Recent reviews by Eldy

If dipping your private parts into a vat of liquid nitrogen and shattering them with a sledge hammer was a game, this would be it.

If dipping your private parts into a vat of liquid nitrogen and shattering them with a sledge hammer was a game, this would be it.

A marvelous combination of Half Life 1, survival and SCP, Abiotic Factor has made a stunning entrance with its early access debut. The tutorial is quick and to the point, covering most of what you'll need just to get into the facility and activate your inner mungo, all without being too hand holdy or detailed. There's plenty of room for explorations and experimentation, learning as you go along!

Character creation and the skill trees feel a tad unpolished, the means of farming some skills being rather tedious, if not outright demanding. You'll passively cap out accuracy/reloading skills just by combat, but to do the same with the strength skill you'll spend hours running around the facility at max encumbrance just to eek out every bit of exp you can get. As an extra kicker, not all rewards are equal or spread out in a meaningful way. I hope this is something the devs touch upon in future iterations to bring all play styles in line in terms of tedium and reward.

The environment in Abiotic Factor is astounding, especially in the Office Sectors and Manufacturing West- two zones far more polished than the current finale in the Containment Wing. At first the game leans heavily on inspiration from the original Half-Life, aliens popping up in the facility, chaos, more questions than answers. But, as you progress through the office and get your bearings, you set out into manufacturing with an objective in mind and the tools to execute it. Stepping up to heavier materials and actual firearms, the sense of progression is rather magical. The beautiful, silky icing on top of this cake is the shortcut system opening up ways to previous sectors without a whole lot of footwork. The trams, unlocked doors, new tools all made a vast world feel interconnected and approachable.

Then, we reach the Containment Sector. Things pivot from a half-life feel to an SCP focus, various specimens held in containment ranging from aliens we've encountered before, to a table that really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pisses me off, and a tub of blood (That really should be updated to work. Please? maybe?). There's certainly an air of mystery, but so much of the lore that's handed off to you is just that: empty lore. They do not match the in game mechanics, if they tie into mechanics at all. It's just fluff and it creates a sort of disconnect.

Furthermore, resource acquisition in this third leg of the game takes a dramatic change. Instead of harvesting resources from furniture or portal worlds or the like it becomes a trading mini-game. Take some of the stuff you got back in manufacturing west and trade it into this material needed for progression. The backtracking required was not too fun. If the goal was to make the facility feel more cohesive and add a need to revisit earlier sections, this is not the way to go about it.

<<SPOILER AHEAD, SKIP IF YOU CARE, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED>>

This gets extra frustrating with the tie in of IS-0091, the "Leyak". A very fun first encounter as he shows up, especially in multiplayer where the lore is consistent in how he only appears to one person at a time, which made for some spooky memorable encounters. But, that's about where the praise ends for this specimen. Like the earlier mention of inconsistent lore, the Leyak suffers from it just as much as the other entities. The logs state it reappears every 3-4 hours (It doesn't), its spawning seems too random to track in any tangible way. Which is rather unlucky for us, because we need to hit this floating squid man with x-rays to get his essence which are mandatory for progression.

He'll just show up whenever he feels like it. Can't check your watch and anticipate him, just have to remain vigilant at all times. And I gotta say, RNG progression towards the end of this venture was a big mood killer. Interest fell off heavily at this point in the game. It was further exacerbated by the fact that my friend accidentally destroyed the free Greyeb seed we got while trying to move our planter, thus removing any chance of stable baiting for the Leyak. A separate issue, but one that falls to both user error and on the devs.

Lower the randomness, update the logs to match its actual spawning patterns, don't have the only bad-luck prevention method capable of accidental destruction.

<<SPOILER ABOVE, THIS IS THE END OF THE SPOILER WARNING, YOU ARE SAFE TO READ BELOW>>

*Deep breath*

Alright we made it through to the closing notes. Abiotic Factor does have some pretty critical bugs that still need to be addressed, but it's an early access title. So far any inconvenience has been fixed with a relog/relaunch of the game, and nothing close to a soft lock or crash. There's tons of promise for this title, and I'm super excited to see where it goes! Also? The siren as the end of early access might be the most beautiful way I've seen the lack of a full ending handled, so bravo Deep Field Games!

tl;dr recap:

• Incredible early game, containment wing needs polish
• Skills need to be brought in line to not be more tedious than one another while sharing mutually beneficial reward in their respective area.
• If you're going to go the SCP route, at least make the entities follow the lore and make for exciting encounters throughout the facility! Otherwise a table is just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ piece of ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ass stupid table ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ god ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damn it what were you thinking???
• Memorable and fun experience so far, and certainly worth the money.

Slay the Spire is a deck builder game in which you slay the spire. You might be wondering- Eldy, how do we kill something that isn't considered living to begin with? Great question! You see, at the heart of the Spire lies, wait for it, an actual living, beating, heart. Why are we slaying it? Because that's bad. If you have an immortal beating heart in your basement, I've got some bad news and recommend you contract your local pest control service. With full on mod support, I highly recommend Downfall to anyone who already owns this product. Heck, I even recommend it to new buyers once they dip their feet in and learn the universal basics like vulnerable, weakness, fortify, retain, and all the rest.

Anyway, I get paid by the hour so this review was paid for by my company. Now I gotta get back to it and, slay the spire.

As a furry, I can't recommend this one. It broke my vulpes mod without adding a whole lot to replace it. Really, the only selling point I can make for this DLC is that sometimes an 8 year old will come to raid your settlement and get torn to shreds by a hungry bear. It's grim out here in the Rim, but it used to be fluffy.

Introducing traditions and religion to the social experiment known as Rimworld was an interesting concept- one that panned out throbbingly well! Remember that rat pit you made that hit critical mass because the rats are breeding too rapidly that they're starving to death in troves?? Now it can lead to mass colonial collapse as the rat was your CHOSEN ANIMAL OF GOD and their perishing causes everyone to have a mental breakdown. The doctor just killed our priest- like. It's getting out of hand here, please send h-

Rimworld - Royalty is a continued social experiment where casual racism, social castes, and general snobbery enter the arena of this ♥♥♥♥ show of a survival title. Giving psychic powers, military aid, and wealth to sadistic mungo's who ♥♥♥♥ where they eat was probably a questionable choice- but the god emperor probably thinks its funny and so do I! Now with even more options to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ person, Rimworld - Royalty ups the ante of the original title in a very thematic experience.

Rimworld is a social experiment in which the player is given a choice between morally questionably decisions, and survival. Maybe you didn't need to make a rat pit to dump bodies to save time on digging graves. Maybe you didn't need to abandon Susie to those raiders just because she's a pyromaniac. Maybe you didn't have to cut off the limbs of those prisoners and send them out into the world with no chance of survival.

Really, that's for god to decide! Your only goal is to survive by any means- and in this game? The more reprehensible you are, the better your odds.

After the poor decision for Orcs Must Die! as a series to release a Moba game in an overly saturated market dominated as such other titles as Defense of the Ancients 2, League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Smite and Smite 2, Robot Into Trainment has decided to return to the series proper roots. The visceral, action-packed tower defense hack and slash hybrid is back and better than ever before. With crisp, new HD graphics, you really feel like the Orcs Must Die! 3. The traps, heroes, and arsenal of weapons given to you make for the greatest orc slaying experience to be had in years, complimented by enjoyably written characters in an equally interesting world. If you hate greenskins as much as I do, this title is probably right up your alley! And if you don't, believe me, you can learn to hate in this day and age!

after the latest patch, steam now launches the paradox launcher which launches across the obelisk.

Before that you didnt need extra paradox bloatware

Edit: It also shows you ads and sells your data, nice!