8089: The Next Action RPG

A glorious return to the xxx9 series, 8089 feels like a natural progression, modding weapons and gear is greatly expanded, the lifeforms are a lot of fun and the graphics retain that certain charm. Once you understand the games various systems it becomes engrossing and making progress feels good. Whether you are raiding an enemy stronghold, sheltering from a meteor shower or simply standing beneath a tree watching the rain, the game has a surreal atmosphere which really appeals to me. My only dream now is that Phr00t might one day do a total remake of 3079, one of my all time favourite games, I think I read that 3079 became more than it was meant to be and in the end its engine was pushed to the limits, it'd be awesome to see what could be achieved with modern pc's.

I play *a lot* of games, and return enough of them that Steam customer service gives me warnings. This game is fun, worth the price, and overall I am satisfied with the purchase. None of the issues I list below are anywhere close to game breaking or enough to sour the experience, and are mostly here as suggestions based on what I personally think would make the game more fun. Phr00t makes great games, and if you haven't tried any of them yet, this would be a great one to start with. If you have, you likely already know what to expect. I'm having more fun with this than any of the others I played. However, I'm not a huge fan of some of the design choices made with this one. First, 95% of the item drops are useless and overall gear feels the same. For guns, beams feel weak and leave you exposed while you attack, and lobbing has it's uses, but they're pretty slim. Seemingly the only stat to look at fir anything is level. There won't be a reason to use anything that drops aside from consumables or something 1-2 levels higher than what you have. However, whenever you get higher level gear, it disables the abilities on any gear you have that are several levels lower than it. This is an annoyance considering how movement feels without either the grapple hook found on arms or the blink ability from pants. You'll want to wait specifically for gear with the same abilities as what you have most of the time For the most part, enemies may as well drop money instead of gear, as you'll be selling almost everything and just buying a completely new set of gear every time you set up a new spawner in a higher level zone. If you invest in engineering, you can use the trash drops to upgrade other things, but I'll touch on that issue later. Second, as I mentioned earlier, the movement abilities on gear, while not absolutely necessary, saves so much time, to the point that I kept level 7 blink pants well into stage 17 (it took that long before I found another pair in a shop), so that I could unequip everything else to use them to get over the walls surrounding the bases (rather than spend an extra minute walking around to find an opening, or blink onto the tops of buildings where the vehicles spawn. It's really a night and day difference in how enjoyable the game is when you have either the blink or grapple hook to help move around. This also means that I miss out on the cool abilities like bullet time the majority of the time I play. My suggestions would be to make an extra gear slot just for movement options rather than have them tied to gear, make grapple hook a base ability, or put the jet spawns on the ground. Third, to level up stats you need to go to a shop and buy consumables that grant the points. This is the only shop you can refresh, thankfully, which will change the costs as well as the amount for each stat. The more you pay, the exponentially more stats you get. This means you'll need to open and close the shop about 30 times to get the best value out of the first purchase, or trying to get the cost low enough to afford. Not entirely sure why the stats are tied to a shop inventory system rather than something like clicking the stat, and then clicking either a 25%, 50%, or 100% button that spends that percentage of your current funds. I assume the logic behind this was to tie it into the zones level, but since money already is, it ends up just weird making people reroll the shop a bunch. Finally, I feel the benefits of engineering need to be enough to justify the investment. If I use a cauldron, overclocking, the whole works, to get something maxed out completely, it will be loads better than other gear at my level. However, since everything is exponential, it won't take much to overshadow it with something pulled from a shop 1-2 zones higher. Maybe I'm missing something, but so far I haven't seen anything to bump up the level on items to make it worth doing. With all that said though, the game is enjoyable. Aside from enemy beam weapons occasionally tilting the heck out of me and meteor showers just being generally annoying, It's mostly quality of life things this game (or future games) could use in my opinion.

The game is for a specific kind of player that enjoys constant progression feedback loops in a single player experience. Go to an area that whoops you, get more stats and better weapons, then move forward at your own pace once it gets easier. The pacing definitely makes the player responsible for the difficulty level they are experiencing. You have level 30 equipment and stats, push yourself to a level 35 area for significant challenge / reward, or hang a bit back to cheese farm at level 28. There can be significant punishment for dying, specifically losing some very important modules. The quest system can be cycled to provide complete-able quests at higher levels by avoiding combat ect. The game works well flat screen and VR. Personally I prefer VR, being able to use the grappling hook in VR and blink teleport really adds significant mobility to the game. The ability to mod your weapons to get homing ect allows for ease of use play on remote play systems. The combat isn't hardcore twitch fests, so it is comfortable to play on a phone.

По сравнению с 5089: - графика на 1% лучше но производительность на 300% хуже, - населяющие мир существа выглядят мерзко, почему нельзя было сделать роботов как в 5089? - с самого начала тебе дают обязательный квест который ничем не интересен и плохо понятно как его выполнять, - мультиплеера нет. Это все что я успел понять поиграв 20 минут и отправив запрос на возврат средств. ------ Compared to 5089: - Graphics are 1% better but performance is 300% worse, - the creatures inhabiting the world look disgusting, why couldn't robots be made like in 5089? - from the very beginning you are given a mandatory quest that is not interesting in any way and it is poorly understood how to perform it, - there is no multiplayer. That's all I managed to figure out after playing for 20 minutes and sending a refund request.

This type of games are good for some venting off after work sessions. With the AAA monster prices of the new AAA titles coming out, these games provide some peace and good old fashioned 'time pass'.

Phr00t is the benjamin button of game devs.

Has a constant very annoying fake vsync tearing effect that you don't see in the game-play videos. No way to disable. I want to rip my eyes out after 45 minutes. Requesting refund

This is a 3089 upgrade. Great value for the price! I wonder when 9999 will come out heh.