Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

Human growth and development was a long and tedious process that involved many redundant and useless actions that eventually led to the golden age of species development we are experiencing. This game is much like that - it is a boring game mostly comprised of tedious actions that feel redundant and are redundant that will eventually result in a great conclusion. In the great schemes of things this may sound poetic, but the game being good only at the end is just plain uninteresting... Some people will love it, those perhaps are the same that read the instructions before they set up a new microwave, read the terms and conditions of a music streaming service before they use it or they plain like to be bored. A+ for the effort, straight up F on the excution and the concept

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a third-person, open world survival game in which you lead a clan of hominids over multiple generations from 10 million to 2 million years ago. Its most notable quality is taking on subject matter that has never been treated with this level of detail in a game before. While certain liberties have been taken, it's a serious game that may hold appeal for people who are interested in human evolution and development. With a simple goal and no underlying narrative or mystery, I found that what you get out of it is going to depend on what you bring to it. There's a nice enough little adventure here, but it relies almost entirely on the player making it into one. It also has some serious deficiencies that are impossible and unfair to overlook. Once the initial fascination wears off, the new player experience can be extremely frustrating. You're tossed into the world without much indication of what to do, lost and forced to rely on instinct and trial-and-error much like our hominid ancestors did. The game was more fun when I knew what I was doing, but it seems you're expected to spend a month of your life figuring it all out. It's clear many of the game's systems had a lot of though put into them, but others, such as combat, are simple and/or unsatisfying. Clan management especially suffers for the obsession of trying to avoid reminding the player that they're playing a game, and I ran into several bugs with both it and the map that made me feel they got to 95% and considered that good enough. On the plus side, I thought the animation of the hominids was A+ outstanding. Whether climbing, swinging through the trees, shuffling around on all fours, walking, or using primitive tools, the animations feel genuine. The sound effects bring you into the world, and the music is appropriately themed. The map has some game-y elements to it, such as an absurd number of cliffs and rock pillars, but it does a decent job selling itself as plausible.

If your a survival fan you will enjoy this game. Its hard. Its annoying. Its fun. Nab was as of yet my most bad ass monkey yet. He shall be remembered for all time for his war against the sabertooth. You have to take it slow with this game. Your gonna get confused. Be unsure. Die. Etc. Just relax and enjoy the game. Thats the point of it imo. Just like a survival sandbox game. I got it on sale and man I am hooked... Cant stop playing it now. I get so aggro at it then have to walk away and come back after a youtube break and a snack. This is the type of game devs should be making not that FPS garbage they love to pump out. This was made for hardcore gamers...brutal deadly world and they dont help you much. Learn to grow. Grow to love. And remember take care of your clan. They are your life!

...or the fact that I've since childhood loved everything about evolution of man and animals, but I loved this game from the start. I found it intelligent, challenging and a real treat for me as it coincides with my interests. No, the game doesn't help you much, but once you remember that our early ancestors probably used rocks, sticks and plants quite early in their road to evolve into humans, it gets a lot easier. Once you start exploring your surroundings, pick stuff up and examine them, you realize that there actually is a tutorial in the form of the HUD. It tells you what you can do with the picked up object and once you've examined them, that there are options with some of them. You just have to figure them out. The reasons why I don't give this game five stars are the following: Once you've learned to do something, you shouldn't have to repeat it over and over again. I can make this tool? Ok, then I shouldn't have to bang endlessly with this rock over and over again. It gets tedious and boring. Where did that damn cat get through my defenses? It spawns right in the middle of my camp. I know cats are good at stalking, but this is ridiculous. Why are my clan members so stupid? They stand and freeze out in the cold rain instead of joining me in my cozy cave. Other than that, I've played this game through several times and will do so years to come. Unless there comes a better game, because I would love to continue the jouney at least up Cro-Magnon.