Salvaged

EDIT: It has now been over 5 years since my initial review. The "Early Access" game has recieved no updates. Save your money for something more active. This review is bound to be out-of-date pretty fast, but this was mainly written on (12-13-2016). Okay, I've played quite a bit now. This game has a bit of a "leg up" on other early access games, because it's playable, right out of the gate. There's a campaign (probably) an ending, and everything you *need* for a modern game. But there's quite a bit of problems. First off, the game is VERY slow-paced. I hope you don't have stuff to do, because the tutorial alone is 30 minutes long. Not kidding. You also can't skip that tutorial, even after you've already gone through it on another save. After each mission, you HAVE to listen to a long conversation between yourself and your AI, who treats you like it's "Baby's first starship". That isn't too big a deal, but the game doesn't give you your "mission rewards" or let you choose or look through your next mission until you've sat through a usual 1-5 minute cutscene. This means that if you're low on money, then you can literally do nothing until the cutscene is over, and your money is given. The cutscenes are actually quite high quality. I just wish they had subtitles, and that there was more I could to do move things along, or organize my crew during the cutscene. The mouse movement feels odd. It's easily half the senstivity that I had in my desktop, outside of the game. I wish that mouse movement wasn't changed at all, since it feels much worse how it is. It would be nice if you could move around in the scene with your "game controls", since not being able to move eventually feels a bit claustrophobic, but I can see why you can't, since it would probably break the whole "VR", thing. The "Strategy" part of this game, is also lacking. More often than not, I would position my squad as close to the door as possible, regardless of cover, since that generally would injure my soldiers less, and speed things up. This is due to the majority of "melee-only" troops in the first missions. Once I started encountering ranged-troops, It got a bit more difficult, but overall I was disappointed with the lack of strategic options. You can't tell your units to take cover, and switching between "ATK" and "DEF", usually results in taking more damage. I was pleased to find you could use "ATK" to have a soldier tank for your squad. Once my squad was wiped out due to a robot shooting them through a wall. They couldn't see the robot, and just took the damage until death. On occasion, I would see my troops, and enemies walk through walls. The pathfinding could use some work. Sometimes I would order my units to stop breaching, and go to the teleporter. This would result in my troops trying to walk to the teleporter, and trying to walk back to the breach position. It takes probably twice as long. I wish I could switch out of "breach" without breaching and/or retreating out. Sometimes I would tell my soldier to retreat, just to have them get stuck on some geometry and die while the rest of the squad retreats. TL;DR: The game is better than most straight out of early-access. But it's certainly not a "full game" yet. It needs a LOT of work. The presentation is fantastic, and high quality, but for that reason the rest of the game suffers. You should wait a while before buying, to find a much better game in the coming months.

If you ever watched Gorman in Aliens commanding the marines as they conducted security sweeps of alien-infested tunnels and thought "yeah, I'd like to try that," then this is the game for you! Sure, I've played this for just over 2 hours (to be fair, I installed it yesterday), but thus far I've found it to be a very enjoyable game with room for a lot of depth. The whole game is played from your command console aboard the Thaddeus: four screens that display various information depending on where you and your squad(s) are. (If you played Duskers, you sort of know the setup.) Just a quick smatering of systems and mechanics: [*] While outside of a mission (contract), you can take time to recruit new agents, purchase equipment, train up your existing personnel, upgrade gear, and improve the ship itself to enhance various functions like healing rate, etc. [*] Being a Salvager isn't free, so you need to make sure you have enough money since everything--from recruiting new guys to upgrading their skills--drains funds. You can earn money by completing contracts (mission) or by selling the loot you pick up from derelict ships that you explore as part of fulfilling a contract. Of course, you also need the scrap and loot you pick up to make better equipment, so you need to juggle the pros and cons. [*] Once on-site for a contract job, you plan out the route that your squad (of up to four agents) will take through the compound, one room at a time. You set where they have to go, what combat stance they take, and what gear (if any) they use outside or inside the room. Bottom line, this game picks some of the more interesting elements from XCOM, Rainbox Six, and Duskers, mashes them together, and produces a fun and tense game that rewards careful thinking rather than run-and-gun tactics. If you're still unsure, take a gander at the below video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jze_XaB7fBQ

Crashes after about 10 minutes. Still needs alot of work. I'll update my review after some patches. Not worth it yet.

nice concept.....to bad these guys were the ones to try it.

The concept is very promising, but the current state of the game is unplayable. Massive performance problems mixed with serious UI issues (like clicking only randomly working), unfortunately, make the game unplayable in it's current form. Considering it's been 6 months with no update and no word from the developers at all, it's hard to imagine this is going to change. I hope they update this game at some point and start making it live up to it's potential, but I wouldn't recommend buying it until then.

Its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dead dude lmao

A few pointers on your game: 1) The guys in the tutorial can die even if you're following the instructions YOU put out. That wouldn't be a big deal... if you didn't 'fail' the mission when one of them dies and by that I mean the game is literally stuck in a loop with a dead person. 2) At least make the tutorial skippable and/or playable if you're going to do that. Update: Finally got past the tutorial. Why do I stick to my guns on these games...? Okay; here's the spiel. This game is DEFINITELY repetitive. I don't mean grinding but most of the combat is exactly the same. Granted, there isn't much else that could be done with this game in that way. However it is certainly a kind of game I personally enjoy. Let's break this down into pros and cons. Pros: 1) So far, great story. Definitely a lot of potential. 2) Great concept. Definitely worth checking out. 3) Decent enough graphics given the kind of game it is. Neutral: 1) The controls are a bit wonky at first. It really takes some getting used to but ultimately it's not that bad. 2) Your guys don't shoot while moving. Seems like a relatively okay-ish scenario but when you consider you're literally planning a breach into each room, that's not kool. Mostly that's no bueno because your guys don't ever STOP moving when they reach a waypoint to stand and fight momentarily which means your strategy boils down to go into room, shoot shoot, next room. 3) Rooms seem to be extremely repetitive. This can go good for people new to rouge-like-ish games but also bad for players that have a generalized concept of what they're doing. Cons: 1) Incredibly incredibly incredibly incredibly incredibly (get the gist yet?) repetitive. There is very little change in strategy even with different types of enemies, mostly because your guys don't shoot and move at the same time which means you're essentially making static defenses. 2) Your guys must be ordered one at a time. This wouldn't be a bad thing but since you can order your guys once they've already breached the room (by the way you have to click tiny nodes to get them to move) and typically need to do so for that one camper enemy, this is a bad thing because your guys can no longer function as a team but instead as individuals swarming a singular target. 3) Can't move-shoot. Again; this is a crucial part of clearing rooms. I served in the military and a huge part of our strategy involves shooting on the move in order to take a position, secure it and make sure the bad guys lose. It also makes strategy come down to more than just 'go in the room five steps... okay, shoot. Wait for the enemies to come around the corner. Shoot. Next room guys, that was great' which I personally feel takes away from what the game potentially has to offer. TLDR; Great concept. Much potential. So almost done. Really wishing there was a maybe function instead of giving this game a yes/no answer.

Absoutely loved the concept and liking it so far. Certainly gives that 'overlooking commander' feel, although I'm looking forward to seeing some of the edges smoothed out. Considering it's just a tenner for a full campaign I'd say it's well worth getting on board now - will be good to see how it grows.

Edited 11/24: For some reason when launching the game today, it worked fine in 2D mode. Game seems to be great then. You also might want to consider saying that the Vive works, as it seems to work for me (although like I said, slightly buggy but still playable). I'm changing my review back to positive. Original Comment: 2D version doesn't work, and on the vive it runs pretty wonky (during combat, the entire universe cuts out to the matrix after every punch). If they fix a lot of the problems, it would be a great game. As of right now, I can't recommend it.

There's not too much I can say about this right now that isn't 'on the cover' so to speak. I've played a little and there's definitely promise. It's also Early Access so there are some holes. Early Access carries its own risks, so if you aren't sure? Wait for its actual release. [EDIT] Now six months after Early Access release and there haven't been any updates in...well, thereabouts of six months. I just can't recommend this anymore, the concept holds promise but that's about it, and it doesn't look like development is going anywhere.