Recent reviews by misterbob

The easy and immediate comparison here is to minesweeper. This game starts off pretty much the same; numbers in cells telling you how many of the adjacent cells are part of the "pattern" of the level (incidentally, for people who have played a lot of minesweeper like me, the left and right mouse butons will be swapped around from what you might expect, which caused me a few mistakes early on, but I eventually got used to it). Of course the cells are hexagonal rather than square, but it is still VERY minesweeper to start with (the one major difference being that in this game you never have to guess; you're welcome to if you want, but you can always work it out somehow).

It really starts to pick up as you play through though; new rules to play to are introduced- you are given numbers of cells that must be adjacent, numbers that aren't adjacent, numbers over entire columns or diagonal lines of the game's grid and finally numbers that tell you how many cells up to two cells away are in the pattern.

Every rule is simple, and they're introduced at a good pace that lets you get used to them before the next one comes along. But the sum of the 6 or 7 simple rules and the large variety in sizes and shapes of game grids provides some fabulously complicated puzzles; and they seem to be done in such a way so that there are any number of places to get stuck, not just one incredibly hard point per level that a lot of other puzzle games seem to end up with.

I haven't tried too many of the randomly generated levels- you can use 8 digit seeds to create levels (theoretically 100 million of them)- the ones I have had a go at are obviously not as well crafted as the main levels in the games "campaign", but they did offer more difficulty than I expected, so I was pleased by that as well.

TL:DR; This is like a harder, much more complicated and polished minesweeper with more rules to remember; leading to more variety in the levels, with the added advantage that there is no guessing required. It's great for anyone who likes logic puzzles.

This is a promising game with what's currently on offer, considering it's still early access. It's very pretty and the combat mechanics are a lot of fun, trying to aim rockets to curve around other objects in the solar system makes it a lot more entertaining than selecting a target and firing.

The development of planets is pretty simple with only about 10 different types of buildings you can build. This is both a blessing and a curse; it makes the game easy to pick up and I was fairly familiar to the mechanics within a few hours, but of course for people who playa lot of strategy games it might be overly simple. Most things currently in the game seem well balanced, with the possible exception of the "super weapons". They seem rather overpowered and from my experience, most rounds just end up as a race to be the first to get one.

My online experience hasn't been great so far, I'm yet to complete a game online due to various issues with the game itself as well as people just dropping out of games. It's really disappointing because there is a lot of potential that isn't being found there yet. The non-online "hotseat" mode is a lot of fun as it stands and with private online matches or some sort of system to stop people dropping out (possibly reputation depending on how many games you finish?), the online multiplayer could be great too.

There's no single player as it stands, but this is of course planned and could be really solid too, as long as the AI are up to scratch.

In short, this game is good as it currently is, but I see the potential for it to be great, and at this price, who could argue with that?

Excellent storytelling throughout is where this game is really strong. You do begin to actually care about a lot of the characters which is something most video games are lacking (although admittedly, a lot don't aim for this). This is where the ame truly excels; it will scare you, shock you, make you laugh, probably cry, and in the end you'll just genuinely enjoy it (and after all, isn't that what we all play video games for?).

The decisions you make as you go through are also a big selling point. the developers have clearly worked very hard on this aspect, and your decisions will have a very real effect on the game. The decision points are well designed, with almost all of them being difficult choices that really make you think about what you would do in the situation. You also get a breakdown at the end of each episode of how many other players made the same choices as you, which is a nice touch.

There is also a very unique graphical style to this game, at first it seems a bit strange, and you could almost accuse the graphics of being "bad", but it gives a feeling to the game like no other, which can only be a good thing.

The gameplay is a bit lacklustre, and at times frustrating; you'll probably find yourself thinking you didn't really deserve to die there more than a few times. This gameplay often consists of quicktime events, so it isn't exactly the most revolutionary game in that regard, but they are at least used to relatively good effect though; they seem to be mainly used as a way to keep the player engaged, often occuring when you don't expect it and making you spring into action. This, in part, means that you don't get bored during a long play session, and the episodic nature of the game serves to further break it up; playing through one episode takes a couple of hours, much more and you'd start to get bored.

To sum up; this game feels very different to any other I've played. The storytelling is fantastic, the graphics are neither good or bad, but certainly different, and while the gameplay leaves a bit to be desired, it takes a back seat so it really won't bother you. I would recommend this game to anyone 9/10

Just utterly astounding. It's not often that a game tugs at my heartstrings but this near enough pulled them clean out of my chest. It's certainly not a long game, taking me three and a half hours to complete, but it doesn't matter because it was three and a half hours of some of the greatest storytelling I have every experienced.

In short, if you want to mindlessly kill things or crash into things or mine things, this might not be for you. If you want to FEEL something, you should definitely give it a shot. 10/10 from me.

Excellent game for the price. Despite the linear "plot" to the game (make your way through eight sectors of a galaxy and defeat the final boss), you are given a huge number of options in terms of HOW you tackle this task. Whether you use boarding parties, drones or just arm yourself to the teeth with powerful weapons is entirely up to you, and there is an excellent balance that makes these all viable options.

A playthrough doesn't take too long, so it's the sort of game you can play (and probably finish) in a couple of hours, or you can try out different things if you have longer. This means that it's a great game to play in either short bursts or a longer session.

The unlockable ships and hidden easter eggs are the cherry on the top that may well make you come back and play this game again and again- I know they did for me. I've now gotten 72 hours out of a game that cost barely anyting- and it's been a better experience than a few games five times the price.