Lucky me is the first on Steam to review this broken asset flip, even though it's been out for over a year. Let's go!
[b][quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/quote][/b]Astra Wing is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unity asset store packs, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.
[b][quote]Warning: Broken Game![/quote][/b]This game has design/implementation defects that will render this unplayable for many gamers. The game has a bug that prevents transitioning beyond the badly mangled English and Synty asset flips of the short intro sequence, so your ship just stays on the intro screen with nothing to shoot at. The game doesn't progress or begin the first level properly, so it can't be played as-is. It's unclear if the developer knows about this because nobody ever tried playing the game, and this is no surprise because I'm pretty sure gamers are sick and tired of these lazy Unity asset flips infesting Steam.
Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware.
Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, and if it actually worked, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.
The game doesn't correctly account for modern PC displays, UI scaling isn't handled correctly. As a result of this unfortunate decision, text and UI elements don't display at a reasonable size, it's too small to be legible on most modern gaming PCs, and there's no in-game controls or options to correct this. This can render the game unplayable for many.
The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH. The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
Unethically, the developers have left this on the Steam store in an unplayable and broken state. This is harmful to Steam and to gamers, because it takes a share of the marketing space and visibility away from other games. It's polluting Steam and making it harder for gamers to find genuine games and for genuine indie developers who put months or years into making proper games find an audience. I will at least mention it's unsure the developer knows the game is broken... but then, that's no excuse. Why should gamers be the ones who have to find this out? "Developers" have a duty of care and responsibility to ensure the products they are selling work properly. When they don't, this is against the interests of consumers and may even be an unethical practice.
[b][quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/quote][/b]Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.
