Blik Ball

[quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop][b]Warning: AI Slop[/b][/url] This game audio is partially or completely made with talentless, soulless AI generated content.[/quote] Blik Ball feels like someone's homework assignment that got dumped on Steam as a paid product... and that's how you should see this. Would you spend money and buy someone else's homework? No? You shouldn't buy this either. It's a simple 3D air hockey/tennis/pong/whatever game that features basic gameplay in either multiplayer (there are no players) or solo... and the game really is dumber than Breakout. At least you get to break blocks in that. This really is just Pong, but somehow even dumber. The game is very simplistic, small and limited in scope and ambition. This feels more like a tech demo, proof of concept or student homework assignment rather than a fully fledged product designed for PC gamers. As such it doesn't offer any real value as a serious PC game. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. The game has extremely lazy, minimalist "art" that's more typical of a low effort browser game or mobile app, not a PC game sold on Steam. Phoning in the graphics like this doesn't result in the kind of high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers expect for their cutting edge gaming rigs. There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too, and that's glaringly obvious here. Those technical issues put this game beneath what is expected from a contemporary, professionally developed 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 all-time peak player number was [b]only 3 players[/b]. This is a remarkably low number, and now, 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 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality game this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur than anything else. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me. Next is pricing and value. Is this game worth buying from among the 140,000+ games on Steam? Blik Ball is relatively cheap at $2 USD, but it's not worth it. This is also competing with over 14,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. The use of AI slop is a direct insult to gamers and real, ethical content creators and artists everywhere. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/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.[/quote]

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