Recent reviews by D-code

If you ever wanted to play a stupidly overpowered double-barreled shotgun you can snipe with, this game is for you.

Also amazingly optimized graphics.

Imagine Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with broken physics and a developer team that is both greedy and lazy so they try to cash in twice instead of giving you a complete game.

Welcome to Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

Are you a new player and exited to try out the new fun PVE and PVP modes named Special Ops and Global Ops?

Forget about it.
Recent updates restricted the access to those modes to Tier 6 and Tier 8 vehicles (even if the new expansion advertisement and the videos in the steam store say otherwise!).

Proof:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/959716682495429912/0FF03862DA6F5328E656CD55C212A3545CC37B2F/

Also because of the russian developers, the russian server you can't access from steam gets special events + updates which the NA and EU server don't get.

Oh, and don't think about complaining about it on the forums because the forum access is restricted to Tier 5+.

This is not a joke.

First promise for christmas 2017:

New Content
- Conquer buildings
- troop management
- foreign wars
- MULTPLAYER
- 2 new maps

https://steamhost.cn/cdn_akamai_steamstatic_com/steam/apps/311260/ss_2b0cecf4f77c10550a7fef610e73a2c9d672f22e.1920x1080.jpg?t=1506431447

Second promise for christmas 2017:

New Content
- Conquer buildings
- troop management
- foreign wars
- MULTPLAYER

- 2 new maps
- working politics
- office meetings
- trials
- final AI

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/776246368098206996/D7E03DC688D3EE4AC79613198D39B491103F0C69/

What we actually got for christmas 2017:

New Content
- Conquer buildings
- troop management
- foreign wars
- MULTPLAYER

- 2 new maps
- working politics
- office meeting
- trials
- final AI

- Added a "trash can" icon in the production menu

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/311260/discussions/1/1621724915775279408/

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UPDATE 1 Feb 2018:
They kept lying about their release date when it was blatantly obvious they were not going to make it in time.
"Our goal is still Q2 2018."

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/925923491965128712/77BD3756A83006809EC8E6F4E8C0D1F524BDC5B7/
and
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/311260/discussions/0/1693785035830917746/#c1700541698683474498
Q2 ends at June 30.
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UPDATE 26 Aug 2018:
After missing the release date "goal" by at least several months the old development team GolemLabs was "removed". The new and more competent dev team Purple Lamp was hired.
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UPDATE 26 Feb 2020:
Just tested this again. The ai is broken, stat system is broken, market balance is broken, class balance is broken, economy is broken, politics is broken, court system is broken, guild system is broken, multiplayer is broken, no building interiors, time passes too quickly and the map and zoom levels are too big for any kind of immersion.

On top of that, the bugtracker you are supposed to use to report these, does not allow you to view existing tickets, your own tickets, communicate to devs for re-testing, feedback and validation of fixes, basically removing your ability to open tickets and track their progress in an efficient manner.
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UPDATE 28 Jun 2022:
So the game has finally been released. A complete product.

What's still missing from the original road map:
- Modding
- troop management (?)
- societies (?)
- soup kitchens (?)
- working MULTPLAYER, it seems. works for like half of the players atm
- office meetings (at least the mandatory ones)
- final AI (the AI pretty much unnoticeable in this game)
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How's the rest of the final game?
- The ai is unnoticeable
- stats system is useless (just put all points in charisma)
- market balance is broken
- economy is broken and boring
- class balance is broken (herbalist/fisherman/orchardist make 100k per round after round 10)
- politics kinda work and are boring
- court system is useless
- guild system is a waste of time
- multiplayer is broken only half of the time and there is no LAN functionality(!)
- no building interiors
- time passes too quickly and the map and zoom levels are too big for any kind of immersion.
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UPDATE 29. Oct. 2022

The G3 moderation now applies a full on censor mode claiming the things and screenshots that are documented in this very review are 'knowingly spreading misinformation'.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1869583325948417878/B530150249A8FEC8100129F792F335170781CF92/

Avoid at all cost.

Feel free to comment.

IT'S A SCAM DO NOT BUY.
There is no game to be played here. Updates are fake.

If you raise any awareness in the discussion forum about this, you get banned. (proof below)

So far it's only an engine sample where you can walk around and do literally nothing else while the graphics and the UI will constantly bug out.

Nothing you see on the screenshots or the video is possible in the game.

Also something happened that forced me to even update my negative review!
Post from the dev:
"Hey! Sorry for the bugs, but I'm working hard on a new version. Why a new version? Because will be much easier for players to understand what they need to do. So, the action from the new version will happen on the terraformed Mars. Because the atmosphere will have more oxygen and the atmospheric pressure will be close to that we have on Earth, you can build how do you want (modular building like in Rust). Will be lakes, but the water cannot be consumed directly. It will also have big storms and the temperatures will be below 0 degrees Celsius at night. No vehicles on the first update of this new version, but they will be added in January. I just don't know something.. what do you think and how do you want? With vegetation (grass, trees & others)..or without?"
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/498630/discussions/2/1488866180617735794/#c2549465882936944436

So the developer states that the game will not be played on Mars but some terraformed planet that has oxygen and water instead...
Proving both the trailer and the steam store description which state there will be oxygen management are nothing but a lie.
Also he will rip off Rust. There you go.

I can only advise everybody who wanted a space survival on mars including harsh conditions like no-oxygen enviroments to request a refund, as i will do the same now.

The post in the forum i got literally banned for:

My points are:
a) The game is completely unplayable in it's current state.
The steam store page says: "Some systems like 'Day&Night Cycle', 'Weather', "Crafting" are working. So, the game is playable." Which is a complete lie. You can't even collect sand to get the crafting materials you need, oxygen does not work, eating/drinking does not work, all you can do is run around and sleep (which will screw up your graphics in some cases) and i have video footage to prove it.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/210485083

b) The games was advertized as a survial game including the no-oxygen atmosphere on mars.
Now it will change into some terraformed planet that even has oxygen in the atmosphere which completely screws everybody who bought the game thinking they'd be playing on no oxygen mars.
Do you know what mars' atmosphere actually looks like?
It contains more than 95% CO2 which will instantly cause a carbon dioxide poisoning and kill you if you if you start breathing it.
So yes, people expected harsh O2 management.

Then the dev claims that i'm the only person who complains about all of this.
Just open the negative review page...
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/498630/negativereviews/?browsefilter=toprated&snr=1_5_reviews_&filterLanguage=all
Enjoy.

c) The dev just seems to copy ideas from other games at this point by justifying it with completely unrelated and unproven arguments
Like "the game was too hard for players".
Who exactly complained it was was too hard? I cannot find a single review that would back up this claim as nobody said the game was too hard in those.
I can however find reviews stating that the game is unplayable in it's current state and that's why they dislike it. A game being bugged to the point where it's completely unplayable does not classify as being hard.

d) Why are updates the developer claims to have made not in the game?
My walking animation still drains stamina etc. The dev claims to have fixed this in a changelog but didn't.

Proof:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911283291289815865/272DBEB2A696169E7DCA6060E9270C8566A42D1F/

UPDATE:
The developer has now confirmed that he used the steam Early Access system to pay for his college and is not intending to ever finish the game.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/498630/discussions/2/1620599015913876929/#c1678064284147242974

If you want to have fun and experience the same interesting story as SPAZ 1, look elsewhere.

There is actually very little content in this game.
The story campaign basically a tutorial and consist of 3 main quests to go somewhere and kill/destroy something.
After that you get the same exact endless play that you'd have in the sandbox mode with little to nothing to do.
Basically you can't win this game, you can just fly around, build bases, destroy bases and equip your ship endlessly.
There is no point in exploration.

Shipbuilding is absolutely pointless and one-dimensional. Just build a linear long spine ship, throw the strongest weapons on there and nothing can stop you.
There is a system that rewards you for building your ship differently but it does not matter at all since the only places where it could have mattered were multiplayer battles.

Multiplayer was scrapped. Yep, no multiplayer for you. Better luck in SPAZ 3.
What content did we get when the multiplayer was scrapped instead? Nothing.

Guess what the military does when the zombie outbrake starts: Declare war on civilians.

The AI is absolutely awful in this game. There is basically no way of interacting with them in a productive fashion.
You cannot tell captains in your own empire to defend your empire, you cannot tell them to attack enemies, you cannot tell them to gather resources, you cannot tell them to clear Bandit bases, you cannot tell them to clean infected captains.
You can basically do nothing with them except order a single one of your captains to follow you around.
You will see no more interaction with your own faction during the entire game.

Don't get fooled. This game is far from finished or offering a lot of content.

WARNING: DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU DON'T OWN THE PREVIOUS AFTERBIRTH DLC!
IT WILL RENDER YOUR GAME COMPLETELY UNPLAYABLE!

The game didn't even start without forcing you to reinstall Microsoft's Visual C++ 2015. Thousands of people have the same problem.

After at least getting a launcher keeps crashing immediately because i do not own the Afterbirth DLC and i'm unable to play the game now. It did not mention this ANYWHERE on this store page.

Next step will be contacting the steam support and getting a refund.

About 9 Months after the initial release the devs decide to abandon this rather unfinished/unpolished game, basically giving a middle finger to the kickstarter backers who collected $1 million and the early access supporters.

Thanks for your money, bye.

Being a moba veteran i can't get any pleasure out of this.
The gameplay is incredibly slow paced, the spells are boring, there is little to no strategy involved due to the very limited itemchoices and tiny maps.
The "non-stop action" regeneration makes it boring, you might aswell just ignore enemies and go for npcs/towers.
So this game is rightfully called moba and not an ARTS as there is no strategy involved.