[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction]Warning: In-Game Cash Shop[/url][/b]
This game is infested with a toxic mobile app style cash shop. You will be prompted to and expected to give money/credit card details to the developers through this cash shop to buy in-game goods so you can play the game.[/quote]
"Pewt 'em Up!" is such a painfully generic and pointless sci-fi spaceship shoot 'em up (Galaga ripoff) that it makes me wonder if the purpose was not to make a shmup, but instead just work out how to put toxic mobile app transactions into one. Shoot 'em ups don't need cash shops. This mobile garbage has no place in your library.
This is a mobile app, made for app stores, not PC... it doesn't matter if this was ported to PC before or after the app store release, or even if this didn't even make it to the app stores. This was made by mobile app "developers", and intended for the lowest common denominator in gaming, and it must be judged accordingly... there's no contemporary, modern PC gaming experience in mobile apps. That alone is enough to disqualify this from any recommendation. Gamers don't spend thousands on high end gaming rigs just to pretend they're using iPhones to play phone games and mobile junkware.
This game fails on the visuals because of the use of incredibly lazy, ugly pixelcrap. The developer would probably argue this is a "deliberate artistic choice" but we all know it's because the developer was incapable of producing anything better. The game looks very poor compared to professionally developed games. Whether the developer lacked the skill or the budget for modern visuals is irrelevant, this looks bad because of that developer decision. Gaming is a visual medium, and it's a disservice to gamers when developers don't bother doing their jobs and creating contemporary, high quality visuals. Games like Undertale and Stardew Valley are rare exceptions that succeeded [i]in spite[/i] of their awful graphics. Pixelcrap is never really okay, and there's no excuse for games that look this bad.
This wasn't designed for typical widescreen monitors, and, carrying on with a mobile-centric design, it's locked to mobile phone 9:16 aspect ratio. It won't look right on modern PCs as a result of this bizarre decision to publish a PC game that doesn't conform to the standard display form factors.
The developer chose not to do the job of a real game developer and create meaningful bespoke levels, narrative based gameplay progression and so on. Instead, they decided that "Procgen IS content!" and lazily tried to use procgen algorithms to create infinite, samey, repetitive, soulless levels, because that's a lot less work.
As a result of this poor decision, the game gets tired and repetitive almost immediately. Developers must learn that procgen is a terrible substitute for creating real content. It should not be used as "ez-mode" for content creation, as the developer tried to do here.
Next is pricing and what value this has for gamers.
This game is infested with mobile app store like microtransactions. This is a consumer hostile model that we don't need to see on PC. It's deceptively priced to gouge gamers, and that's a reason in itself to avoid this.
You can always judge a game by how popular it is with the general public. Steam has over 130 million unique gamers, and over 40 million unique logons every day from dedicated PC gamers. But this only ever had a peak player count of a dozen or so people... that's very poor public reception. Gamers rejected this, most likely due to the reasons I supply in this review.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?
I can't recommend this, it's not worth downloading even if it's "free". Games don't exist in a vacuum... Steam gamers have literally thousands of better choices.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
Insultingly, the "developer" delivers an [b]outright lie[/b], claiming, completely without basis in fact, that my review is written using generative AI. This is completely untrue. The developer attacks this review as a coping mechanism to attempt to avoid facing the facts about their failure... but this insulting dishonesty and blatant lying shows us all we need to know about this person.
I dare anyone to run my review through an AI text checker to expose the lies of this developer.
They follow on with the lies... the Steam Store page clearly warns gamers about the in-app purchases "feature" of this garbage mobile app. The developer didn't even bother enabling 4K, 16:9 resolution for this game, like all PC games must support, but he has plenty of time to comb through reviews, seethe about the facts he lies about, and attack reviewers with blatantly false accusations.
You cannot "accidentally" select "In-App Purchases" as one of the warnings on the Steam Store page. This is deliberate. Where and when the developer infests their app with toxic microtransactions is irrelevant.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this game to anyone.
