Alien Life Lab

Alien Life Lab

The entire station, known as Alien Life Lab, has lost communications with society and fallen into chaos!

It’s up to you to traverse through Alien Life Lab Station to find any survivors, recover valuable lab resources and find what caused the station to go haywire.

-Procedural Generation to give you a new level every time!

-Electric Tranquilizer Gun uses actual (in-game) physical bullets to stun violent aliens!

-Tranquilize hostile aliens with sci fi pistol, shotgun and sword.

-Find survivors and tag aliens to earn credit coins.

-Go deeper into the station.

*Experiences Will Vary.

Story & Lore:

Several months ago, the Lab went black… Communications were lost with the outside worlds.

Residents on-board have no idea what triggered the Lab into stasis that released the dangerous exhibits to roam throughout the cargo-holds to search for sustenance.

Everyone and everything on the Lab has been reduced to utilizing whatever resources they have or can find to survive, not knowing when, or even if, help would arrive.

In the deep of space, you board the seemingly dead ghost ship…


Read More: Best Aliens Resource Management Games.


Alien Life Lab on Steam

Infected spaceship generator

Infected spaceship generator

10/10 Literally Best Game

Real player with 426.6 hrs in game


Read More: Best Aliens Zombies Games.


many small bugs, but I hope they will be fixed in the full version

Real player with 6.3 hrs in game

Infected spaceship generator on Steam

Beacon

Beacon

Updated Added 3/24/2019

Keep in mind this is a game still in beta phase, so it’s not quite finished. I’ll likely update my review as Beacon continues development.

I absolutely love top-down shooters and Beacon is no exception, in fact, it makes me appreciate them more. I’ve stuck around playing since it was released on Itch. It’s changed quite a lot, such as additions of enemies and bosses, loot areas, and of course all the bug-squashing, both technical and literal. It’s a little terrifying that there’ll be even more enemies and bosses later, which means plenty more ways to die, but hey, mutations are a thing.

Real player with 68.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Aliens Action Roguelike Games.


Beacon has a nice low-poly artsyle, a pretty good soundtrack, and interesting writing and ideas. It has some weird design choices regarding weapons and enemies, but is over-all rewarding, if not occasionally frustrating due to a few enemies.

The gameplay is pretty typical: you can use 2 guns, have 1 equipment, 1 consumable/held passive, a grenade type, and as many passive non-held items as you want. You can smack things and dodge-roll, too.

The big game idea is that, when you die, you use DNA pickups you collect from enemies and can “mutate” next run… Or you can do what I did and beat it without mutating, which is pretty doable. Mutations change how the character looks/acts/stats and how the character reacts to items and story elements.

Real player with 48.6 hrs in game

Beacon on Steam

Galactic Civilizations III

Galactic Civilizations III

NOTE: This is a review of the Final Release Candidate for the game, so it should apply to the released version.

Having been a long-time GC2 player, I eagerly signed up for the Founder’s Edition early-access over a year ago, and have followed the development of GC3 since then closely.

Let me tell you, getting a 4X game that incorporates all the features that hard-core strategy gamers want, while remaining both relevant and competitive, is really hard. As in, EXTREMELY hard. StarDock has done an excellent job with GC3. That’s not to say there still aren’t quibbles over the direction certain features have taken, but the reality is, that if you actually want to release a game, certain decisions are going to have to be taken, and you’re sure to piss off someone who wanted that feature and didn’t get it. But GC3 is a solid and entertaining game, if not a radically innovative one.

Real player with 2842.9 hrs in game

First of all it is critical to understand that the game is still in beta testing and therefore has some glitches. That said it has been pretty stable for me. (Four year old dell xps 8100 with 16gb and a 750 Ti video card). At present the plan seems to be to a go for a final release in May. There will be frequent patches before then and perhaps a beta 6 release (beta 5, with enormous additions, was released yesterday (Mar26). If you don’t like encountering bugs and reporting them to help the game, then wait for the release. Of critical importance remaining is tuning the AI to be smarter and more aggressive, imo.

Real player with 2285.4 hrs in game

Galactic Civilizations III on Steam

Planet Nomads

Planet Nomads

[May 16, 2019: Now that the game is released, I wanted to edit this review to reflect changes to the game since I originally wrote it,]

Will you enjoy Planet Nomads?

  • Yes if you enjoy sandbox building games.

  • Yes if you enjoy being creative.

  • Yes if you enjoy problem-solving (not fixed puzzles but real creative “how can I put this together” building challenges).

  • Yes if you enjoy a beautiful environment.

  • Yes if you enjoy a good soundtrack.

  • Yes if you enjoy single player.

  • Yes if you enjoy being able to customize your game world.

Real player with 4203.3 hrs in game

Gameplay (Short Summary)

Let me start off this review by saying, that the game currently has very little to offer in terms of gameplay if you are not much of a creative person, but if you are, then be prepared to a big grind fest early on in the game until you get the ability to construct auto miners, after that prepare yourself to the next gameplay phase - driving simulator, because resources are scattered across multiple biomes and while driving at max speed from 30-50kmph, it takes a while to get you around the map.

Real player with 120.7 hrs in game

Planet Nomads on Steam

Super CosmoJet

Super CosmoJet

This is a great little game, simple but challenging at the same time! It doesn’t take itself too seriously - it had me laughing a few times.

This is definitely worth the price of a coffee if you like playing around with physics in space… and lasers.

Real player with 23.3 hrs in game

Really awesome top down adventure shooter with some nice RPG elements!

Real player with 14.5 hrs in game

Super CosmoJet on Steam

BFF or Die

BFF or Die

A nice cooperative puzzle game.

CRASHES when trying to use Remote Play Together. This is too bad. I really wanted to try it out with some help from my far-flung friends.

The initial levels of the game are different based on the number of players. If you want to teach friends how to play, I recommend playing the first 7, or so, levels in TWO PLAYER mode. The early levels of other modes might fail to teach important aspects (like how to get out of the flashlight booth).

This could be a nice title for some “Games Night” cooperative frustration, err I mean fun.

Real player with 7.3 hrs in game

The game is like a physical puzzle game but with action elements to it. And if you play multiplayer, the extra dimension of needing to figure out what each player needs to do and when to complete the level. It can get crazy hectic and tense, especially when your teammates mess up or something unexpected happens. But it never feels unfair or too punishing. Plus you always get time to plan at the start of each level / puzzle.

My only criticism is some of the menu options don’t work with keyboard, but nothing that stops you playing the game.

Real player with 3.5 hrs in game

BFF or Die on Steam

Phoenix Point: Year One Edition

Phoenix Point: Year One Edition

Been following this game since announcement, could only buy it recently

Not as polished or filled with content as reboot XCOM titles and has a lot of balance issues, but i like it, i hope devs will keep on supporting the game.

The biggest difference from other x-com-like games is that you can aim at different body parts similar to fallout’s VATS system, effectively letting you disable individual bodyparts of enemy units or strike the least protected spots to maximize damage as guns fire projectiles and not just mimick that feel, making cover work as actual cover and not just decrease a chance to hit and damage received

Real player with 344.1 hrs in game

Phoenix Point is an evolution of the turn-based tactics genre. The free-aim system allows the player the control to make meaningful decisions in placement and in utilizing the soldiers rather than praying to RNG-esus to give us a good roll. Snipers don’t miss shots right in-front of their faces, there are no ‘99% but whoops it missed!’ moments. For this alone it’s a worthwhile and substantial upgrade to classic tactics games.

The over-world is on par with X-Com 2 with the player moving from point to point looking for cities and supplies in addition to trading opportunities. The great bulk of the player’s time in the over-world should be spent either moving to a mission or moving between havens to trade resources. One of the major missed elements of Phoenix Point, and what I see giving players an endless amount of consternation is in finding enough resources to make it through the game. I’ve also noticed the achievement for ‘Trading 10,000 Resources’ is also under 10%.

Real player with 177.2 hrs in game

Phoenix Point: Year One Edition on Steam

Rebots

Rebots

Experience a galactic adventure with your crew of robots

You are working as a middle manager for the Rebots Corporation who specialise in climaforming inhospitable asteroids for aliens. Your character’s aspiration is to become “The Best Employee Ever” but there is a long journey from the bottom to the top. Climb the ranks of the Rebots Corporation, making friends and rivals along the way, as you follow in the footsteps of your mother to become employee #1.

Program robots

To make your robots work, you need to program them. Or rather, you need to instruct your robot managers (supervisors) to instruct your robot workers. Hence, you learn how to program by creating your code and instructions directly in the world and seeing your robot operation automatically carrying out your carefully designed program in real-time.

Build and balance delicate ecosystems

Each alien race has specific requirements for habitats, meaning you need to transform and design ecosystems while dealing with the local fauna and flora that might condone your lease on the land. You are changing the climate of existing ecosystems (climaforming) so you experience first-hand the effects of climate change and migration.

Build relationships with the alien factions you meet

Some aliens enjoy sweltering hot, some live in a swamp, while others like chilly weather. Get to know multiple factions throughout your adventure and learn their preferences to become the best employee of the Rebots Corporation.

Solve challenges in unique ways

Use your ever-growing programming skills with your robots to solve challenges in a variety of ways. Use the available resources to your advantage and leverage the local fauna, flora and resources to assist you in completing your job.

Rebots on Steam

Flight of the Athena

Flight of the Athena

Lots of variety with bosses and enemies. Includes interesting time-based events mid-mission and enemies that come from all four directions, which gets pretty exciting pretty quickly. Well done, A To Play Ltd’s Flight of the Athena is pretty damn fun and very replayable!

While the portrait art may be lacking the rest of the in-game art are quite nice. Some odd design decisions on the tactical map but the actual battles and bosses are loads of fun. And multiplayer!

For more niche curation, follow me at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27440015-CSH-Picone/

Real player with 2.5 hrs in game

This game is excellent! It is a flashback to games like this that I played when I was younger but with great additions! You have two guns (one on a turret) which you control using the 2nd stock on the controller; this is great! Also there is an RPG and randomness factor which add to replayability. Got to buy it!

Real player with 0.8 hrs in game

Flight of the Athena on Steam