Let me begin this with a confession: I love space games. I love the feel of weightlessness that comes along with a really good space simulator and the way that combat can be taken to a whole different level. The trailer promises a game that will deliver an experience that will make the whole industry take notice.
Just looking at that trailer you can tell that this game is going to be beefy and require a lot of your computer just to run. Rumors have been swirling for a while that it could be fifty gigabytes or more when all is said and done. Which is huge, in and of itself, but it was reported yesterday by PC Gamer that the game will actually be closer to 100 gigabytes with updates running nearly 20 gigabytes! So if you're like me and living on a limited bandwidth (because there are no other options than bullshit, satellite internet) then this game is one you won't be playing based on those two factors alone. However there are bigger for this game than just its size and system requirements.
The above video features a little over fifteen minutes of the game's actual play footage and if you made it past the first two minutes than I applaud you. If you watched it to the end as I did then I pity you because this game play is the most boring thing I've watched in years. It's worse than the early Mech games that often consisted of plodding along for thirty minutes trying to find that last enemy unit that was on the other side of the zone while you hoped that your tape wouldn't reach the end of its side. The combat appears sluggish; there is no music; and even the person playing the game appears too bored to do more than suffer through the game. In short, it's terrible.
I realize that the game isn't fully realized yet and that to judge it so early in its life is a bit unfair - but in this case I feel its warranted. According to everything that's been released around this game the core of it is supposed to be the space combat, and that looked boring as hell. From the trailer I had high hopes for it and was actually considering upgrading my graphics card so that I could handle it at its max settings, but the game play killed any such thoughts.
Unless something dramatically changes before the game's full launch I will not be buying it. What about you?
