[quote][b]Warning: Dead PVP Game[/b]
This game has no single player content beyond pointless, janky botmatches, and no playable PvP servers. There is no functioning PvP population, it's a dead game, and cannot be played as a PvP game.[/quote]
Before we get into the weeds on this review, the first thing to mention is the game is extremely buggy and unstable. For me, the game crashed out to desktop every few minutes making even botmatches impossible. There's no reason to expect different results for other gamers on this point of stability.
JetX Space Edition is a really badly made Descent ripoff, however, where Descent had content, this doesn't. It's badly made and badly presented, basically an FPS arena with one twist, you have 6DOF in a zero-G environment. That's it. There's a weapon and upgrade system in the game, but the game was so poorly made and presented, nobody got into it. And of course, the game is made by nasty asset flippers who seek to pollute Steam and scam gamers.
SA Industry/Singularity Lab have shown a repeat pattern of unethically dumping other people's work onto Steam as a cheap, nasty cash grab, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. Here's some examples so you can see for yourself:
[list]
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/756260]Kingdom Defense[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/tower-defense-basic-pixel-art-pack-45705]Tower Defense Basic Pixel Art Pack[/url] developed by FreeThePlayerOnGame
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/856490]Falling Words[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/2d-typing-game-endless-random-falling-word-text-font-typer-game-107867]2D Typing Game[/url] developed by Steelkrill Studio
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1053650]Drive For Your Life[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/zombie-drive-full-game-template-73074]Zombie Drive - Full Game Template[/url] developed by Puppeteer
[/list]
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.
The focus of the game is pure PvP, there's no single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the game. The vast majority of PvP-only games fail because they don't "go viral", and without players, or single player content to add a lasting value to the game, the game dies. Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content to a game.It failed. SteamDB shows the game hit all-time peak player numbers just after launch, with only a tiny 4 concurrent users, which is a pitiful number, and now the game has practically no players, with nobody playing at all, just one or two people logging on every week or so then quickly deleting the game when they see how bad it is. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time!
The developers made the fatal, lazy mistake of believing that PvP, other players, would be an acceptable substitute for doing the difficult job of adding single player level design, storytelling, NPCs and other rich aspects of designed game content to the game. As a result of this choice by the developers, the game has little to no actual interactive game content. It's a little considered fact that the vast majority of PvP only, multiplayer only games [b]fail[/b]. Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for doing the job of game developers and building a game filled with content. PvP only games must have a [b]huge[/b] player base for them to "go viral" and succeed. But with no single player experience to add lasting value to a game, the developers instead chose to bet against all odds that their game would "go viral" without any actual reason for players to want to play the game. Predictably, they lost this bet.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
The game features lazy minimalist/untextured low-polygon "retro" assets and visuals, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the early 1990s. The lack of textures is a method that lazy devs often use to disguise their lack of talent/interest in doing the graphics properly and trying to disguise it 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 looks bad as a result of their decisions, and that's just another reason to avoid it.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
JetX Space Edition 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 a botmatch (the only way the game can be played), trivial to get, but less than 24 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.
The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 4 players. 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 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
It's also important to note the "developer" here has connections to a number of shady Russian asset flippers and review manipulators who show an organised pattern to scam and defraud gamers with fake reviews and asset flipping the work of others for profit. While reviews are about the games, gamers should be informed when developers act unethically. Whether these connections are the same developer using multiple accounts, or just working closely with other unethical developers, gamers should be warned about the harm to gamers by this developer and their associates. Buying games from unethical developers puts your money at risk.
Unethically, the developers have left this on the Steam store in an unplayable and broken state (because there's no players and no single player content beyond botmatching). There's also the matter of the horribly bad stability. It's the responsibility of the developer to maintain their product, ensure it runs on all modern PCs, or if they determine there's defects and the game doesn't work, or the population dies, they should remove it from sale instead of misleadingly trying to scam gamers into buying knowingly defective products.
This is harmful to Steam and to gamers, not just because it's a direct and intentional attempt to scam people, but because it takes a share of the marketing space and visibility away from other games. It's polluting Steam and making it harder for gamers to find genuine games and for genuine indie developers who put months or years into making proper games find an audience.
