Recent reviews by Xero Effect

I'm a little conflicted when it comes to recommending this game. On one hand, this game is really cool. On the other, it's a painful grind and may result in you just having to sit around for a few hours waiting the next stage of development.

Right at the start, I would say the game is straight forward and not hard to figure out what you are supposed to be doing. A few hours in, and you might hit a bit of a wall, wondering what in the world you are supposed to do next and end up just waiting around until you get enough terraforming index points. There were several stages like this for me.

The first point that really left me wondering was the larva stage. There's almost nothing to guide you how to get them, how to use them, and what they do. It's basically just "poke around, build everything you can, and eventually you will figure it out". The larva growing, fish, and animals need some guidance I think. Something as simple as a message that comes in stating something like: "Find your first larva on the ground, then put into an incubator with the proper mix of ingredients to make a butterfly larva. Then build the dome and put the larva in to start growing the insect count of your planet", would be more than enough.

Gathering DNA for animals is also a pain in the ass. You HAVE to get frog eggs, which aren't easy to come by, in order to create DNA for mammals, and let me tell you, that sucks so much. Far too much of this game is just sitting around waiting for the next stage, or just fiddling around for an hour or more trying to figure out what the hell you are supposed to be doing or how something works.

Things like fuses are hardly explained - Power, Oxygen, Pressure, and Heat Fuses are straight forward, but the fuses that increase production make no sense. Decrease the time a craft takes, or increase the output, HOWEVER, they only work for a *specific* collection of machines that you only know if you do trial and error, OR look at the Wiki.

If you want to spend 20-30 hours on a game that will probably be you doing nothing, or just warping to distant locations looking for money and resources, then this is a good game for you. It's really cool seeing the planet change from a desolate orange desert, to a thriving ecosystem, but it's a drag too.

There's three endings to the game, so if you don't want to know about them, don't read on. -----

The sentinal corp ending is straightforward and easy to get. Blow up a glowing ball (hopefully you found it already and have the door open) and then fly off with your captors.

The second ending with the Wardens also isn't that hard. If you like exploring, you will get to the point where you can take this ending pretty easily. My only gripe is that you have to retroactively go about the WHOLE WORLD looking for pillars AFTER you craft a device that allows you to see hidden keys. The way I interpreted the key finder was that it was actually going to show me coordinates, or way points to find the keys - this was not so. You have to get within about 50 feet of a pillar to see it, which is exceptionally hard to do when the game world is this large. With that being said, it's just a bunch of walking around, and probably just looking up coordinates on the Wiki so it's not that bad.

Onto the worst ending, the Smugglers. Gain 500k terra tokens and 5 solar quarts to leave with them. This doesn't seem bad, until you start trying to craft things to sell, which up to this point, you have had PLENTY of. I'm a Factorio player - I understand scaling things up after getting them started to increase productivity and I really enjoy that game cycle... Planet Crafters doesn't lend itself to this idea very well. I scaled up DRAMATICALLY, and still ended up spending about 8 hours looking for ways to make money. I can't tell you how many far away scrap locations I warped to in order to get enough money. I was selling almost every fuse I got, crafting fusion cores and selling them, as well of rocket engines, fabric, cookies, bacteria, and circuit boards... when the most expensive thing you can sell is 80 tokens (The fuses can be 2500, 5000, and 6000 but you can't craft them to the best of my knowledge), and you can only put about 30 items in a rocket at once, AND each rocket takes about 5 minutes to ship... even if you COULD fill several rockets with those fusion cores and send them as soon as the land, that's going to take you hours, if not days to complete. This means you must have enough quarts to warp to scrap locations and non-stop be looking for credits in these locations. Getting max 40k a run, and it takes 15-20 minutes to clear one of them... that's still several hours of play time for this.

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Long story short, this game is really cool. I love the idea of getting to terraform a mars like planet into a green, thriving ecosystem. The devs did a great job, but there are plenty glitches/bugs, or things that just don't work well. In a day and age where big dev companies are shoveling ♥♥♥♥ into our mouths and calling it chocolate pudding, it's nice to see a game like this come out. Even with all of it's faults, Planet Crafter is much better made/designed than most of the big title games that have come out in the last 8+ years.

- Last thought, don't try for the smuggler ending... it just sucks.

-- I love the animals you can end up splicing, some of them are oddly cute.

CS1 was enjoyable, even after playing for a long time. Doing the same thing over and over on a new map just kept feeling fun. CS2... well, lets just say there has been a trend of "*Insert successful game name here* 2 (Make it ♥♥♥♥ though)" coming out in the last two years. I don't understand what's wrong with the gaming world right now. Technology is exploding, efficiency and productivity are going through the roof... but games, games are clearly inversely related. I will say, Paradox didn't want all of their sequels to be ♥♥♥♥ on version 2, CK3 did come out after all...

Don't buy this game. It runs like ♥♥♥♥ with an i9-13900k, 4090 MSI Liquid, and 48GB 7200mhz DDR 5 installed on one of the best M.2 drives you can get. Things are just worse across the board when it comes to CS2 compared to CS1. It's not even on the level of Kerbal Space Program 2 where at least we have better graphics... it looks *a little* better... maybe? Run so much worse and is absent of about 90% of the content of the last game. Big shocker, all of that content will probably come to this game in a few dozen tiny, $10 DLC yet again. If I were going to make a version 2 of a game like CS, I would make it to where the sequel had ALL of the features of the first game to draw new, and current players to it. THEN I would make new DLC content. Is that such a hard business model to get behind?

I just don't even understand these types of dlc... Why, in the hell, would you pay for in game music. Go to Youtube and pull up the damn playlist there if you want to listen to whatever the hell it is that they put in the game - it's free. This has to be one of the weirdest, and worst, money grabs that any dev team puts out.

Side note, I don't know if I own this because of over paying for the game before launch, or if it's the bs apology "part of a $30 value" bandaid they think is going to make this game good. I'm so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tired of ♥♥♥♥ devs ruining games that were great with some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cash grab version 2.-1 ... see the same thing happening with KSP.

I hated Oblivion more than any other game I have ever played... I would rather play it 100 times over than this. As a bit of a space nerd, I was so excited to see what this was going to provide. I didn't have any expectations other than a massive amount of bugs.... I was still let down. Instead of a cool Bethsda style space game, I got No Mans Sky as an RPG, if you can even call it that.

This has to be the most lazy title to come out of a studio like Bethsda. Sure, I wasn't expecting thousands of booming planets, but I wasn't expecting copy paste ♥♥♥♥ shows of slightly different planets via a color pallet change, among literally vacant canvases with repeated interiors everywhere and EXTREMELY limited exploration ability. I was, 100%, expecting to be able to walk around a planet and circumnavigate it. I was expecting them ALL to be small to accomplish that... instead I just got some small square sectors that are no different from the last planet. The characters are boring, the story is boring, the gun play is boring, the gear is boring... I'm exceptionally sad that this is what Bethsda has come to be. I saw the writing on the wall with the last ♥♥♥♥ show they released, Fallout 76, but I had hope that a game OUTSIDE of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ franchise might be different. After all, it was going to be single player, no battle passes, no paid skins/gear... I wasn't expecting the "Make your adventure with this empty 5000 page notebook" to continue into their next game.

I think, one single thing, would have made me love this game. It was the part I was most looking forward to the moment I saw we could build ships, and that was flying them around a planet. I was so confused the first time I landed on a planet and couldn't fly it around without going out into space. Then I found the super small world borders, and I understood they just didn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ care to try. The space combat, is just disgusting. It's literally a MORE clunky No Mans Sky in space, and that's not a good thing. Can game devs stop making airplane sims in space already... ffs, we KNOW that you can't FLY a plane in space. It is totally different, but here we are, still making atmospheric flight a thing where there is no atmosphere... If they had done that one thing right, not only would fighting pirates or being a pirate actually be fun, I would have loved this game. I would totally have ignored EVERYTHING ELSE WRONG WITH THE GAME, if they had only done this one part right. But no, tether flying, atmosphere in space, and a super limited ship building system all come together to make one of the worst space experiences in a game, and I've played the COD mission where you fly in space... even that was better.

One last note... who in their right ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind voted this as "Most innovative game play of 2023"? Really? The same, recycled game play, gun play, character design available in ANY title now counts as innovative? The people that voted for Starfield in this category must have literally just gotten their first computer and never touched a piece of technology before in their lives. Like really, did you people only ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ play hentai and visual novel games before getting into Startfield, hoping for some tentacle mate or something in a space game you knew nothing about? I guess it makes sense why COD is doing so well still when they shovel the same pile of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around the yard and claim it to be new because it's in a different spot. I've lost all hope for any future games from Bethsda. At this point, I honestly think EA might give us better... wait... 2042 exists.... ♥♥♥♥.

One of the few, if not the only game I don't regret buying so far this year. With the massive ♥♥♥♥ show that has been game dev in the last 3 years (Looking at you KSP2), I was so scared to see what this game was going to come out like.

I'm not one of the OG AC players, this is literally the first time I've ever heard anything about the franchise and that makes me kind of sad because of how great this game is. It took a bit of time for me to get used to playing it, but after a few hours of trying out different builds and just slapping together my AC with random ♥♥♥♥, it just started to make sense and I was having a ton of fun. 26 hours, and I'm most of the way through my second play through. I'm taking it slow, and trying to collect everything and get all the equipment possible, so you can totally clear this game in much less time if you want.

I will say, it's nothing like what I was expecting. I'm not sure *what* exactly I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got and I'm still blown away. The combat, the story, the VA, the art, how fluid the game feels and natural... this is what future game devs need to look at for a good reference piece. I don't care WHAT type of game they are making, they need to look here and take some damn notes.

If you bought the most recent COD (MW3 2023) and think that's a good game... please stay away, you will likely just call this game ♥♥♥♥ because you are brain dead. For the rest of you, pick it up before the year of ♥♥♥♥ games ends so you can cull the depression you've gotten from the gaping hole in your wallet this year has left.

Putting my update here at the top... I can't honestly stand by this game at this point. There's so many things that were making me hold out hope, but with every "update" this game just gets more broken. The tool-tip style menus are just disgusting. They don't work well, if at all, they look horrible, it's a massive clutter on your screen, and just not user friendly in general. The builder is horrible. Why in the world did they change it so much from KSP, it's just bad. Early Beta KSP had better menus, tool-tips, and builder so wtf. I don't understand how it can be this bad with so much time going into it. At this point, it's KSP without a story mode, a nasty tech tree, broken ass physics-builder-and atmosphere, and better graphics...

If you want a good KSP game that has amazing... everything, go buy KSP not this ♥♥♥♥. This dev team has really let me down and just keeps making this game harder and harder to play.

If you have the game, can someone explain the setting for hiding the nav ball in the map view? Because uh, it's not worded right. The setting is inverted to the name of the setting, but correct to the tool tip... you have to turn ON auto hide nav ball in the map view... just to have the nav ball in the map view. This dev team just comes off as exceptionally lazy and money hungry. I've seen one man teams put out better ♥♥♥♥ than this, AND THEY HAD A WORKING GAME TO GO OFF THAT DOES EVERYTHING THEY ARE TRYING TO EMULATE RIGHT NOW... game development has just gone to ♥♥♥♥ man.

This is my original review early on... I'm leaving it here below just so you can see I had hope. That hope is long dead.

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While I will agree that this game is FAR from finished... it's early access guys. There's some real potential here that I can see developing so I'm excited to see this game get better as it ages. No, it's not a finished state as of now, neither is the new COD:MW2 and that's a full release, massive budget game so uh... go cry somewhere else as you pay $20 every month on top of the $100 you paid just to play and the additional what, 20x$20 for all the stupid content packs of COD that are half baked (in more ways that one).

This game will improve and have more features added on, we know this. Any KSP fans will know this is a far reach from what the first game launched into EA as, and it's freaking beautiful. No, it doesn't run the greatest of any game out there right now, neither do 90% of the AAA titles that launch from much larger budgets/teams as a full release. That being said, my pc ran this game just fine, with the majority of the glitches being ones that aren't game breaking such as the orbital encounter lines disappearing from Duna as I approached it.

My FPS at its lowest was about 50-40 FPS, and that was with these specs:
I9-10900k
MSI Ventus 3090
64GB DDR4 3200 MHz
Installed on an SSD

Yes, I know it's above the recommended specs, but I've seen people complaining that their massive AMD CPU or 40xx series cards are struggling to run the game. My GPU ran at about 80-90% load the whole time I flew to Duna, and my CPU was around 70% load and I had no problems. I haven't overclocked anything, just set a custom GPU fan curve in afterburner.

If you want to buy this game just to trash it and refund, then stop buying literally ANY big game release that comes out as a "Finished" product. If this were a company like Activision or EA, this would be the full, 1.0, non-early-access/beta release. The Dev's haven't hidden anything from us and are working to fix the problems we see. Give the game a try, see if your system can run it, even if it's a potato, and have a fun time or refund it and let the game mature.

This game is much easier to play if you already played KSP in the past btw. My first rocket and first flight, took me all the way to Duna, successfully. I can't tell you how many flights I put in KSP trying to get to Duna just to have something go horribly wrong, or have too little fuel. Right off the bat, this game is much friendlier for new players so try it out, it's a blast... or it will be, many, many small blasts.

One of the few game series that have gone on this long, and still remains new and fun. It's monkies throwing darts at bloons and other ♥♥♥♥... just buy it, you won't be sorry. It looks really stupid, and is really fun.

I have yet to get to the pay to win hell that I know exists in WOT, so the game has actually been quite fun. I decided that I really wanted to play WOT again, but haven't had my Xbox plugged in for over 3 years so I gave it a shot here. PC WOT is very weird by comparison. If you have an active console subscription, the game is much more user friendly there, but much worse in the pay-to-win sector. Give the game a try, it's a lot of fun. Expect there to be a massive pay wall that you "CAN" get past as a ftp like me. PS, I made it to Tier 9 on German Anti-Tanks on Xbox and had several other Tier 8's and many Tier 7's without EVER paying Wargaming a dime. I have many years of play time on the clock in WOT on console cause I was absolutely terrible up to the last year of playing.

I'm going to start of by saying I have not felt the joy from starting a game like I have today with Elden Ring in a LONG time. I can't tell you the number of times I said "Oh ♥♥♥♥, well, that doesn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ work" and then laughed the whole way back to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that just reamed me into the dirt. Exploring this game and figuring it out is just so much damn fun. I was laughing and having a ball the whole 8 hours I played today, and I bet it will stay that way until I stop playing the game at some point. It's really enjoyable, even with the weird bugs.

This game is beautiful, and plays great. I don't understand how people are bashing this game so badly.

YES, I have the 60 fps cap with a stutter at times.

YES, in co-op (only) I have seen the (or I guess not seen) the invisible enemies that take a few seconds to come into existence.. I just think they are friends with those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Spec-ops Elites from Halo, but who am I to say what crossover really is happening.

NO I don't game on a potato... some people are in the community section spouting off ♥♥♥♥ like "If you didn't game on a crappy cheap pc then you would be fine. I have a 3080 and i9 10900k and don't see any stuttering."... You know who you are, I commented on your ♥♥♥♥ post you little prick.

I personally, have an i9 10900k, and a 3090 and still have the stutter. I've also seen people say they are using AMD and have it. My sister has a 1050 with an old FX AMD CPU and she has the stutter as well. My friend has a 1080 with a 10th gen Intel CPU and has no stutter. It's hit and miss, and widespread so just give them some time to patch the damn game.

Other than those two VERY minor issues, this game is fantastic. I was really discouraged about it being an open world experience, but I have to say that the Souls formula lends itself wonderfully to open world (still would have preferred a more linear style like the older games but it's ok) and is really fun.

I would say this game is easily the most accessible for people to play out of all the Souls games I've played. It's easy to get into, and you don't start with a boss that is just as hard as the end game bosses (I mean... he two shots you but that's expected and required to actually start. Kind of a funny take on it this time around). I love the new block/counter mechanic. For people like me that are ABSOLUTE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at timing a parry, this is a game changer. You take a little bit of damage cause you blocked, and get one hell of a banger follow-up attack.

Back stabs... oh man, back stabs. I LITERALLY never hit a back stab in DS1, 2, or 3, despite setting up the exact same way as my friends and doing exactly what they did. Even in the situations where they just sit some fat ass back in front of you, and all you have to do is walk up and hit it, I never landed one. In Elden Ring, I'm a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ back stabbing king. This game is MUCH more enjoyable from the perspective of an average player.

Hit windows aren't milliseconds, but they also aren't excessively long. They are easy enough to gauge that you can either dodge or block at just the right time and counter. I REALLY like this game and don't care for the stupid issues people are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about.

If you can't stand a little stutter every now and then for a few days before they launch patches, then wait a week or two and buy it then. If you are adamant that 60 fps isn't enough, then.... I don't know, stop playing most games that you play cause they tend to run at that speed. And if you play the ♥♥♥♥ show that is Battlefield or ANY of the modern CODS... just go back to them and stop review bombing ACTUALLY good games while supporting those dumpster fire money grabs.

All-in-all, this game is a lot of fun and I can see myself playing this for MANY dozens of hours, if not hundreds. I just wish that Steam's screen shots actually caught the amazing HDR view I see, cause holy hell does this game look amazing for me but like an under-saturated polaroid in the screen shot library.

One final thing, if you are wanting to jump right in with a friend and co-op and you are both new, you have to buy or craft an item to be able to see the summoning signs... took me a hot minute to figure that out. There's no more embers from DS, but it basically is the same thing.


♥♥♥♥ that dragon in the swamp... scared the ♥♥♥♥ out of me and my sis on our casual walk to see the ruins.

This game isn't bad perse, but it's not that great either. The building menu feels absolutely horrible to use. It's such a massive pain to move any object around, or even get it to place. God forbid you click a part, or select two parts, and you aren't 100% sure you ONLY selected that/those parts. You will finish adding a new part and moving it around just to realize you somehow moved half of the vehicle around in the process because you grabbed the piece BEHIND the damn camera SOMEHOW.

Driving a well made vehicle is probably the best thing about this game. It's not hard to make a functional car, but getting it to the point where every bump doesn't break something takes a little time and a lot of searching for the right parts, which I'm not docking the game for, I actually like that aspect. I also really like making boats and seeing how they work/getting them to work better. I prefer making a really fast boat just to get around, and then an amphibious vehicle for part collection. But then comes the subs... holy hell does that suck. I'll put this one on me, but I can't get a damn sub to work AT ALL. It's such a weird mechanic to work with that my little smooth brain can't figure it out since I have literally never thought about a sub before. I hope to get better at using the prebuilt one, but I really don't like subs. I haven't gotten the parts to make a work plane yet, so I can't really pass judgement on this, but I'm thinking it will work alright from what I've seen/experienced with aerodynamics so far.

If you really like leggos and building cars, boats, and planes, sure, this could be a really fun sandbox for you. But the the way things connect isn't that great, and the builder is atrocious. I'll keep playing this and hopefully get better at using the builder, but with how much of a focus it is on the enjoyment of the game (unless you only use prebuilt vehicles which all kind of suck), I don't see many people really getting into this game. Maybe a few hours of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around and having fun driving basic cars and boats, but nothing beyond that. This is for sure a game made for a few die hard fans of the genre, and not for your average joe.