Firstly; I DON’T WRITE REVIEWS. Go ahead and take a look at my Steam account http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198021679338/ . Out of over 130 products, 2 reviews. This one, and a negative review turned positive after the developer directly contacted me about it and fixed my issues. And on top of that, my review was "to long" to be submitted on Steam, so I've taken the time and effort to create an account here just to get my review out there.
I’ve played countless hours on AAA titles that left me feeling bored and unaccomplished, no matter how many achievements I met or ranks I acquired. When I first found Interstellar Marines, I was beyond hesitant. So far, on Steam, my experiences with Alpha stage games consists of Dayz, Rust, Nether, 7 Days to Die, and a few indie games here and there. If you’ve played any of those titles though, you’d understand my hesitation on pre-release Alpha and Beta testing. On top of that, I saw a lot of people asking questions such as; “What is this game exactly?” “Do you only fight robots or are their actual enemies?” And many others suggesting towards the actual translucency of the game the developers were providing in accordance with the currently released content. So, along with my personal review of this game, I’ll also be giving a rundown on the direction I’ve been able to reasonably deduce this game is heading in, and the possibilities of what's to come. There are no spoilers here as the game isn't even released yet. My in-game time may not be excessive, but that’s because I’m truly paying attention to what goes on and taking it in a piece at a time, if that says anything at all.. What I’m going to tell you is only as much as the developers will release at the time of this review. THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO TELL WHAT THIS GAME WILL BECOME IN THE NEXT YEAR AND UPON IT’S FINAL RELEASE. But I’m prepared for something.. Spectacular.
Upon startup, you’re introduced to a warning screen that raises an eyebrow; “WARNING: THIS IS EARLY ACCESS Prolonged exposure to Interstellar Marines may result in a severe affection and attachment to science fiction, tactical coop, and first person simulations.“ With the eyebrow still raised, you may scoff at the developers bolstering tactics, or, you’ll feel that tingling sensation in your genitals start to grow. What happens next, is nothing less then a crash course into the extremity of the play style Interstellar Marines provides. And then you’re hooked. With each initial startup after your first, you’ll be introduced to a very atmospheric opening video that starts with a widescreen shot of Earth and the vastness of space that surrounds it as you begin to hear horns playing in the background. As the horns build into a very uplifting call to arms, the screen begins scoping in on Earth like satellite imagery. It zooms in on the North American continent and finally reveals a large military style base somewhere within the Sierra Nevada. And finally zooms into a ventilation shaft that gives way to various 5 second security camera views from within the base itself. Now, why did I take the time to detail the opening video? Because the developers want to stress and show you that you are in a TRAINING FACILITY. And that’s very important to understand in order to perceive what this game has the potential to become.
This is Tactical Co-op FPS at it’s FINEST!
The moment you start controlling your character in game, you can feel that the developers care about what they’re creating. Basically, it seems like a group of designers that have played every Tactical FPS out there, got tired of the horrible gameplay, and decided to create and fine tune something other developers were to lazy to do. You’ll hear about how in depth the interaction between the game play and visuals are. Like the facemask that holds your HUD that can be lifted for an undistorted visual. When you lift that facemask up, your character in game does it and all the players can now see your face. It’s not just showing you for general purpose, everything in game can be viewed by everyone in game. Your laser sights. Suppressors that can be attached and detached. Even the animations for crouching are well implemented and unique, not just a character with his legs bent and standing at an impossible angle. The character appears to have stability and that goes for everything in game.
Yes, this game is Alpha and still has bugs, that‘s part of the Alpha experience. When you purchase an Alpha game, you’re basically saying “Yes, I like what I see so far and I would love to help debug and source your creation.” But I'm honestly excited beyond a reasonable doubt about the potential this title can hold, and I haven‘t been excited about a video game release since The Elder Scrolls last installment. Right now, you're basically paying for access to all of the currently developed and tuned game mechanics to play around with and help the developers debug and improve. This isn't an Alpha like Rust or Nether where it's a bunch of servers open, packed to the max with players basically averaging the intelligence of children in a sandbox. People like that, wouldn’t have the patients nor experience to survive a few seconds inside one of the servers of IM. The most servers I've seen populated when I log on, averages between 5 and 15, but there‘s roughly 50 currently running. A couple will have 10 to 12 players in it playing objective based deathmatch type rounds against other players. And the others will have 1 to 4 players in it playing either one of the developer released “campaign” scenarios or an objective based survival match within the training facility environment. What I love more than anything about this game right now, is that if the servers populated have a high ping or are too populated, you can just choose at will any of the empty servers and set up exactly what you want to play and 7/10 times, other players will start to join in.
If you aren't in a match against other recruits, you're playing against almost irritatingly ruthless AI robots that are designed to force you into learning how to actually play a FPS with tactual incentive. There are two different AI drones. The first one carries the essence of a creature with the movement, stature, and intimidating nature of something like the human mutations from the movie I Am Legend. You’ll hear one stomping around for a moment, giving off a low and eerie sound like a robotic grunt. You’ll hear it stop.. Silence.. And as you turn to face a corner, you’ll see a slightly slouching figure that quickly reacts to your flashlight and with another robotic sounding roar and a ferocious stomping force of machinery sprints at you in a serpentine evasive pattern and.. Slaps you to death.. These things will catch you off guard. Scare the sh*t out of you. And sometimes irritate the hell out you. The other AI drone is similar in build, but has a more determined and intelligent strut to it’s walk. Something similar to a security guard on patrol. Oh, and carries a battle rifle that coincides annoyingly well with it’s robotic aiming system. You’ll learn to be quick with the trigger and spot on with aim before letting bullets fly.
As for the actual game-play at the moment; most of the maps take on the feel and authenticity of an actual training facility. Everything is structured and textured accordingly and has purpose for the training. There are a few maps currently with environmental builds that are absolutely beautifully and precisely made for training. One is a swamp, fit with a deep and eerie fog that makes spotting enemies a little difficult, but also gives excellent cover for a tactical approach. Another is basically a typical outdoor environment at a facility on a nice summer day. And the other is a winter environment adorned with snowfall across the playing field. But that’s just the start to the atmosphere this Alpha provides. Each map, whether it’s obviously inside the training facility or not (accept a few choice obviously in door scenarios), has a very well implemented multiple environment simulator. During your matches, it’s at first a startling surprise but quickly becomes expected, as you and your team are maneuvering through buildings and completing objectives, you’ll hear a sound coming from above and as you look to see what it is you’ll notice that the stationary light that simulates the sun is moving along a half elliptical orbit and simulates a day to night shift as the light dims to resemble moonlight. But depending on the map being played, one minute you’ll be in a well lit room and the next every light in the facility will be shut off, forcing you to turn on your flashlight and force you to lessen your tactical security. You’ll also be introduced to heavy downpours of rain; extremely high wind currents; war time simulation (which at the moment just starts blaring sirens and flashing red emergency pattern lights around the map); snow storms; heightened fog conditions; and there may even be a few more I’m missing. The developers not only care about the environment and atmosphere of their game, they use it as an inhibitor to create panic and hesitation. On top of that, a few of the select training maps are literally giant rubics cube style environments that shifts to create new tactical playing areas as frequently as the atmosphere changes. Some may say it changes too quickly. But this all about enhancing and fine tuning the your abilities to adjust to scenarios in game as well as testing the Alpha structure of the game.
So far what’s included in game, along with the game-play mechanics, can be viewed as a debilitating tactical factor, but others may see it as a rip off. For the time being (at the time of this review) you have two in game weapons at your disposal. One is an SMG with a red dot lens optic. And the other is a Battle Rifle with a 4x enhanced visual scope with a cross hair reticule and mil spec measurements. Both can be equipped with a silencer and have a mounted laser for hip fire accuracy that can be seen by the training AI, so even that has to be used with precaution. Both weapons only have one single fire mode currently as well; full auto. There’s also an in-game ranking system. Nothing that belittles or over empowers any players over others whatsoever. It’s called your Training Rank which is increased by Training Points which are gained through objective completions and kills while inside a training match. And basically, that’s it as far as content goes for the basic Alpha purchase (again, for the time being). There’s a revive system that’s being perfected at the moment and other than that the only thing you have physical control over is your face mask/HUD which can be lifted during rain simulation to provide a water free view (at the expense of losing your HUD). I know that doesn’t sound like a lot of content, but there was less when the Alpha started and more is being added with each update. The developers are literally creating this game piece by piece, releasing it to the Alpha recruits for testing, perfecting the content already released, and THEN continuing on with the next step. I’ve honestly never seen such devotion nor attention to detail as I have with this game. Being prior military myself, I have a very strong feeling at least a few of the developers have the integral structure and mindset offered by serving as a soldier, which, to me, means no BS. But if you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the wallpaper they posted of the two marines standing defensively beside another marine dragging an injured comrade with terror on his face from the walking shark like creatures in the background. They title this the Concept Wallpaper. Everything displayed is basically a concept possibly inn construction. Along with the SMG (which is attached the left hip in the concept) and Battle Rifle (which is attached on the left side of the assault bags) you have access to in game, it also displays a pistol with red dot sight and mounted laser (attached to the right hips), and a shotgun with holographic sight (attached to right side of assault bag). My guess would be the use of multiple weapon systems in the full release. You can also clearly see an LCD screen attached the wrist of the right arms (may or may not be something used in game), and, if you can’t see it for yourself, everything from the gear they’re wearing and weapons they’re wielding are custom designed by the developers. I have yet to see any hints of grenades (frag or flash) or any kind of deployable. But there’s just no telling with how much room this game has left to grow.
There’s so much more to the feel of this game and the experience in general than what I can write in words. From a mature and helpful community to a determined and sociable developing team, buying into the Interstellar Marines now is a pleasing experience no matter your experience and skill. But even apart from the game itself, I’m incredibly pleased with what the developers offer to the Alpha recruits. You can buy the base game and have a blast if you want. But if you really enjoy this experience as I have, you can upgrade to the Spearhead addition, which comes with a few perks now and a few more when the game is fully released. To start you'll get your username in they’re calling the "Hall of Honor" in the full release, your actual name in the FULLY RELEASE GAME CREDITS, a free upgrade to the full game upon release, an extra copy of the game for a friend, and, as a thank you from the Interstellar Marines developing team, your gamer profile in the full release will be given a special emblem/sign/signifier to show that you were an Interstellar Marine from the start; which will be known as Spearhead identity and will give access to in-game skins, weapons, and helmets. Along with the Spearhead Edition purchase, the developers include a file that downloads to your computer full of all the schematics and concepts for the Beta.
SO, yes. There is going to be a real game coming out. When? I havn't a clue. Could be a year. Could be two. But trust me, you want these developers to keep at the same pace they’re going. They’ve found a groove that works and it’s doing wonders. DO NO QUOTE ME ON THIS, THIS IS PURELY A GUESS USING REASONABLE DEDUCTION AND A LITTLE REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS, but, from what they've introduced so far it appears that from this training station that the Alpha game is taking place within, in the full release the recruits will be put into an interplanetary environment with various mission types, scenarios, species, inhabitants, objectives etc. It's almost a dead give away with how much they've glorified their transport carrier, but, they could just like their transport carrier design a lot and have no intentions of using it, haha... That's my optimistic hopes at the moment without reaching out too far. But anyways, overall, if you enjoy very smooth tactical FPS gameplay that gives a guaranteed challenge, this is already worth buying. I'd say it's only worth $10 to $15 right now, but there's still a lot more coming out before the full release that we can play with and that $20 is more than likely going to be well spent on the greatest Alpha experience you‘ll have with Steam. I honestly have enough hope for this game that I went ahead and bought the Spearhead Edition and haven‘t had a second thought about doing so. The developers seem very intent on creating the absolutely perfect Tactical FPS there has ever been and I am really looking forward to experiencing what they have to offer.
To put this review in very simple layman’s terms;
Call of Duty and Battlefield should be set as next years arcade titles next to Time Crisis.
Interstellar Marines?... May result in a severe affection and attachment to science fiction, tactical coop, and first person simulations. <Key word