Gaming babble: Icarus

 So the new PC arrived, the parts have been successfully assembled, and it runs like a dream. The most tedious part of the setup was/is waiting for games to download. I have horrifically slow internet and it's not unusual to wait between 10-20 hours for some games if not longer (I'm looking at you Elder Scrolls Online...).

So I downloaded Grounded because that would have been the first game I'd play with friends. I downloaded Valheim because that would be the second game I play with friends.

And then I downloaded Icarus.

The premise of Icarus is that you're a prospector sent down from the station onto a planet which somewhat failed terraforming and now requires you to wear a suit to survive. Each mission, or prospect, has its own goals (scanning areas, killing beasts, harvesting food) and has its own time limit in which you need to complete the task and get back to the spacestation before it loses contact with the area you're prospecting in.

The game is beautiful and challenging, and it's a game that I enjoy playing...

But there are some things to consider before buying it.

The game, while having been fully released, isn't exactly a fully finished product. Looking at the trailer to Icarus you see some very lofty promises, most of them kept, though the fauna in the game is a little... confusing. The trailer shows alien lifeforms. The game has deer, bears, wolves, boars, and rabbits. Hm... They're also still consistently updating the game. So it's not that the game has been made and left to be what it is, which is incomplete, but it's definitely still a work in progress. You also need a somewhat beastly PC to play the game. I've heard that it's really hard on some graphics cards, running them hot.

There's also something a youtuber pointed out (either Z1 or GameEdged, I can't remember) but essentially you have like thirty missions. Every mission starts you off with nothing. So you arrive on planet, build a base, build tools, do what you need to do, get back to your shuttle, blast off. And you have to do that for every mission. This can become tedious. I'm only three missions in and I can feel the bit of strain on the idea. Granted it has kept me occupied for over 10 hours so far, so just that makes it worth the reasonable price I paid for it. I think it just means that it's a game you'll play piecemeal as opposed to binging on it for several missions. That's going to tire you out.

So all-in-all Icarus is a mixed bag. It's gorgeous, but it has its flaws and riddles. I'm curious to see what the developers are going to do with it. I'm certainly enjoying it but I realise that it's not for everyone.