The Signal From Tölva

Mh, I've had my share of fun. It's an exploration game, first and foremost, with a bit of robo-biffing and upgrading on the side. It's a bit like NMS in that you're thrown on a planet with little direction beyond "help the surveyor bots and scan things for info". Hell, it even looks pretty similar to some of the planets I've landed on in that game (sadly, sans the giant wrecks strewn around...). You spend most of the time tromping through the tundra, looking at strange things and pondering where to go next. If you don't have a sense of wonder to appreciate the alien landscape (complete with half-buried wrecks, giant metal skeletons and other awesome-looking floatsam), you probably won't enjoy it. It's not really heavy on the action or a hardcore survival sim. It's a walking sim that happens to have some nice shooting on the side. The world building is pretty nice, especially in conjunction with the provided lore book. The game also manages to have proper lore explanations for fast travel and respawning beyond "cuz it's a game, silly!". Doesn't necessarily make for better robot biffing, but I do appreciate the effort of making a coherent whole of the thing. Special kudos to the sound design for the guns. All weapons are either railguns or energy based, and all of them sound great, with nice visuals to boot. This is how sending a couple of kill-o-watts down a barrel ought to sound like! Sadly, the game is also rather short. A playthrough will take between 6-10 hours, and then that's it. The map is static, the skirmishes between bot factions mostly concentrated on the last area. There's also no free roam after the game ends (the why of which is pretty clear once you've seen the endings themselves...).

I'm really sorry to say it this bluntly, but this has got to be one of the most boring games I played in a long time. The lorebook you get is by far the best part of this game. Exploration is quite dull because everything is spread too thin. The map could have easily been condensed to a quarter of its size without losing anything - on the contrary, packing stuff a bit denser would have significantly reduced the boredom induced by the horribly slow walking (and running) speed, leading to 'nothing to see or do' for minutes. Running faster would also have been an option, but there's really nothing to suggest keeping the map as large as it is. To be fair, the places where 'something' is to be found or simply explored are interesting, and the mood they set are spot on (when you have read the lorebook). It's just too little, too far apart. Other have talked about the solid combat, which I can't really relate to. There's what looks like large arsenal of weapons, until you realize there are just a couple of weapon types with different characteristics. To me, none of them felt cool or hefty, they all had a sort of 'pew-pew' quality, espacially in the sound design. What irritates me is that recharging seems to transfer energy from your drone to the weapon, which takes the same time regardless of whether the gun's empty or almost fully charged. There's basically no variance in enemies save the couple of 'bosses', and none of them inhabit any interesting behaviour. Tactical options are rather limited. You've got a scanner to mark enemies, two weapons (one can be a drone-commanding gadget I only ever used once when the tutorial suggested it), your short-time shield and and 'area effect' gadget (that may also take the form of a summoned drone). I played this game over a long period of time because it just wouldn't keep me interested for more than half an hour in a single session. But I wanted to know about the story, and that's why I came back to those half-hour segments.

My main reason for wanting to experience this sci-fi game is because Ian McQue was the concept artist. I have been a fan of his work for ages so it was fantastic to see his rustic sci-fi stylings in the robots, ships and also the alien enviroment. The Lorebook is worth reading too. For a team of only four developers to drop such a polished (no bugs or dropped fraps) and fun game is great to see. Also refreshing was going into a new game with no hype or expectations, unlike some other games recently. Comparisons with No Man's Sky are completely unwarranted. The only similiarities are the exploration in a sci-fi setting and the first person perspective; pretty much like every other game in this genre. The backstory is enticing, sounds similar in some ways to Iain M. Banks Culture series but with AI gone malevolent. It is not a complicated game by any means; if you are looking for more complexity in your gameplay try something else. UI is clean and easily understood. Missions and waypoints in the in-game map are likewise simple to read. The skirmishses with the other robots are fun and the sounds of the various weapons are fantastic. I am looking forward to completing it soon and I hope Big Robot can go onto produce more games like it.

Bog Robot's first game, Sir You are being Hunted, was fun. A lot of fun in fact. But it lacked a cohesive story, or direction in where to go or what to do. This, Big Robot's follow up game improves on Sir by addressing both of these issues. This is a FPS with a mystery to solve. Explore the surface of Tolva while collecting data fragments, acquiring upgrades and returning to search previously inaccessible areas, which lends a light Metroidvania feel to the game. The game that it strongly reminds me of is Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, and TN is a game I dearly loved at the time, but in all honesty couldn't stand to play through now given its now hideous graphics! It seems to be a nicely shorter game too, which for someone with limited time and a WoW obsession, means I might actually get to finish a game. Something I rarely do these days! GoG.com oddly are more expensive than other vendors, but either way it's a great purchase and highly recommended.