Starfighter General
It cost $0.64
– Real player with 44.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Flight PvP Games.
If you like flying and blowing stuff up you’ll enjoy this game.
– Real player with 13.6 hrs in game
Rise: The Vieneo Province
This game is one of the unique gaming experiences I had for the last years. But it is obviously not for everyone. Who will like it?
If you are much into space flying/trading simulators like Elite Dangerous, X series etc., and you want to bring it to a next, much more realistic level, this game might be for you.
What is Rise? It is mostly airplane/spaceship simulator placed in future on a moon which is being colonized. If you have some experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane it will help you a lot because this simulator is realistic. Different planes every with its own flight model, some with vertical t/o capability and everything in realistic physics. You will need some piloting skill or you can learn these skills during gameplay. But it’s not only about flying in the atmosphere. Some ships will allow you for a suborbital and even orbital flight to the space stations. So basic knowledge of orbital flight is needed as everything is modelled correctly in Newtonian physics. If you have experience in Orbiter or even in Kerbal Space Program it will be very helpful. If not - you will have to learn it.
Now while mentioned simulators only give you possibility to fly your own scenario, Rise also simulates your career. You start as a poor colonist who has to literally drive taxi to earn. Soon you will be able rent a truck and start hauling vehicles or do some basic trading. From that it’s very soon to renting first flying vehicle, which will allow you to visit nearby colonies and earn much more on trading. Now I must admit here that car driving might not be very appealing, as the city seems empty without AI traffic, but it really works well for the immersion and also as basic guide before you start to understand how the game mechanics work. At that time you can also use a simulator to get the feel of flying.
As a more endgame activity you can build your own colonies. You will first have to find a good spot which is rich either in some rare materials or fuel ore and then you can build your first mine. You will also need to have a farm to feed the colonists and a town if you want to future refine your ore and basic materials into more valuable stuff. The game is an online MMO and whole economy is player driven. Everyone sets their own prices hoping that other pilots will supply their colonies with stuff they need and buying their products. Nothing is scripted here. People can form alliances or even make some economical wars, for example setting up dumping prices to shut down other enterprises. Unfortunately the player base is small mostly because the game is difficult and requires a lot of effort to get into.
The game interface might be a bit puzzling at first but actually it is pretty effective. Most of the stuff is done either by context menu or by writing in the computer window. Again it gives a lot of immersion. For example if you want to load some stuff to a cargo hold you will have to write something like “1+10” which will mean to put 10 tones into bay 1. I really like that idea because it feels more realistic than just moving some sliders on a menu. There is also so much attention put into little details. For example if you want to build a mine, you will first have to visit a place where you buy the land, then you will have to buy or rent a container which will suit your new project, then you have to visit a company which will put a mine project inside. Then you bring it to your spot and deploy. Next you will have to supply it with needed materials and personnel, or pay others to do it for you. With enough materials you can now order your workers to build certain elements of the mine like extractors, separators, storage buildings etc. It’s very fun to see how it grows and how your products affect the global economy. If you for example buy an ATM for your colony, so people can get cash from their account to buy stuff from you, you will have to put some money inside. That is the level of detail involved.
The game itself is more or less a hobby project developed for many years. Therefore, the graphics may look outdated but it’s not for the graphics itself why you play the game. And some views, especially sun setting from the orbit are just beautiful. The game even though advertised as in alpha state is fully playable but in the same time still developed. You may be sure it won’t be abandoned, because people involved in development also love to play it themselves. They are very open to discussion and any opinions. The game is connected to a discord server and you will spend a lot of time talking with them, learning the stuff and giving your own ideas.
The game is made by people with some real life aviation background and you can really see it. You can do ILS approaches and there is even ATC which will vector you to the airfield. But also the economy model is very realistic with a lot of attention into details. While flying similar routes may seem to get boring quickly it’s not, because every flight is different. The plane will behave differently depending on how much cargo and fuel it is carrying. Depending on distance your suborbital flights will look different. You will get better at planing a good and not so very hot re-entry every time. It’s so fun to see how your skills in piloting increase and so how does your bank account. As the game is MMO there is no time compression. You will sometimes have to wait for example for a take-off window to a space station and flights may take from few minutes to even few hours. It’s designed for hardcore simmers but it’s really worth the effort.
One drawback of the game might be the fact that there is no real manual for it and the game is difficult with a steep learning curve. There is a wiki which gives a lot of information but it doesn’t explain everything in detail. You will have to ask people about certain things, how they are done and how they work. So you need to be prepared for some serious learning. If you don’t like it and just want to get straight into action, the game is not for you, so be aware of that. Fortunately the small community is very helpful and will explain everything to you. If you are in doubt there is a fully playable free demo available. Go ahead and try it. You are only limited by no possibility to build your own colonies, but as I mentioned this is more an endgame activity so you really don’t need it at the start. If you get the hang of the game, you can also later buy the full version.
To quickly summarize. Rise is an amazing spaceship/spaceplane simulator focusing mostly on trading and colony management in realistic, player driven economy. The game is difficult but the effort to learn it is well worth it. I highly recommend it to every serious simmer.
– Real player with 280.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Flight Sci-fi Games.
rise is definitly not your ‘‘flight simulator 20xx’’ or ‘‘x-plane (random numbers go here)" this game is a slow burn, you wont start as a pilot doing orbital flights across the moon or anything like that, this game is a career sim first and foremost, you start up as a normal person doing taxi to THEN do flights in a rented plane.
This game have been in years of devlopment by just a single guy, he is not superman so you shouldnt expect top tier mechanics in this game like someone that reviewed this game before me, as a brazilian this game is expensive as hell and i do a LOT of research before buying stuff cause you know poor country, gotta make your money count right?
– Real player with 251.2 hrs in game
Star Conflict
Star Conflict is a nearly flawless (in my opinion) space combat simulator. The complexities and the fun of this space combat build slowly through the levels, starting from a very high standard and getting better from there. There is an adequate crafting minigame and some half-baked questing. Optimizing the ship is made up of several minigames taken collectively. Optimization in its several pieces makes up a good, fun minigame.
There are areas of the game in need of improvement, yet the game as a whole is certainly in the top ten percent of space simulators. This review makes the case that Star Conflict is easily THE BEST f2p space combat simulator. We will not dwell on the shortcomings here, because the idea here is that you should just enjoy the game as it is at any given time and mostly let the devs worry about how to improve it. Overall, this is a great game.
– Real player with 9185.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Flight Space Games.
You would think with almost 1500 hours and at least a third of that being money invested I’d rabidly defend this game, but I am not happy with the development direction. I’ll probably still play for as long as I can considering what I’ve invested already, but . . . This game has long deviated from what made me fall in love with it. Remnants are there but I can’t help but comparing. What I really take issue with is how I see customers getting treated. Not me specifically, I am the way I am and I’ve just learned to accept any incoming consequences as a fact of life, to brush them off, and just keep going, but other people who go into things with a certain set of assumptions about their investment both time and money wise . .
– Real player with 1642.2 hrs in game
Islet Online
Still playing yes, Game, itself is fascinating where you can hunt animals, for food an raw materials, you can even flood the world at one point, PVP is option too. I haven’t tried it yet. I did have events like bunnies bunnies everywhere…not bunny to drop. If you get that.(died by kamikaze bunny) believe for one exception you could build towering mazes and mazes,
I did see castles and cathereadals somewhere people are building amazing structures.
You can upload your latest creation to steam where they showcase it,
– Real player with 122.3 hrs in game
This review is for the current version of the game(2/7/16)
What is Islet Online? Islet Online is a creative open world sandbox, similar to Minecraft. This game features an experience system that allows you to level up in pretty much everything like jumping, crafting, fighting and much more. These can directly effect your play experience, for example, you may be able to eventually jump up to 4 times in the air. It actually reminds me of McMMO from the old Minecraft Bukkit days….
– Real player with 70.3 hrs in game
Exocraft
Unlike many of the negative reviews already posted I decided to give this game more than a couple of hours before I posted a review.
Let me be clear on one point though…at just a couple of hours into this game I was feeling ‘meh’ and not getting much of a buzz.
I went back to other games instead.
Then a few days later I received an email from the developer enquiring why I had left and if there was any suggestion I could give on anyway to improve the game as he said he was always looking for feedback that he could utilise to enhance the game.
– Real player with 362.4 hrs in game
I played for about few hours, even got went and got a starter pack code. My conclusion is that it’s not worth playing.
Main problems I’ve found so far:
- The crystal economy is absolutely terrible, the main problem so far is that drones eat damage just from going out, even just salvaging shipwrecks with no enemies, causes them to take damage. Most of the time, the shipwrecks barely drop enough crystals to cause you to break even mining them. The Mines with Guardians are even worse. Going after a mine with two of the smallest guardians with different elements, and 3 3* drones of each type, I took 174 crystals of damage to drones, and the mine dropped approximately 80 in return and nothing else, no red gems, no parts, nothing. Huge waste of time and resources.
– Real player with 35.7 hrs in game