[quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop][b]Warning: AI Slop[/b][/url]
This game is partially or completely made with talentless, soulless AI generated content.[/quote]
"Meow Survivors" is a blatant ripoff of Vampire Survivors (Copyright Poncle, 2021). The "developer" has looked at an existing, successful game and decided that copying it was an acceptable substitute for having an original idea.
At this stage no legal action has been taken by Poncle against the "developer" here, but it's never off the table, as previous copyright law cases have shown.
Beyond the copyright issue, the unwritten rule of cloning someone else's game is that you should at least try to improve on it. Meow Survivors doesn't.
In fact, pretty much this whole game (not just the marketing materials as the developer says) is vibe coded AI Slop from Russia. Here's how you can tell, kids. AI Slop generators are really bad at "pixel" stuff if you're a Russian shovelware pusher and don't know how to proompt properly. So you get assets that look like pixelcrap, but aren't pixel perfect... that's the smoking gun. And you can see that through this whole inconsistent mess.
Yes, once more we have pure AI slop dumped on Steam, from Russia, for profit, and yes, a bunch of fake/paid reviews on it, too. This is a scam intended to gouge you into paying money for Russian AI slop.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. If you're going to try take this seriously (don't).
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.
As mentioned, this features really godawful, "wrong" looking AI slop instead of genuinely and sincerely created game assets. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating real game assets 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. AI slop sticks out like a sore thumb... and it comes across as insulting.
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.
The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.
These technical shortcomings push this game below minimum standards for any competently developed modern 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], and the worst part is these weren't genuine players, these were the Russian fake review accounts that the developer paid to make the fake reviews. Since the fake reviews are all done, 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.
[quote][b][url=https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-notices/16-cfr-part-465-trade-regulation-rule-use-consumer-reviews-testimonials-final-rule]Warning: Review Manipulation![/url][/b]
This game features a number of fake positive reviews from accounts known to be in the business of review manipulation/paid reviews. They're all written in either Russian, broken English or ChatGPT AI slop, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams. The "Positive" review score on this game should be disregarded due to this blatant, unethical review manipulation. This is done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product.
Due to the 2024 FTC ruling (16 CFR § 465.4, 15 U.S.C. § 45), these fake reviews are a violation of US Federal Law.[/quote]
Now on to pricing and value for gamers. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam?
Meow Survivors has the completely unrealistic cash grab price of around $9 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the unethical nature of the developer.
For comparison, the $9 asking price for this game could get you games like "Mass Effect Andromeda", "Deep Rock Galactic" or "Lethal Company". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. No pixelcrap is worth $9. If developers want to get paid the same kind of money as real game developers who know how to do graphics properly, they need to learn how to do graphics properly.
There's enough defects and quality problems with this game that it's not worth recommending to gamers, but the unethical nature of the developer/their associates makes it completely impossible.
The use of AI slop is a direct insult to gamers and real, ethical content creators and artists everywhere. AI models are trained on copyrighted intellectual property without permission from the owners. Using AI slop in a published product should be seen as supporting these copyright violations.
[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]
