple characters specialised in different things.

- Lots of replayability. All races and missions have trophies associated with them so you can revisit them when your character is fully upgraded to try and get the highest tier of medal. These are well balanced so even with a maxed out character they won't be a walk in the park! Speaking of re running things, the game has a built in speed running option when starting a new game! It records your playtime without loading screens for those who want to compete for fastest completion.

- A great game for completionists. I've completed the story and got all the steam achievements but there's still so much more I could do in Hover if I wanted to! All areas in the game have a list of optional objectives that increase your teams rank and give you exp, it's shown in the upper right when entering the area, so completionists will find themselves with plenty to do! If those objectives aren't enough to keep you busy you can try and 100% all missions with the highest level trophy too.

- Mission Editor and Steam Workshop compatibility. The game lets you make your own courses and download others, leading to a more sandboxy style gameplay for those who have finished or aren't interested in the story.

- The community is friendly and the multiplayer capabilities are impressive. The game has a cross platform online mode that you can switch on or off pretty much instantly. If someone has already deployed the mission you wanted to do, you can switch back to offline mode with just the click of a button and then back whenever you are done. There is also a friends only mode that works with your steam friends list and the game is Discord Rich Presence supported. All missions can be run alongside or against other players and there are arenas where you can compete in game ball competitions against each other, it makes a great co-op game if you are looking to pick up something new with a couple of friends.

- The soundtrack, visuals and character designs are all fantastic!

Neutral

- The story is okay, if a little bit cheesy! It's a futuristic dystopian narrative about a planet where fun is no longer allowed and gamers are outlawed and have to revolt. The game has two endings and the regular one (while the missions leading up to it are some of the most fun in the game) can feel a little unsatisfying as it's not the true conclusion. The 'real' ending, which gives you the 'Revolution' achievement requires you to collect 206 'game girls' hidden around the game, it is quite grindy for an achievement, character unlock and a few extra lines of dialogue, but does give closure to the story. There is also a 'Codex' menu where you can collect extra lore tidbits to revisit like announcements from the dictator, messages between characters and tutorial or location information.

- The game seems to have some publisher issues, so by the sounds of it there will be no more official patches on steam or consoles(?) The game does feel polished and like a complete experience, but it's slightly sad to know there likely won't be any more official updates to it, as it's a game brimming with potential and it'd have been awesome to see more maps and missions one day. That being said, the Official Hover Discord does have an unofficial patch that you can download, which gives you access to more console commands like /real shade and unlocks more characters and pets.

- The game would benefit from more keybind options, eg. Being able to bind map or character to a key without having to go to the menu to open it.

Negatives

- Navigation can be difficult sometimes, especially in Haven and the Administration District where the maps are very vertical. The maps are split into zones but it can sometimes be difficult to tell exactly which part of the city is which zone, which makes completing the optional objectives harder than it should be.

- Outside the main story objectives (which are highlighted with bold text) it can be difficult to tell what each of the side missions is. The dialogue and mission title doesn't always tell you, so I often found myself having to start the mission, scan around to see whether it's a race/collection/game ball/catch up mission and then re-start it to not waste time. A better way of colour coding or sorting missions would be a huge positive in my opinion!

- The pet system can be annoying when first starting out. I often found myself running out of pet food and having to head back to HQ to convert unwanted chips into some. You don't obtain lots of it passively so it can be a pain to keep it happy.

Overall

TLDR: Hover is an absolute joy to play and If you like parkour or platforming games, I'd definitely recommend it.

Movement is fluid and traversing the maps is a whole bunch of fun, there are missions with a variety of difficulties that will appeal to most players, collections and completionist content for those who want it, player missions you can download and a mission editor to make your own, an online mode where you can compete with or help others and a robust build system and plenty of characters to unlock. I grew up loving the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, so if you're a fan of those, the Jet Set Radio games, or you just really like playing Lucio in Overwatch you'll likely love this game!

This is a great little pack of in-game items that would prove useful to existing players and new players alike! :)

I've spent a lot of time in this game recently, met some amazing people through the small but tight knit Otherland MMO community. I've enjoyed every second of my time exploring this strange and unique world and I'm very glad and appreciative to the devs for keeping the servers maintained and the game running despite the low player count, so picking up the DLC packs was a nice way to give a little back.

The items from this pack are delivered to you immediately via in-game mail. The credits are account wide but the items become soulbound to whichever character retrieves them, so I advise thinking a little about who you'd like to use them on before you remove them from your mail. Extra inventory space is always a huge plus and the metamorph voucher opens up a lot of great character customisation options! The credits can be used to pick up costume items, boosters or housing additions from the vanity store :) Overall it's a nice way to support the game and get some useful items for exploring Otherland back in return!

A beautifully haunting and atmospheric story driven game. Deals with some incredibly heavy topics and themes in a realistic yet delicate way and will probably make you cry at least once. The game is about bringing closure to the two main characters by interacting with memories, finding items, speaking to others in the town and solving puzzles to unravel the mystery of what really happened in the weeks leading to their mothers death.

The world building, voice acting and character interactions are all top notch, the town and the people in it feel real and believable. The pacing feels a little slow at the start but quickly ramps up, bringing the mystery and intrigue with it and making it hard to put down! The puzzles are interesting, especially later in the game. The Book of Goblins is a really nice touch, especially as the story continues to unravel and you learn more about the people each character within the book represents. When you complete the first puzzle using it it just seems like a children's book but later on in the story you see how much weight it holds within the main story, it's a nice touch and not something you see often in games! Tell Me Why has almost as many heartwarming moments as it does heartbreaking, the storytelling is very intimate and it's hard not to get attached to the characters and invested in their stories.

If you like narrative driven games, especially if you've enjoyed DONTNOD's previous work, I recommend trying out this one!

I don’t often write reviews on steam, but there’s such a sea of Negative reviews for Otherland, I figure it’s worth putting in my two cents for people who are deciding whether to pick it up or not.

To begin, yes, there are absolutely issues with Otherland. The game still has a lot of bugs and some issues with combat and it’s unclear whether it’s going to get any further development. This review is of the game as it stands right now (though the game has a massive amount of potential with some more resources and work put into it).

Despite these issues Otherland is a truly unique and captivating MMO and I absolutely feel it’s worth overlooking the problems with it just to experience the incredible atmosphere, environment design and beautifully haunting worlds that the game has to offer. I’ve poured a lot of time into this game over the past month, reached max level and completed the story. I have played a lot of MMO’s over the years and the journey Otherland takes you on through it’s simulated worlds has easily been one of the most interesting and memorable for me. I’ve not read the books (but now plan to) but the source material for a start is so fitting for a MMO and really makes it stand out.

The worlds in Otherland are unique, visually stunning and all have incredible attention to detail (check out my screenshots if you want to see some of the environments explored through with the story)

This is a game where simulated realities exist as part of the lore. You’ve got 8squared, a simulated chess game that spiraled out of control to become a living and breathing medieval world where the white and red armies (based on chess pieces) war endlessly and giant chess pieces float ominously above everything. You’ve got Mars, which is one of the most striking zones I think I’ve ever seen in a game, the red planet, designed with a mixture of middle eastern, steam punk and victorian England influences. There’s many other simulations all with their own unique themes to them and a look closer at any of these reveals hints that they’re not real. In a barbarian campground in a seemingly normal Medieval world, a closer look at the fire reveals binary code rising up with the flames, looking closer at water in 8squared reveals that what looks like ripples in the distance is actually code, skimming across the surface. NPC’s of these worlds appear to be normal but an occasional surface glitch shows their true nature as digital beings of these simulations. The story of Otherland transverses these themes well, dealing with simulations that are collapsing, firewalls, changing your code and many other topics perfect for a sci-fi mmo.

This is a hub based MMO and the hub area, Lambda mall is a very well realised representation of a futuristic Cyberpunk City. The city has just about every shop you’d need, each with their own unique style and music and around the city are bars and clubs for socializing, ranging from a chill, smooth jazz bar to an underground themed warehouse with techno music, an irish pub and everything inbetween! Beneath the city is the Lantern district, a beautiful market area where you can buy crafting schematics and lower than that, the bad sector, the unregulated depths of the city where gangs and hackers maintain control. The soundtrack and ambience throughout the game is immersive, varied and beautiful.

Character customisation in this game is great, there's a huge amount of armor and weapon skins to collect crafting schematics for, a costume system (kind of like a transmog system, but you craft costume pieces to go over your armor) and a dye system. You can choose practically any body type you want and there are a decent amount of hair styles/tattoos/hair colours and other customisation options, both free and for the premium currency.

Quests are very old school MMO feeling, there is more variety later in the game but most typically you’re asked to kill x, gather x, defend from x waves or escort NPC’s. The quest line is mostly linear with a few optional side quests or hidden quests here and there. I don’t feel like either of these is a negative but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. The player base is very small for a MMO, to get the most out of the game I’d recommend joining the official discord or find a clan in-game, as due to the massive size of the game and the small playerbase, it’s rare to run into other players.

To sum this review up, If you’re curious, try it out! It’s free to play, so you’ve got nothing to lose by installing it and giving it a whirl. It’s not clear how much longer this game has online, so give it a try while you still can, the experience is absolutely worth it! :)

Short, but beautiful :) I loved 'To the Moon' and this game certainly has the same kind of heart and emotional depth to it, despite not having words. Really looking forward to more from this developer.

Gorgeous, Poignant and Atmospheric, story driven game :) Made me laugh, made me cry, it's beautifully crafted, well written and I'd reccomend it to anyone!

A fantastic sandbox game with thousands of hours of content. If there's one game everyone should have in their Steam library, Terraria is it! This game was gifted to me by a friend for my 17th birthday. I've got hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of it since then, worked on some fun builds, ran a server for a while and used it as a way to continue to connect with old friends across long distances over the years!

I own it on multiple of platforms now and it's always cool to see that there is still love being poured into it 10 years and multiple 'final updates' later! Definitely a Labor of Love :)