Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Sep 29, 2021

  Hmmm. 295 hours and you think i would want to keep playing. Fact of the matter is this game is broken and boring af. Did i have some fun with it? Hell yeah, but it was soured. Almost like Oprah joined the dev team, and was looking at random content and says "You get a bug, and you..." Like palmetto season in Florida Egyptian curses.... or the Bee movie.... Its buggy as hell... Crashes often, poor optimization and few options. I came back to this game in hopes that a bunch of stuff was fixed and the things that were not completely added at least fleshed out a little more over the years i have had the game. But it seems to have gone backwards since i last played. Straight up, some buttons still dont work. Certain menus are still not even finished (And its obvious). Some content that clearly still needs to be there is not. Some interactions are still just flat out broken. Like hell this is a finished game. Nothing seems to be fixed, nothing added, and some very prominent bugs from long ago are even worse. Its been a couple years, there have been patches but i have not noticed an iota of difference from them. Aside from that crap, theres nothing to do in this game. i mean that too. You really have to have your own motivations. Which is fine in some games. And I mean sure you have some missions, and a little pve and some derilict exploration which is way cool. But why are you doing these things? You start the game off at a station where you can live invariably forever. Like, theres no purpose in even leaving the station, it has over half of the games resources that spawn at higher rates and yields than anywhere else in the galaxy, at every single station. So bam you got ice iron copper gold silver barillium nitrogen and usually a random 1 or two more resources. Sure i could build a ship. But why? I can just mine and sell right off the station, and theres not much special that cant be obtained from these stations.... Plus i can completely avoid PVP and essentially finished the game without actually doing anything. There is no drive what so ever except for the fact that you can. There are no goals, There are no objectives and once you reach the top tier stuff you immediately ask wtf am i doing and what can i even use this against? X: Series, Avorion, Empyrion, Stationeers, (other awesome examples of late gameplay dynamic and struggle.) These games allowed you to at least use your top tier stuff with very questionable certainty or have a deeper meta to keep you distracted and entertained. I have built super massive carriers fitting our companies entire fleet ready for war. But against what? None of the players leave the stations because theyre coddled there. Other factions get to our state and say, well im bored. Sure theres the Skrill. But the loots and loops lame. Plus its the same crap over and over again. Overall this game really missed the mark. I mean by a long shot too. When you first start playing its very satisfying getting your po dunk ship out there, but after that you realize everything wrong, from the UI, UX, lack of options, terrible bugs and crashes, lag from hell, im bored, why did my ship not save changes? things that are clearly still WIP after all these years, lack of access and tutorials, list goes on. Fucking years. How hard is a god damned tutorial? Im serious. On-boarding new players was a nightmare. I might remind anyone, that this game is NOT in Early Access. its just a disappointment. I cannot in good mind recommend this game till they address these issues.
• gamedeal user

  May 9, 2022

  Aaargh, this game! How can you love something and hate it at the same time? That is this game, right here. It's so close to being an awesome game and yet, so far... so very far. It feels so incomplete, so, "Beta test". The character models are abysmal, mainly in Multiplayer. Where are the textures for ships? Just flat color everywhere... and the interior textures look like panels from a 1980's hotel lobby. It is as-if they got the game up to a point and then just left it there. So much to love, yet so much to hate. It is unbelievable that this game was released a year and a half ago. i do not recommend this game, because it makes me sad... lol
• *****instevearino

  Feb 5, 2023

  really love this game i am bummed to see such a small comunity i hope more players come back or purchase it
• gamedeal user

  Jul 1, 2015

  You'll see a lot of comparisons to Starmade and Space Engineers, and it's true, very similar in this early phase of development. I played a lot of Starmade early on, and poked around Space Engineers, both were fun in their own respects but lacked something I desperately wanted from a space sim. Buidling your own ship, station or anything is something I love, but the limits of the game are what ultimately define the experience. Starmade allowed for fantastically large ships, almost mindbogglingly so and definitely a huge use of time to really get the interior looking good. Space Engineers really is great if you like the more serious and realistic approach, I wouldn't call it gritty, but ships being torn apart is pretty cool. Yet neither game really hit that classic space sim feel, sure they simualated some blocky universe of space, or some distant somewhat plausible future, the ships are even quite impressive, with Starmades mining laser crafts eating through asteroids and Space Engineers giant tissue paper cruisers. I'm not saying Interstellar Rift at this moment does either, surely at it's present state without combat or really anything other to do than fly around a bit and build or stare at non-functioning parts and wonder what the final mechanic will look like. But in those moments in passing, when you're busily walking through your freshly designed ship, built up with a decent editor(that could use some tweaking and refinement of course) that has more resemblance to a Sims game than it does to Space Engineer's or Starmade's editor, and you stop to notice the Jukebox you had absent mindedly placed for fluff, and you walk up to it. The screen fades in, and a selection shows up, you hit classical and look out the window. An asteroid tumbles by silently in the void. It feels like home.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 24, 2016

  First I'm a big fan of that genre have tons of hours spend in space engineer, starmade, empyrion and thats why it took me a while to get this one, was probably a bit to early acces for me back a couple of mounth too. - Very powerfull ship editor, although you have to understand a bit how it works its somewhat instinctive, can make very big extremely detailed ships with lots of sci-fi subsystem and you can interac with most - Everything is animated, sci-fi graphics looks good - Immersion is Total, manning a big ships with a crew of friends is a blast, Solo is defenetly very enjoyable too - Lots of useful a cool machine like cargo teleporter that can teleport on any cargo pad on a ship in range or even from your mining room let's say to your cargo bay on the same ship - Space stations that can sell, buy, salvage and repair ships, with billboard that offers a broadrange of missions for solo or fleet - Factions , friends and foes (Solo with AI or online with players) - Map or holomap... spherical projection of the surronding space in 3d, can even go walk in it and select a planet for exemple... just awesome - There could be a bit more tutorial or explanation I guess but its alpha and not to worry too much most of those games have a bigger lurning curve.. - Less grindy than most game of this genre, don't have to work your ass out for a year before being able to make a respectable ship customizable from the very tiles on the floor to the one on the ceilings, paint inside and out with variety of color scheme, just keep an eye out for the mats cost tho :P - So glad I finally decided to get it, only complaint I could have about it right now is that it crash on some occasion like teleporting from my ship to somewhere or couple of small glicth that wont keep me from playing, and in any case when it happens I never loose more than like 1 min of gameplay and its not that frequent at all, game is in alpha after all Thanks for reading hope it helps and sorry for grammar I'm not english, and conclusion if it looks apealing to you and you like the genre just go for it its a very nice space simulator with the focus on immersion and it does it well, if you need an arcade-ish space shooter you might wanna pass
• gamedeal user

  Nov 3, 2016

  If you like PULSAR: Lost Colony, you're going to LOVE this; The idea is the same, a coop / pvp multiplayer game where you work together on a ship as crew, or on several ships in a fleet and perform missions / fight other players. What makes this game, in my oppinion, better than PULSAR, is that you can design your own ship. Design a small freighter for quick but light transport of goods, a larger mining ship for those minerals that are just waiting to be mined in the asteroids, or take a more 'diplomatic' stance and design a fighter, or gunship. It's been about a year since I bought the game, tried it, and waited for it to mature a bit more, as I tend to do with most EA games. Over that timespan a lot has changed; There are now more solar systems, and a means to travel between them, the forementioned missions have been added, ranging from transporting goods, to shooting down the local wildlife (aliens 'swimming' in space and feeding off of asteroids), to hacking into stations and retrieve lost contraband or information (Yes, you can now hack other ships / stations). I am not much of a multiplayer gamer. Sure, I've had over a year as officer in the TSN fleet for Artemis Bridge Simulator (as Michael Seer), and spent a lot of time in Guns of Icarus and the forementioned PULSAR, but on the whole, those are exceptions. This game was presented to me as single player, and although it is designed with multiplayer in mind, I'm glad that the game doesn't require it of you. There are some problems people should be aware of though; The game is EA, meaning it isn't finished and it shows. There are awesome effects when your ship is damaged, from doors that refuse to open the first click, consoles flickering and engines stuttering. It adds a dramatic flair to a dangerous situation, excellent...except it starts doing this if you have just 0.01% damage... Other problems I've experienced include graphical glitches when flying at warp speed, your ship not being stored when storing it at a space station (ship disappears but isn't stored at the station, everything lost), your ship drifting off when you board a station to handle some business, only to find you cannot return because it is out of range... This last one is particularly annoying, especially since there are stations that don't sell ships, or provide a means to contrstuct your own, or don't provide the means to collect to resources to do either. I've found myself stranded because of this several times, and it's the same as when you try to store your ship; You lose the ship with no hope of ever getting anywhere (would probably not be such a big problem in multiplayer though). The missions are lacking as well; Play for a few hours and, not unlike my experience in PULSAR, they become repetetive, boring and a waste of time. All in all, at this point in time I really love the game, but I can't recommend it. At the moment it is a ship editor and testing environment, as expansive as it may be; It's not yet a game. But they are getting there, and they are working hard on it too. But at this time, if you buy the game, you buy the game, not the potential it has, because we all know how quickly an EA game can just drop dead, sometimes for no apparent reason. So if you can afford the risk, it is well worth it, but for a game, it is far from complete. EDIT: 08-06-2020 The game is running a lot smoother with a lot less system resources used and I like the addition of tutorials. Unfortunately I couldn't play all of them and lost interest after the third because by this time I had to restart the game 6 times because it got locked in an infinite loop in the loading screen when 'connecting' to the game (local run server with which to play single player, nothing weird there, just that it gets stuck in such a loop). So I'll be waiting a bit more before returning to the game.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 1, 2017

  Solo Player Review: So i bought this game on a whim, Despite the warnings of trolls in servers, despite the buggyness i heard of, despite the fact that numerous friends have told me its not worth the money, i gave it a shot. My experience: Upon launching the game, i found a huge irritance being you can't change your graphical, controls, or gameplay mechanics through ingame menu's. But that's just personal preference so ill let that slide. (You have to go back to main menu to change them, thankfully the game loads fast so changing isn't that hard, just more clicks involved). Now, The tutorial was pretty informative and covers the core features but needs more emphasis on things like Rift Generator Fuel, This one in particular can ruin your tutorial or even just gameplay. There's 3 types of Fuel for Rift Generators, Rift's are "Wormholes" to other places. Rift's require a special fuel which iv yet to discover in the natural world, but that may be my own fault due to the fact i can't fight alien's or drones yet, Which is a milestone of sorts as you need to acquire things like Silicon, Steel and lots of iron to produce a ship that can even defend against them such as shields and engines and power. But that aside, Once you can correctly identify what fuels you need, Proper icons for it to boot, Your exploration just became far easier! Now, Onto gameplay. Initially most people don't, especially myself don't notice the mining facilities in most stations. This is where you go to build your first starter ship or if you die, a replacement ship. Typically these only have your core elements, That being Iron ore, Copper Ore, Carbon, And Water. These items make the following: Iron Ore = Iron Copper Ore = Copper Carbon + Iron = Steel Water = Hydrogen(Ship Fuel) / Oxygen(Life Support) These few items your gonna need lots of, Depending on your structures you intend to build. For example, my medium sized ship required me to have 22k steel, 80k iron, 12k copper, 2k silicon, and 1.5k carbon to create. That had Two Extractors(Mines asteroids), Two Refineries(Refines ore/water into other stuff), Lots of cargo space, Crew quarters(Not required but more aesthetically pleasing), Conference Room(Not required), Lunch Room(Not required), Engine Room(Housed Generators, Power storage, And fuel storage). I also created an Armory which housed lockers and hacking equipment(Which i havent dived into yet). And lastly a Cockpit with a Ship Editor(Lets you make ships, edit and salvage ships), A Holotable which is your map of sorts, Helps you chart your way around. A Engineering station which let me modify rooms such as life support, locking, know the power status, etc. Very useful station, A teleporter, And last but not least, the Cockpit. Now the Cockpit requires its own paragraph as its a bit of a mess initially, None of its controls are really explained, specially in the tutorial. So here are some useful tips covered by the tutorial and just by trial and error: WASD = Movement R = Up F = Down H = Weapons On/Off J = Warp drive (This is on EVERY ship, regardless of structures installed etc, just aslong as theres a cockpit) Q/E =Rotate X = Stop/Halt Ship. Z = Third Person Tab = Switch between mouse control flight and click and drag mouse flight(Explained in tutorial) Right click = Free look/Move camera. This HELPS GREATLY when trying to view the information panel on the left/right of your screen in flight. You can interact with it aswell if you wish. I could go on, But since im reaching the limit, I gotta say the ship editor is REALLY tricky to use and sensitive and kinda broken at times, after 12 hours of play i finally mastered how to use it without deleting/altering something in the background. TLDR; / Down to it, Would i recommend this? Yes, Provided more of the bugs get patched and the tutorial gets a bit more work. Bugs being: Lighting bugging out and showing shadows for props no longer in game world, Removing floors when just deleting a chair etc.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 23, 2017

  If you are looking for a game that has a ton of content, a big community, or an impressively stable Alpha, wishlist this and move along. While I do recommend the game, rather than leave a Negative Review, I am putting it out there as a disclaimer. For everyone else that is willing to play for a bit, then set the game down for a bit, and then do it all again there are things to do, and a small community with servers that have a decent population depending on your timezone. I have had this game for over a year, checking the game out every few builds, and have seen moderate progress being made. Right now, you can build fairly elaborate ships in the editor, that is refreshing for some, and infuriating for others. While there are many tools to make quite elegant ships, and saving warns you if your ship is missin critical components. Unfortunately, the editor lacks tools like symmetry, camera issues, and a lack of variety for certain parts. It can also be frustrating to find the parts you want/need without a hotbar, which can make working on the exterior difficult, and without symmetry there is a lot of going back and forth. There are prefab ships, as well as the workshop if you just want to skip the hassle. Once in game, there are NPC factions that you can work for, albeit none of them feel really unique to one another. There are for a lack of a better term, a few "themed" missions but generally speaking all it really does is make interacting with other factions easier/harder. Making some U-Nits (the in-game currency), and some minor loot can be rewarding early on, but get pretty stale as there is no noticable impact on the system based on your actions. If you want to get the full experience, playing with friends (co-op or PvP) does give some more content to the game. Ship systems are designed around multi-crew stations, so operating a larger ship in a group is pretty cool. Playing solo is an option, but many of the "cooler" parts are going to require other players. This may change if we get some NPC crew, but in the mean time, solo play is very limited. Overall, the game is promising. If you came here from games like StarMade, Space Engineers, or Empyrion looking for a similar experience, I can safely say you will at least have some fun with the game with lowered expectations. Of the group I play with, nearly all of us experienced a crash at least once, if not more. We all play similar titles together, and they are all enjoying it as well. [h1]System Specs[/h1] [list] [*]CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K Processor @ 4.40GHz [*]CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i [*]GPU: GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming [*]Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32GB [*]OS: Windows 10 Pro [/list]
• TheCrawly

  Nov 16, 2017

  Great fun for designing ships once you figure out how the editor and ship systems work and interact. In sandbox (creative mode) you can just play around and build ships, which works pretty good. Ship building and that is great. I also love how players can multicrew ships, and actually move around them as they fly around, unlike most other games where you have to occupy a slot or station. Thats where this game really shines. That said: On the servers you have to mine all the resources you need for your ships, which to be honest just feels like a massive grind. There is no real alternative I suppose, unless ship designs were somehow based on ranks or faction. So you might start by producing a small ship that is simply designed to mine faster so you can build the next ship, until you finally build your big badass exploration ship. This takes days or weeks to do. Now what? You can go to different systems, but there really isnt anything there for you. There is one kind of AI enemy called Skrill (apart from defence drones/turrets); a dragon like space enemy that attacks you, and it is fun to fight them off, but I really want more variation. Facing hardcore PVP player ships is really frustrating since you normally are screwed the moment you notice the first missiles hit you. Chances to survive a surprise attack from a decent player is less than slim. It's like being on the recieving end of a wwii german submarine and waking up from the blast of a torpedo. I gave some suggestions about stealth mechanics and early warning systems, but havent seen anything of it. We spent like a week building a big ass exploration ship, and took our crew of four out on a spin to the next system. We went exploring different stuff popping up on the radar and suddenly, out of nowhere, a barrage of missiles and shells started to rain down on us. Another player had stalked us and attacked. Fun, right? Well, turned out it wasnt cause before we even made it to weapon stations the shield was down, and hull started to go critical. We didnt even have time to target or manuever the ship before it went boom, and was lost. A week of grinding gone. Good PVP kill, but it's just a bit too harsh and unfun. I mean even for the hardcore PVP guys playing on empty severs must suck. That server went down not long after, since quite a few crews had the same experience as us. Now all I see is almost empty servers. Maybe if the game had more players, or if there were AI ships to attack? Lets hope they manage to hold this game together that long and we might return. For now, I can't really recommend for anything other thatn playing around with freinds in creative mode, or with the excellent editor.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 24, 2018

  In the current state of the game, I cannot reccomend this game. The game is built as a Multiplayer game, but rarely do you get a crew big enough to run with or you just alot of friends and run a big a ship. Not much inbetween the two cases. I believe the game and the design has promise but after listening and trying to give feedback to the devs, which they sometimes talk in discussion threads, turned out to rude and refuse to listen to their playerbase. This game is a good game IF you setup a server for yourself and friends, but as a MP game your not going to have fun UNLESS it is a fresh server and you are a large group. I love the idea of crewed ships and lack of a conveyor system, but they have added a simple conveyor system and automation systems which punish you for using them. The ACTR can only move one TYPE (Ex.Iron Ore) from a list sources to ONE destination of cargo pads. They require heat sinks which are expensive and last maybe 2-4 minutes before needing to be replaced and in most cases you need to move 3-5 items around so you 5 the hulking ugly things all over the ship to do a chain. And these things are expensive to build and run. Then the Automation system, if you turn it on and it does nothing it "wears" away the module just for being on. I can understand if it was doing something like mine or refine something to "wear" away the automation module and they last about 3 mins or so. The devs keep destorying designs, for example solar panels are kinda ugly, but as of now the only way to power a ship without fuel. So they allowed us to turn the around to "hide" the shiny side and still function. This has been like this for long time now not so much. Same thing happened with the fuel tanks as for the longest didnt require hoppers, now they do and made them unusable in most of ship designs. So main thoughts dont be surpised if a workshop ship doesnt work or the ship you spent hours building stops working. I had high hopes for the game, but I dont think this game is going to make it unless they change course. Final thoughts Good game IF you setup a server yourself and friends to play on, but isnt as described. Control are OKish, but do need some work on ship control and targeting The Devs dont listen to feedback so if anyone ask for something to make the game better forget about them listening. But, if there is a bug they will fix as of writing.