Abiotic Factor Review (Magic Potato Dude)
What can I say about this game that others haven't said in their review? But I'll try to put it in my own words and experiences.
First of all this game is labeled as a survival game but forget everything you think you know about survival games. The premise for Abiotic Factor is imagine a situation much like Half Life; you're a scientist that is stuck in the Gate Cascade Research Facility, a giant underground lab. You won't be a walking one man army like Gordon, you're just a regular guy. You have to make sure you eat, drink, sleep, and even USE THE BATHROOM when needed. You also have the option to play solo or cooperatively with up to 6 player co-op. Also it's not just survival, there is an end goal that you're working towards throughout the game.
The map is crazy awesome. It's all just one huge interconnected facility. So you start at the bottom level of the facility and need to unlock the different floors and sectors in order to progress. What makes the map so amazing is that all of the sectors have shortcuts that lead to the main section, so you never have to travel far to any areas you have previously unlocked. Plus there's vehicles, ramps, ropes, and other traversal tools to make getting around even easier.
There's also a really fun crafting system, where you go around picking up random office supplies and your character will come up with "ideas" on different things to craft. Ideas are crafting recipes that you need to unlock, it will give you a list of materials you have picked up, and you have to slot them into the correct spot with the correct material in order to unlock the recipe. But it's not as easy as just crafting it in your inventory, or making a workbench.
Workbenches and other crafting stations require power to run. There's outlets all over the facility that allow you to plug your stations in to provide them with power, however; the facility isn't open 24/7. The facility closes from 9 PM to 6 AM, and during this time the power gets turned off and security robots start patrolling. There's batteries that you can make that allow you to keep your stations powered during the night. There's also base defenses because as you progress, enemies from the levels you've unlocked will occasionally raid your base at night so you have to choose a good spot in the facility to set up your base.
You aren't the only one in the facility; you are trying to escape with your fellow scientists that you'll bump into on the different levels of the facility. Usually they will give you information that you will need in order to progress to the next sector. But not everyone is friendly. There's also soldiers patrolling the later part of the game. As well as the main type of enemies you'll come across; aliens.
That's right, this game has portals that lead to other worlds and from those worlds come all kinds of different creatures that roam the facility. There are also basically SCPs too in the game that you learn about as you go through the game with all sorts of different weapons you can craft to take them down.
Now my thoughts:
I think the game is amazing, even though it's still being worked on. It's such a unique and cool concept and exploring the facility and seeing what new stuff you can find or make is some of the best fun I've had in a game in a while. There's soooooo many more things that I couldn't really get into like a cooking system, the way you can carve up enemies to get food/components off of them, the different ways you can build your character, and just the way that there's very minimal hand holding, you get told to go somewhere and it's up to you to find out how to achieve that goal. My only gripe with the game is that it can be proper tough if you play by yourself so consider yourself warned if you want to play solo.
Strongly recommend, especially since I'm almost 30 hours into the game and I still have a whole bunch of stuff to experience before I'm anywhere close to doing everything the game has to offer for now, and it's just going to get bigger as they are still adding things to the game! Definitely worth the money even in the current state.