Massive Reviews

[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b] Massive is an asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated someone else's example/template/tutorial game, changed the name/reskinned a couple of things, and submitted it to Valve as if it was their own game.[/quote] Massive is some older Russian scamware and it's at least interesting to see how their methods changed. Where normally now they dump a game in Steam Direct and then pump the review score with fake/paid reviews, this is one of the earlier scams which took place while Steam Greenlight was in full swing. The developer used fake accounts to pump the game rating so it was approved by Greenlight. Bizarre how Steam replaced Greenlight with a system that made it even easier for Russian scammers to dump asset flips like this onto Steam, resulting in a deluge of literally thousands of scam asset flips and clickers and other junkware on Steam every year. But I digress, reviews must be about the game, even "fake" games like this. Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. It's just a lazy 2D top down retro pixel twin stick shooter with a bunch of stolen sprites and backgrounds, all slapped onto a basic Unity twin stick shooter blueprint... a minimum viable product, not intended to be a real game. In fact reskins of the exact same game have been dumped onto Steam a couple of times by the same developer using different/fake Steam developer accounts (and it's possible this is the same person behind Daniel Li/FadyGames and those scamware titles). Check out "Gun Brothers" if unsure... it's the same game! A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. You don't have to take my word about how bad the game is, we can measure the interest in a game by how much people bothered to play it. Massive has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game absolutely failed to capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is "Accidentally", for killing a player in co-op, trivial to achieve, but less than 3 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. That's a tiny, tiny proportion of gamers who even bothered with this. Ouch. The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 7 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 110,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name. So, should you buy this asset flip? Is this better than any of the 110,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not! Massive is relatively cheap at $20 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. Remember that if you buy a game from an unethical developer, you're putting your money at risk.