[quote][b]Warning: Third Party Account[/b]
This game requires you to create a third party "Microsoft Playfab" account... there's no valid reason for this in a PC game when SteamWorks is available. This is often done to harvest private data and profile you, with potential sale and transmission of your private data to third parties. The developers will probably argue that you can trust them, but if they were trustworthy they wouldn't demand you create a third party account.
This represents a considerable risk to gamers due to the privacy and security implications of developers that wish to bypass Steam and harvest user data. Remember, sometimes if the product is free, YOU are the product.[/quote]
[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. There are no available servers and no player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
This Nintendo Switch game is an unabashed ripoff of Rock n Roll Racing (copyright Interplay, 1993) only worse in every respect. It was ported to PC, presumably as a last ditch effort to get someone to play it because nobody on the Switch wanted it.
So, OverShoot Battle Race is a dead PvP game. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time!
[i]Almost every PvP exclusive game on Steam fails.[/i] Only a tiny proportion of them "go viral". This game failed for many of the same reasons those others fail. The chief of which is the developer thinking that their game will "go viral" without actually creating any reason for it do so.
Competition amongst PvP centric games is extreme, and there's only a finite player base to appeal to. This game failed to reach any kind of critical mass and died as a result. Let's go into some of the reasons this particular game failed to appeal to gamers, despite the zero up front cost.
First and foremost, there's no meaningful single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the Game. They lost that bet.
Without a huge community of 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.
The graphics in this game are passable, but could be better. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here.
It's free... now, but it wasn't before. The developer was charging $10 USD for this. Price barriers, especially on low quality products, can be a direct cause of failure. It's a nice gesture for the game to be given away for free, but it also tells us that the game wasn't good enough to succeed as a paid product. It's also a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who paid money for this... nobody got refunded.
Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 12 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?
Nope, it's dead, it's a Nintendo Switch game, and the developer's third party account requirement is a deal breaker. Don't be evil.
[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 first thing the developer wants everyone to know is that they are "The Main Character". You, as a gamer, don't matter. They breach Valve guidelines for developers just to complain about a fully accurate and informative review. It's evident from their attitude that they never created this product with gamers in mind. They did so to stroke their own ego. When incompetent developers, especially failed ones who would never be able to get a professional job in the industry, put themselves before gamers, we end up with garbage products like this.
The developer lies in their response; the store page very clearly indicates the developer's use of the word "unique" to describe the non-unique recoil mechanism and concept he stole from other games. The developers dishonesty is a disservice to all gamers, but again, we've established he's got Main Character Syndrome, so never considered anyone but himself... and definitely not what would be good for gamers or the gaming industry.
The developer admits they didn't hire a team of talented staff to produce the game and tried to do the whole thing on their own, instead. This is a lot like boarding an airplane, and halfway through the flight, having the pilot come out and serve peanuts. It's going to end in disaster. It requires a team of competent people to do a complex job properly, and that's not what has happened here... another explanation for the poor quality of this game.
The developer acknowledges the game assets, being pixelcrap, are unacceptably bad, [i]yet proceeded to foist a knowingly inferior, defective product on Steam anyway[/i]. Once more continuing the pattern of his Main Character Syndrome... this game was dumped on Steam through Steam Direct for no reason other than for the developer to pat himself on the back. That explains why such a godawfully bad, failed product arrived on Steam, but it excuses none of it.
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.
