"Cosmic Survivor" is a very poorly made made minimalist/pixel ripoff of Asteroids/SpaceWar!, only so much worse despite being many decades more recent. Did Steam really need another SpaceWar! ripoff? Nope, and the SteamDB player counts confirm this... gamers did not like this at all. They nothinged it.
This features really godawful, lazy minimalist/retro/pixel "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them.
Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game.
Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable.
Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 2 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?
Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
The developer breaches Valve guidelines to deliver disgusting personal attacks at this reviewer, implying I'm "emotionally hurt" and "negging", rather than being emotionally capable of accepting the FACT this is a garbage failure. Pointing out the FACT that this was a failure (SteamDB does not lie, no matter how much this failed developer desperately deludes himself) is not "negging", it's warning gamers, appropriately, about a badly made and failed product.
The developer resorts to these attacks but gives zero consideration to the harm it causes to the gaming industry for so much valueless amateur garbage that nobody wants to flood Steam... but then again, considering others is something alien to this "developer", who considers nobody but himself. Yes, we've met The Main Character. You, the gamer, do not matter to this failed "developer".
The developer resorting to personal attacks because he's unable to cope with his failure is unacceptable. This developer tries desperately to make this review for his product somehow about the reviewer, desperate to talk about anything but his own failure. You can see what he is trying to do. It's unprofessional, but goes so far as to explaining why such a godawfully bad product arrived on Steam.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this game to anyone.
