Recent reviews by Xtraeme

Base building, ship building, space hijinks, 100+ star systems to explore, lots of personalities to meet, ... it's not a perfect game, but of all the space games out there it is probably the best currently available. As much as I love Elite Dangerous it still very much feels like I'm more a spaceship than I am a person wandering the universe. If you want that sense of being able to just explore and live life as a person in the far distant future. Starfield scratches that itch better than anything else.

Despite not having much time in the game (~20-30 hours though Steam seems to think otherwise), I think I can offer some insight that might be helpful to fans of the genre.

Starbase does something none of the other big space games do (No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, or Star Citizen). Starbase makes ships feel like they are truly *your* ships. Have a friend you want to fly with? Bolt on another chair. Need some more storage? Weld on a couple steel beams, lay piping, and haphazardly affix a storage crate to the hull.

None of the other big three space titles have evoked a tactile sense of being able to change the universe beyond being able to drop a few preset assets the developer's deigned for the playerbase.

The game isn't without its faults. It is in alpha, so expect bugs aplenty. Despite that hurdle, if you like the idea of building a spacefaring civilization from the ground up with the equivalent of virtual lego blocks this game is without a doubt for you.

There is nothing quite like it.

One of a kind. This game has the potential to be something very special (think Fallout 2's tactics crossed with FTL space combat, melded with Oxygen Not Included resource management and base building). Rimworld doesn't hold a candle to Space Haven. Highly recommend.

Should be labeled early access.

The only thing wrong with Surviving Mars is that there isn't more. Here is hoping they make more expansions!

RDR2 has a fantastic story, beautiful atmosphere, an incredible world, BUT there are some bugs and game mechanics that are so horrible that when you encounter them you will probably quit the game. That said, the game is so good, it doesn't matter. Play the game. You'll love it.

Imagine you bought a bucket of spicy buffalo chicken wings and then someone came along and replaced it with dry overcooked rubbery freezer burned chicken strips. That is Stellaris. Pre-2.2 the planets were interesting if a little cumbersome to manage. Now the game is just a mishmash of bad UI and broken game systems that don't make any sense together.

The new UI[i.imgur.com] sacrifices readability and an effective visual metaphor (the tile system[i.imgur.com]) for what basically amounts to the same tile concept but now fractured into multiple locations, clicks, and menus. The job system and the various resource production loops are very poorly communicated and presented -- and ultimately represents little more than busy work and needless complexity rather than any actual depth.

Stellaris now feels like a capitalist supply and demand simulation whereas the previous high level abstraction of energy, minerals, and food kept the complexity relatively low and supported a number of interpretations, and hence civilization types and play styles. Now we are all capitalist consumers craving holo-entertainment and hyper malls.

The net effect of making the game's systems more abstract is planets feel like generic copy-paste duplicates of each other. Planet size simply does not matter anymore. Every planet can support the same number of buildings and can easily fill up to the 85 mark with pops, and even the habitability penalty is very easily overcome. With the exception of mineral deposits, unique planets just aren't a thing anymore. To make matters worse, the in-game planet UI even looks like a bland joyless spreadsheet rather than an exotic location you're going to explore and colonize.

That is not the end of the problems either.

The AI amazingly somehow got worse. 19 strategic resources[forum.paradoxplaza.com] that made controlling certain regions of space valuable (and thus made Stellaris a 4X strategy game) were removed (well okay 3 kept but changed, 1 added) in favor of adding generic basic resources that further complicate production and add needless micromanagement. Special buildings, empire unique buildings (capital unique stuff), early exploration importance, and lastly tall and ultra-tall gameplay are all gone too.

The exact things 2.2 was supposed to address the design team somehow made worse.

The new system needed to offer more interesting choices about how to develop your planets, while simultaneously reducing the amount of uninteresting micromanagement such as mass-upgrading buildings — Stellaris Dev Diary #121[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Hopefully the team can fix their mess, but somehow I expect at some point they are just going to admit it didn't work and start development on Stellaris 2.

3030 in a nutshell: Sierra's Space Quest meets Elite: Dangerous. It is surprising in a way that most big space games (X4, Elite, SC, etc.) focus on the sandbox elements, but lack in story. Star Citizen is attempting to turn that around with Squadron 42, but it is anyone's guess how good that will turn out. 3030 fills a very particular niche in that it tries to combine lots of similar gameplay elements but with more plot. Hopefully we'll see additional graphic adventure elements in the future. Great game!

Most of the problems seem fixed as of November 2020 (other than some quirks in multiplayer). So I am happy to report the game as it currently exists is now a very welcome and wonderful addition to the Kingdom-line of games. Great work guys!

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2019 Review:
Huge fan of the series, I have replayed New Lands and Classic more times than I can count, but unfortunately the latest chapter isn't quite ready for play. As numerous have people have commented, winters range from tedious to an instant lose situation (starting a new island in winter makes no sense). Also, though gems are an interesting idea that brings more inventory management to the game, bankers should be able to take at least some of the gems since they take up a huge part of the bag. Permadeath is gone, which I am torn on, but losing all your gems means you might as well be dead so why they bothered to change the system is a mystery. Lots of bugs (ranging from new islands sometimes starting the day counter from the previous island while other times it resets, to characters not doing anything or worse yet townspeople throwing their gear into the water?!). The game unfortunately is a bit of a mess right now. Two Crowns isn't all that different from the original game, some minor graphic tweaks and a few new objects to interact with, so if you are interested in exploring what Kingdom has to offer try playing New Lands. You won't regret it. Wait till a few major updates are released though before buying Two Crowns. Given time it will be a good game.

Elite: Dangerous is shockingly good. Too bad the team behind No Man's Sky didn't just sell their technology to Frontier Developments as a sort of SpeedTree for planets. Highly recommend!