I tried guys. Look at the playtime, I genuinely tried. I love games like this, especially when they have storylines. Survival crafters are my jam (I have over 200 hours in subnautica) And yet... I wasted 17 hours just in hopes that eventually the game would hook me and start being fun.
A lot of people complain about the humor and while I agree I think the greater sin is that the satire is missed by the game just... doing the stuff it's trying to make fun of and ultimately it feels like I'm the person being mocked. You can only make a joke of "haha the game wasted your time" so many times before the player starts getting frustrated (one time, one time is enough). Or before the player starts noticing how many ways the game actually wastes your time:
- The tool durability system feels like everything is made out of tissue paper. Forcing you to either clog up your inventory with extras or constantly go back to your ship
- you move unreasonably slow even once you get movement boosts they don't feel especially speedy and have limited fuel that has to recharge.
- THE FLASHLIGHT ALSO FUNCTIONS ON A SIMILAR SYSTEM IN A GAME WHERE IT IS REALLY HARD TO SEE ANYTHING
- you get the ability to open coffins after you have long passed a bunch of coffins so I hope you like miserably slow backtracking if you wanna open the ones left behind
- The game relies on rare items populated around the game for certain upgrades so if you, say, can't find any condoms to upgrade your oxygen capacity and don't remember where you got the first one because half of the time you're grabbing things blindly in the dark then... GOOD LUCK!
- genuinely it is jus so so so hard to find resources because everything is so small and similarly shaped and it's so dark constantly that I miss stuff right in front of me
- Several points of interest get marked on your map at once only for you to search them one by one and the voice line to just go "oh well nothing here, go check the other one! :3"
- Plenty of times wondering "hey what's over there?" And my reward being ♥♥♥♥ all. Oh boy, I wasted all this time and got a ton of honey... the thing I already have way too much of. yipppeeeee....
Some other bugaboos I've got with the game:
- The voice lines are delivered SO FAST that even with 0 distractions, no music, volume up, subtitles on, it's still hard to comprehend what is being said
- The subtitles do not like to be on the screen and will often be overwritten by random interactions, making it even harder to understand the voice lines.
- The triggers are simply being near a "point of interest" but because the crash sites are so busy I have to spend time looking for whatever the hell your suit AI is even talking about because I haven't even seen it yet.
- The survival mechanics seem more or less pointless because they drop so slowly and food/water are thrown at you CONSTANTLY (I think I only crafted water once)
- The game feels like it scales with your progression so rather than feeling like I've accomplished anything I just kind of still feel like I'm at square one but now I've got some new metal to collect for no reason.
Some of the jokes landed, a lot didn't, honestly I do like the running bit of the totally real hot babe messaging you to come save her and please fly into radiation it's good for you. I liked the opening too. But a bunch of the jokes just feel childish in a really aimless way. Haha sex. Haha pee. You get it. Not even verging on being offensive, just simply boring. Honestly I'm all for dumb jokes but the gameplay is so tedious I can't even muster amusement for the bits that are funny. I wanted to like this game but I think this one's not for me.
