Recent reviews by Marcedarc

Summary: Aesthetically pleasing game with quite some content for Early Access!

About content
This game might be in Early Access but it already has content to captivate people for hours. You will be guided through the essentials of the game by Tutorial Missions that you can deactivate at any moment. Once you're done with those, it becomes clear what you can do next. There is a clear story behind what you're doing so especially for an Early Access game it already feels nicely flavoured.

Bugs
This game is still Early Access, so bugs are expected. However, I have yet to encounter any. There is an in-game bug report system that can be used if you actually encounter a bug.

The juicy aesthetics
I have to say, this game understands how to set the scene effectively. I could just have the game running in the background for the relaxing thematic music alone. At the same time I am quite fond of the visuals too. The game sports a voxel-style futuristic athmosphere with very nice shading and color choices. The lighting also achieved a very good balance so it pops where it needs to while not overwhelming me.

I would really like to see a little more content however. There are hints throughout the game that suggest more planned features and content, so given it's still in Early Access, I will patiently wait and anxiously follow this title's progress.

If you're looking for a relaxing, comparably easy city builder, this might be for you.

For an Early Access, it already has lots of content to explore!

However, as the Developers point out themselves repeatedly, I do not recommend buying this game yet if you want a polished experience! There are still quite a few (sometimes game-breaking) bugs in here. Also, lots of features still missing that I'm really looking forward to.

But what's already here really got me hooked! Despite me essentially messing up one of my saves and having to restart from scratch, that really didn't bug me too much in the end. Already you can create quite the variation of different characters and even all of the story has extreme replay value. I never make all the same choices and the RnG in Combat and also some social encounters really adds to that! And I can't even wait for the release and all the story content that they will put in there.

So far, I have tried out 4 different classes and races for my main character and I really liked the uniqueness each of them had. Utilizing the D&D 5e combat mechanics, that I'm highly familiar with as a Dungeon Master and player for about 4 years now, really helped me understand the mechanics quickly. Although some of it has been greatly adapted (to better suit video game mechanics I assume) which so far hasn't bothered me, rather I found the changes convenient and really speeding up combat situations.

All in all, if you want to contribute to the game's development or get an early experience at the cost of game stability, I recommend buying the Early Access. If not, I recommend at least waiting for the release. This game promises to become something really good already and I can't wait for future updates!

You gotta love yourself GTA but with hacks.
Seriously, if it weren't for all those unnecessary one-man-army missions, I would love the story and gameplay a lot. It just destroys immersion for me completely, whenever I have to face an army of armed enemies as a hacker (with guns). At one point, the protagonist becomes self-aware for a second and asks himself "Did I really have to kill all those people?" And I was just like "Same thought, buddy. Same thought."

I got this game in really actual early access back when Planets were hardly more than an idea for a feature to add in the future. Take this and my huge amount of hours playing this game and I think you can trust me when I say that my opinion is based on experience throughout the whole game.

I, personally really like playing this game! However, I would not recommend it to everyone! You need to accept some things and be interested in certain things in order to be one of those I'd recommend to play Space Engineers :)

First of all, what you can expect of the game:

• hours of sandbox fun
  
• lots of things to find out and try out
  
• lots of "Dammit, my ship just blew up!" moments (some people like discovering and fixing their own ship design flaws)
  
• nice sci fi themed graphics
  
• a vast amount of mods to personalize the game! (A REALLY HUGE amount of mods)
  
• a nice community for multiplayer or help if you need any (trust me, at one point or another you WILL need help)
  
• An ingame C# programming API! (That's right, fellow programmers! You can program stuff in there!)
  
• lots of YouTube videos covering gameplay, tutorials, roleplay, mod showcases, etc.

I'm sure, that's not all but it's the most important things I think.

Now, what you will have to deal with:

• bugs (In the end it still IS an Early Access game)
  
• high hardware needs (I'm playing on high-end devices only)
  
• steep learning curve (some people (like me) like that, but most don't)
  
• overpriced... (When I got it it was way cheaper... It DID improve since then though!)
  
• multiplayer tends to lag on local servers (I prefer playing on my nitrado server with hardly any laggs)
  
• devs need months if not years to fix some bugs (It might be the engine, messy code :P or a huge backlog...)

So to sum it up, I would recommend this game to people like me, who are really into sci fi stuff, sandbox games and can handle a few bugs now or then. Pistons and Rotors will become a new trigger word for you that make you cringe everytime you hear one of them, as they are bugging and glitching since I got the game :D But take that aside and you get yourself a really cool game! :)

For all those interested programmers who got stuck at "An ingame C# programming API!" :D You can do lots of things but I recommend setting up visual studio and don't even bother trying to script inside the game... You will find a documentation online. I for myself spent lots of hours on scripting complex stuff xD It's like the game gives programmers access to way more possibilities than the other players!