[Review] Beasts of Prey (June 6, 2014)

THIS REVIEW IS HIGHLY OUTDATED. THE PRICE HAS DROPPED ON THE GAME AND IT IS WELL WORTH IT TO BUY IT NOW WITH A PVE SERVER THEY HAVE IMPLEMENTED TO MY KNOWLEDGE. I WILL NOT BE UPDATING THIS ANY MORE.


Release Day Review:

Overview:
Beasts of Prey is an Alpha game. This means that there are heavily unfinished features and it is a bare-bones game. Personally I like my games to be full-fledged and ready to roll, but this dev team seems very committed to their game and ready to rock.

The game is a heavy survival-island type game. You can build custom structures or build a pre-built structure for the cost of some lumber that counts as a starter home. You can make all sorts of weapons provided you have the materials for the blueprints and the weapon parts (I.E. Pistol Barrel, Pistol Grip, etc).

And you're essentially supposed to be surviving other players and Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs as of the time of this review are disabled due to some difficulties with a lot of people having lag with them around. Also they tend to run a lot faster than the player so it was kind of OP even though I never really had a problem with it.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is pretty nice, the crafting is a bit plain but straightforward. It tells you the materials you need and unless you can't read, you should be able to craft everything provided you can find a goddamn rock. Rocks are the things that contain ores which you obviously need (Iron, magnesium, etc) and a lot of the time it's pretty ridiculous except at night when people aren't on. I think most of the playerbase is in the United States but I'm not sure, so I would go by those times.

Nevertheless it's not hard to get wood, only ores/rock because you really have to compete with other people for it.

As for the Dinosaurs, they do mass amounts of damage to you. Most are only there for looks (anyone who knows dinosaurs means this is the herbivores) and the only ones that really come after you are the carnivores. However there have been some issues with invisible dinosaurs so it's kinda sucked.

So:

Crafting
Dinosaurs
Survival

PvP is another factor in this game and one I wish wasn't there. I'm not sure why all these survival games aren't going co-op survival rather than 'HEY LET'S GIVE EVERYONE THE OPPORTUNITY TO FUCK WITH EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IN THEIR HOMES'. I really like the 7 Days to Die servers that are PvE only but I don't have money to start a server for this game that's PvE only, unfortunately.

It's pretty ridiculous on the community server, so much so that I started a private server just to play bymyself to advance through the tech tree. I barely got a bed out before a few people had guns and were at a major advantage over everyone else, kinda ridiculous IMO but whatever. Alpha, alpha, alpha.

Also on the topic of PvP, a friend was highly interested in Rust so he's been playing it since release and he said Rust had a big problem with people being able to take stuff through walls. And yes, that is indeed a problem in this game also. I had my bed stolen, my workbench stolen and I'm sure if they could have taken my furnace, they would have taken that too.

Crafting
Dinosaurs
Survival Aspect
PvP
Servers

Yeah that's pretty much it. For an Alpha game though it looks gorgeous (Please no comparisons to The Forest, it's a single player game for gods' sakes, just shut up) and the dinosaurs, weapons, structures are just so detailed it's marvelous.

However it does have its fair share of bugs and you WILL be frustrated with the game after a few hours if you play on the Community server, so just be prepared to be griefed and friendless for quite some time.

6/10 only because... (otherwise it would be 7/10)...

The pricing is stupid, would recommend for the stage that it's in to wait until the price drops/a sale. These literally UNFINISHED games are getting higher priced than normal single player indie games that wait until they're fully finished before release. It's ridiculous.


THIS REVIEW IS HIGHLY OUTDATED. THE PRICE HAS DROPPED ON THE GAME AND IT IS WELL WORTH IT TO BUY IT NOW WITH A PVE SERVER THEY HAVE IMPLEMENTED TO MY KNOWLEDGE. I WILL NOT BE UPDATING THIS ANY MORE.