[quote][b]Warning: Broken Game![/b]
This game has design/implementation defects that will render this unplayable for many gamers. The game crashes after just a minute or so of running, every single time. It's utterly unstable and it's apparent the developer did little to no testing on the game.[/quote]
I'm not really sure if Hue Defense is an asset flip. Some elements of this game certainly make it seem like the developer put some effort into assembling some kind of original here. On the other hand, a lot of the game assets don't seem like they were created by the developer, but they haven't credited any asset creators for supplying assets, which might be a case of plagiarism. There's no evidence, so we need to give the benefit of the doubt... regardless, asset flip or not, the quality here is indistinguishable from many asset flip/cash grab scams, and that's a problem in itself.
This is a simplistic, furry friendly tower defense game of a quality significantly lower than you might expect to find for free on mobile app stores, except this is on Steam, and it has a price tag on it. You can already see where this is going.
Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
From my experience with the game, it's somewhat bug riddled and has design/implementation/stability problems that will render this unplayable for many gamers. The game crashes almost immediately when you start to try play it (and often before you can even negotiate through the menu to start a game).
The game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality which fits with the idea they weren't developed by the game creator... they look like they're "just reasonable enough" to go on sale as part of an asset pack. The issue of asset flipping aside, ultimately the quality of these assets is low and low quality always makes for a less than optimal gaming experience.
The game features low-polygon "retro" assets with cartoony, mobile app style shader effects, making this look like a barely functional mobile app from 15 years ago. This visual style is a method that lazy devs often use when they have a lack of interest/capabilty to create highly detailed, high poly models and instead use shader effects to disguise that shortcoming under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the game. It's far below the state of the art visuals gamers expect as a result of their decisions.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
Hue Defense didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for winning one trophy, trivial to get, but less than 14 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.
Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game. But this only happened once, and isn't consistent with the achievement stats, that show less than 14 percent of players bothered playing the game for any reasonable amount of time. How is it possible for this game to have so many concurrent players who didn't bother engaging with this game? Trading cards. People will use card idling software to collect the cards and sell them, but this won't trigger any achievements in-game.
That tells us people only really bought this game for trading cards, and that's a damning indictment of the woeful quality. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with little merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.
Because the game is broken and unplayable for me, it may also not work for other gamers. This is a solid reason to approach this game with some scepticism.
So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?
No, because it doesn't work at all.
For comparison, the $5 asking price for this game could get you games like "Hellblade: Sensua's Sacrifice", "DOOM" or "Rainbow 6 Siege". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
[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]
