Epigenesis Reviews

Firstly, it's in fair shape for an early access, and it's had a good update history, so don't be scared away by that. It does start with some wonky graphics settings, but after adjusting them it looks and plays pretty well, and many of the astetics (like the hideous alpha-style menus) will likely be fixed as more polish is added to the game. Now, onto the game itself. It remindes me a lot of a ball game mode from Unreal Tournament concept wise. It essentially uses shoot mechanics in a hoop and ball game similar to soccer (football), however it leans more heavely on the sports side of the shooter-sports hybrid. It is a high flying, high speed, and it does suffer a bit from a lack of feedback on landings and jump hieghts, but that forces you to pay attention to both the game and the platforms (I'd recomend using the highest FOV settings to help), as falling to your death is a constant threat. There are a lot of deep mechanics and power ups that make this game very strategic and competetive; It probably has the potental to compete with CS:GO's competitive scene. Over all, I would recomend this to someone who dislikes CoD style shooters but enjoyed the interesting gamemodes from old competitive games like Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, and Quake Arena.

First person future sport type game that plays smoothly and is a lot of fun - but as with many online multiplayer games, you probably need to bring your own teammates and opponents rather than rely on pickup games as the game servers usually seem pretty empty. The game is well designed - it is easy to pick up and play, and the concept is very simple - grab the ball and get near enough to the enemy "basket" and take your shot. The opponents will be trying the same thing, and using their weapons to try and knock you you off the platforms before you get there. While you are carrying the ball you can't shoot back, and have to rely on your teammates clearing your path, or maybe a lot of like and well timed dodges. The weapons in the game don't do damage they just push you, and there are a few variants - long range, medium range, and area/explosive types can be chosen at the start of each game, and you can switch between two modes for each as you like (in a more focused/powerful attack, or in more area affect but less impactful attack). You also have two different jump/jet pack modes - double jump and charged jump, that are attached to the weapon choices, although this could be annoying if your preferred weapon mode is attached to a jump mode that doesn't suit your playstyle). This leads to some fun and frantic gameplay where at any moment seemingly on the way to a certain score you can go flying into the air and have to try and spot a landing, or maybe quickly try and adjust your aim and launch a "Hail Mary" before you get too far from the basket before falling to your doom (and then respawning a few seconds later). Scoring a goal gives the scorer a seed to plant, which has three options to chose from, out of a selection of bonuses such as putting down a mortar or turret, a ramp making it easier to move towards the enemy basket, or a shield that covers most of the platform (possibly some more that I didn't notice). Each option also has a side effect of boosting the team stats a bit - making you jump higher, run slightly faster, or have more control while in the air. While an interesting addition that can significantly affect the later minutes of each game, it does seem like it makes games tend towards being more one sided as it means the team that starts well and scores early get more advantages, and are more likely to keep extending their lead.

When I still lived in the UK, about a year ago I went to the gadget show live (big gadget convention based on a tv show). They had this thing called Make Something Unreal 2012 where they invited people from universities to make games using the unreal engine. The finalists (there were four) were having demonstrations and they set about 16 gaming pcs up for us to test the game. It was in really early alpha at that stage and it still is alpha, but of the four games there was no doubt this was by far the best. I voted for this game by Dead Shark Triple Punch (awesome name) and it won the most votes in the end. If I were to explain it, it'd be something like, sport basketball of the future with low gravity, genetically engineered plants that give you bonuses the more goals you score, jetpacks, fast paced awesomeness and guns that don't harm but knockback. graphic style is kind of like super moday night combat, or team fortress 2.

Fantastic gameplay, terrific execution of the concept. Currently the community is too small to play on-demand, but during weekend events you can play with people who are playing earnestly.

It's a fun time waster. Pretty entertaining and unique. They shut the servers down so only play if your friends will or you'll probably be stuck alone. It's free to play now so what the hell. Get some friends together and have a little fun.

This game is awesome. If anyone has played Halo Reach, Halo 3 or even just watched Red VS Blue, chances are you will ahve memories of Grifball. This is Grifball on steroids. This is everything you wanted out of Grifball. This is the Grifball standalone. But dont just think of this game as Grifball, this game has more potential than your mother ever thought you had. This game is early access so there are some bugs and some things to be improved such as including East and West US dedicated servers (This is being worked in but is hard as the game is based out of Europe). When people hear "Early Access Game" they think not ready or not enjoyable or possibly not even interesting. This proves those people wrong. The amasing thing about this game being Early Access is that it can only get better and go up from here.

Great game to play competitive. It has quite a learning curve but the (small) community is really active and has great support for new players if you stick around on the teamspeak. The community even hosts tournaments twice a year where you can win sweet prices! I've put a lot of hours into this, it's no casual game, but if you get into it it's really tons of fun.

I selfishly want to recommend this game just to try to get more people to play to actually experience what it could be because I really liked the idea and feel. But, I cannot. I became enamored with the game over a free weekend. The sparsely populated servers with people as new and clueless as me made the game seem fun and the three-something dollar price tag appealing. I bit. Over the course of the next week or two the population disappeared. But I was able to learn the nuances of the game and navigate the not-steep, but completely unexplained, learning curve thanks to spotty appearances of other players. This made the game seem fun all over again. Over the following weeks I became comfortable with the game and really enjoyed the few times another human was actually on a server. Some players were better, a lot were as lost as I previously was. But in the end, I never witnessed a game larger than 2v3. Morning, noon or night. Any day of the week. Any server from West to East to Europe to Asia. There just isn't people playing this game. Perhaps some games just shouldn't be open betas or 'Early Access'? People were done and bored before it had legs. Or perhaps other issues are really holding it back. The learning curve isn't hard but requires other players to actually learn. There's documentation of what items do or how to prime your two jumps. But nothing about the useful ways to use the items, tactics to employ, using momentum from items/jumps/enemy fire, etc. All things you can only learn with a live enemy. And I still feel like I only really learned how to play 1v1 and what tactics to use in that situation because that's all I ever got to regularly. The devs have an idea of what they believe gameplay *should* be like if you read around the web some. In the perfect world all the servers would be 5v5 and somebody would be playing "goalie" and people would pass the ball. Combine those Ideas with the game that really does feel smooth and man that sounds great! But the dead community means you'll rarely see 5v5 or in my case; never. I tried to play "goalie" in a 2v2 after I had read about the concept on a forum. But it's just not a logical choice to do when you aren't realistically going to stop many chances. And passing? That would make the game that much more interesting but the speed of the players (especially once powerups are planted) makes that a colossal undertaking to time correctly. And because of this, nobody ever expects a pass. I never witnessed anybody else even attempt one. I could go on and on. Its a great concept that is fairly polished and fun in theory. But has a dead community and suffers from a multitude of other problems. I could never recommend it even at the price I paid much less it's regular price. My twenty-plus hours of play consists of maybe five with other players and maybe three of those five hours was "competitive" play rather than goofing around. The vast majority of my play time was spent alone achievement hunting. The bots are awful. If it gets lots of people suddenly, better maps (another issue I didn't delve into), and one or two other things I forgot to whine about... And it's like $0.99USD. Consider it.

If you like LAZORS, Flying through the air and balls, you'll love this game. Action-packed game with constant battles for the ball and land possesion. Never a dull moment with this game. Form a group with some friends, start a team, develop tac-tics and play agains the people of the game, or sign up for the frequent community tournaments. Or play by yourself with whoever else is online. Cool consept, amazingly well executed, awesome design and great gameplay. Really cool game, loads of updates, still in alpha and still the best game I've played in months! Not enough people own it!

With an already fantastic concept for a game, the developers of this have put so much effort into polishing its mechanics to perfection. With tight and satisfying movement, wonderful controls and very focussed design, this has the potential to be at the top of any list of arena shooters. It has a few major flaws however, chief among which is that it is quite badly explained and it takes a very long time to work out what is actually going on. It also has the incredibly unfortunate issue of having almost nobody playing it any more, which is a darn shame considering how amazing this game can be. You can still play it with bots, but the AI is too stiff to last more than a few matches before becoming boring. That said, the feeling of movement alone is what compelled me to keep playing for quite a while longer than the bots deserved. Annoyingly, its only major flaw is something of a vicious cycle; there aren't enough people playing it, therefore nobody will play it, making the whole thing worse. At the time of writing, it is on sale for next to nothing; I urge anyone reading this to buy it, get a few friends to buy it too, try it out and share it as much as possible. Even if it isn't to your tastes, the best thing that can be done for this game right now is to be shared.