Of all the sandbox early access games on Steam, this seems so far the most promising. And indeed, the most complete ~ *cough* DayZ *cough*

I was entirely taken aback by the MMORPG-like feel from the get go, and it initially made me weary. It took exactly five minutes to forget any of that, thanks to the addictive harvesting, mining, building and just generally extremely well-done crafting in this game. This game so far has *the* best customization that I have seen, and knocks Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Galactic Civilizations 2 down from their previously shared throne in this aspect IMO.

The parallells to Minecraft are also subdued - thankfully.

Apart from The Secret World, I don't think I've ever been more immersed in an over-the-shoulder perspective game. Sure, the music is mostly licenseware, the voice acting sounds like a school class project, and some textures are extremely flat; but I find myself ignoring a lot of what would otherwise be real annoyances for me because of the overall charm this game has.

Probably the main strength this game has is the authentic-feeling world. Multiplayer has some procedural ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that I hope will be gone after alpha, but the single player (and selectable in multiplayer) "canon" world quite possibly is the most authentic, immersive "alien looking" world I've seen since The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. And to be sure, Planet Explorer's flora and fauna has a lot in common with Morrowind, to the point that it feels like an homage, if a slightly more colourful one.

There are a few things left to really fix for me to give this top marks. For example, I feel the multiplayer progression is way too fast compared to the single player, and people will get easily burnt out if they start out with multiplayer first. PLAY SINGLE PLAYER FIRST! The music is repetitive, and I hope a placeholder - but the choice of music, even if it's sparse, at least was a good one. Voice acting is campy and of low technical and artistic quality - which is kind of charming, actually. And I don't think many care in this sort of game. Also, I wish harvesting, woodcutting and mining were a bit more agile. Currently, herbs have too small "pick up zones" where you have to stand realllllllllyyyy close to the center, the woodcutting is tedious because you have to hold down the right mousebutton, sometimes for MINUTES if it's a big tree, and finally the mining animation is slow as heck and hard to abort to precision mine.

Lots of minor issues, no major issues - except one:

Most of all the dedicated server launcher could use a lot of work, and the parameters the worlds is created from need to be expanded. For example drop rate. Well... ESPECIALLY drop rate. Ha. Current default multiplayer servers will let you get full steel armour and a helicopter within 2 hours. AWFUL. But hey, it's alpha.

Of all the sandbox early access games on Steam, this seems so far the most promising. And indeed, the most complete ~ *cough* DayZ *cough* I was entirely taken aback by the MMORPG-like feel from the get go, and it initially made me weary. It took exactly five minutes to forget any of that, thanks to the addictive harvesting, mining, building and just generally extremely well-done crafting in this game. This game so far has *the* best customization that I have seen, and knocks Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Galactic Civilizations 2 down from their previously shared throne in this aspect IMO. The parallells to Minecraft are also subdued - thankfully. Apart from The Secret World, I don't think I've ever been more immersed in an over-the-shoulder perspective game. Sure, the music is mostly licenseware, the voice acting sounds like a school class project, and some textures are extremely flat; but I find myself ignoring a lot of what would otherwise be real annoyances for me because of the overall charm this game has. Probably the main strength this game has is the authentic-feeling world. Multiplayer has some procedural niggles that I hope will be gone after alpha, but the single player (and selectable in multiplayer) "canon" world quite possibly is the most authentic, immersive "alien looking" world I've seen since The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. And to be sure, Planet Explorer's flora and fauna has a lot in common with Morrowind, to the point that it feels like an homage, if a slightly more colourful one. There are a few things left to really fix for me to give this top marks. For example, I feel the multiplayer progression is way too fast compared to the single player, and people will get easily burnt out if they start out with multiplayer first. PLAY SINGLE PLAYER FIRST! The music is repetitive, and I hope a placeholder - but the choice of music, even if it's sparse, at least was a good one. Voice acting is campy and of low technical and artistic quality - which is kind of charming, actually. And I don't think many care in this sort of game. Also, I wish harvesting, woodcutting and mining were a bit more agile. Currently, herbs have too small "pick up zones" where you have to stand realllllllllyyyy close to the center, the woodcutting is tedious because you have to hold down the right mousebutton, sometimes for MINUTES if it's a big tree, and finally the mining animation is slow as heck and hard to abort to precision mine. Lots of minor issues, no major issues - except one: Most of all the dedicated server launcher could use a lot of work, and the parameters the worlds is created from need to be expanded. For example drop rate. Well... ESPECIALLY drop rate. Ha. Current default multiplayer servers will let you get full steel armour and a helicopter within 2 hours. AWFUL. But hey, it's alpha.