A grand adventure awaits! This little gem is much more than meets the eye!
Some key points that this game offers:
- Beautiful Visuals
- Challenging Gameplay
- Indie Gem 4/5
- Exploration Marvel
Gameplay & Controls:
The controls for Phoning Home are pretty straightforward and easy to use. The game world is rather massive and very immersive. Exploration was given great attention to detail here. To put it simply; this may be an Indie game, but it plays, and handle like a AAA title.
Your ship has crash-landed on a strange planet, and you need to Phone Home for help… Seems simple enough, however, you are in for an incredible journey!
There is a beautiful story line that accompanies the gameplay. The gameplay is a massive open world environment that you get to explore, scavenge, and loot. All these looted items are scanned and can be combined to create items you require to continue on your journey.
Craft power cells to keep your little bot mobile, or repair kits to repair damages that he might have obtained throughout his travels. There are several crafting recipes that you will discover as you progress through the game. Unlike other exploration games, this one has no base building features; it borders on you exploring this world and finding a way off it. It may seem like a damper, but I assure you, Phoning Home has plenty to offer.
The game offers you a relaxed but rather challenging experience as you get deeper and deeper into the game. The challenges however are not that difficult to solve, it does require some clever thinking, especially when solving some of the unique puzzles that the game has in store for you.
You will run into some other life forms on the planet who are not so friendly, you can either attack them outright or cleverly manoeuvre pass them, the option is yours here. Combat though is rather simple, in the beginning, you will start off with a regular steel pipe. However, as you unlock more recipes, you will be able to craft new tools and weapons to help you when you go on the offensive. The developers did a fantastic job here to give you as much freedom to go about doing things your way whilst ensuring the game has a strong sense of direction and purpose.
Graphics:
Again, this might be an Indie, but it might as well be a AAA title! For the sheer size of the game’s world, it truly is an incredible sight to behold! Beautiful, bright, vibrant, and welcoming colours wherever you look!
Every colour that the game offers to you just pops out at you, you can’t help but be captivated. Then there are all the strange alien platforms that have their own unique and beautiful colour schemes that further improve the visual spectrum that the game has to offer.
Everything has an abundance of detail to give it a realistic look that’s also beautiful to look at! The games weather system is another marvellous add on, the weather effects are not only accurate but absolutely stunning to experience. The entire world changes as the weather takes over and blanket the areas. The snow is an amazing sight to just watch and experience, the rainstorms are out of this world…
The game also houses its own biome’s if you may, these are incredibly detailed creations with their own living breathing environments, from grassy plains to volcanic mountains all the way to vast deserts…
All of this is further enhanced by the day and night cycle that makes this game feel alive.
Under the settings panel, we have several options to customize how this game runs.
Sounds:
Masterful! The soundtrack for this game enhances every aspect of this game. Exploration is much more fun and enjoyable with good tunes accompanying you! The in game sounds are another great add on. They bring all the little things that you do and experience to life, further enhancing the overall experience that the game delivers.
Although your robot is silent, there are other vocal sources in the game that you will interact with and those voice over artists did a perfect job here! On point, captivating and an absolute joy to experience.
Replayability:
The game has more than one ending so a replay is required for sure to experience an alternative ending. The game world is so big and welcoming, that just enjoying it will keep you busy for hours.
There are also some achievements that will keep you busy for a few days.
MGR Gaming’s Conclusions:
Spoilers Ahead:
It was a truly incredible journey with so many great moments, experiences, and even redoes. It is a beautiful story line that you get to experience. Even though these two are machines, there is so much emotion behind all of this that you can’t help but love everything this game offers even more.
Once ION finds ANI, the real fun begins, that is also when the difficulty starts getting trickier because now you have to protect her just as much as you have to protect yourself. The mechanics were absolutely incredibly well balanced and implemented.
It made the experience so much more realistic, intuitive, and demanding. It’s incredible. You cannot get off this planet without her and she cannot survive without your help. So, the two of you have to band together and get through all the dangers of this planet side by side as you work your way forward to eventually escape.
Words cannot describe the emotional bonds that you experience here. This game will leave you with memories and experiences that you will never forget!
This is an absolute must!
The Official trailer for Phoning Home.
By: MGRza
Date: 12 February 2017
Additional Info:
Platforms: PC
Genre: Adventure: Atmospheric: Crafting: Exploration: Great Soundtrack: Indie: Mystery: Nature: Open World: Open World Survival Craft: Robots: Sci-fi: Singleplayer: Story Rich: Survival: Third Person
Censor Rating: n/a
Age Rating: n/a
Developer: ION LANDS
Publisher: ION LANDS
Release Date: 7 February 2017
MGR Gaming Steam Curator:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32364038/
