Blackstorm

hahaha space pirates

Blackstorm is: - monstrosity without own servers - showing you controller buttons in tutorial Why not just allow people to create server from the game? Just such simple design choices makes me hate this game.

[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b] This game contains no meaningful single player content. There's no viably populated servers/active player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote] "Blackstorm" is one of literally thousands of student projects infesting Steam. It's from U-TAD. While student projects tend to be better quality than most "amateur" made games, we must still question what value such projects have for gamers. As with all student projects, this isn't really a fully fleshed out game, it's just the result of an academic exercise, and as such it has much more limited value as a game than a professionally developed game would have. Educational institutions should not be using Steam as a dumping ground for homework assignments (especially if the students didn't even pass the course). Sure, it helps their marketing and helps the students feel good about themselves, but this is another case of a business putting themselves before the needs of gamers. The students made a PvP arena that rips off the theme from Wizards of the Coast's Spelljammer property... basically sailing ships in space fighting each other. It had a few players for a while (not sure why), but now it doesn't. Like all student projects, this was slapped together just enough for the students to get their grades, then they walked away, leaving this unmaintained, unoptimised and unpolished software polluting the Steam store. This looks a lot like it was designed for consoles, but released on Steam instead by mistake. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this never made it to the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for. The graphics in this game are passable, but could be better. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. It would be unethical for students to try charge money for their homework assignments, so you don't have to pay any money for this. But you'd still have to spend your time downloading this, and "time is money", as they say. There's the other problem, too... as a student project, this wasn't made for gamers. There's no requirement for them to polish and balance the game properly, all they need is something to show the faculty so they can get their grade and move on. Let's once more ask... why is that good for gamers? It's obviously not delivering a solid product. Yet here it is, on the store page, and here you are, reading my review for a student demo that's going to waste your time. While genuine amateur developers who made real products get ignored because they have to compete with this stuff. In some ways, this deluge of student projects on Steam is harmful to everyone. Given that this free student project won't count toward your game collection or add any achievements, and because it's not really a full game and more of a homework assignment, it's not a worthwhile download.