After playing a decent amount of scrap mechanic survival, I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t as great as it may seem at first. The game has incredible potential and is really unique; however, it struggles with keeping interest and many other things.
No Purpose
I would say my major issue with the game is that it doesn’t have any purpose. You could argue that most survival games don’t have any purpose other then mining and surviving but I think there are plenty of examples of games that have this aspect.
- ECO
A shining example is ECO. ECO places you in your own world and presents you with a dilemma of trying to save the world from a meteor. Your goal is to advance your technology enough to be able to destroy the meteor, but not too fast as to create your own environmental doom.
Yes, these games aren’t entirely similar but you create machinery in both, Yet, ECO actually gives you a compelling situation to drive you to want to mine and grind.
Scrap mechanic survival is extremely grindy and it never gives you any reason for that. There isn’t any underlying drive to make you want to grind even more.
Why Build?
I’ll admit, I really enjoy creating vehicles and machines in the mechanic shop. At the same time there was a huge issue with that aspect of the game. The mechanic shop has everything you need and never pushes you to leave and build your own place.
The mechanic shop gives you e bed, power, storage, and all the crafting abilities you could ever want. So why leave and build you own base when you can just stay there?
This is a major issue, I tried to leave and build a base but even with a few friends, it took us hours and we only were able to get a small base. There isn’t any paranoia pushing you to want to leave and build. So why have building in the first place?
Farming
Okay, I will say that I actually don’t mind the farming and I think it adds to the game rather then subtracts from it. At the same time I think the gameplay relies too much on it and it hurts the gameplay in the long run.
The waves can get tedious and the amount of crops you get compared to the value of those crops is way too low. The farming is too much of a grind in my opinion, and the game relies on it too much.
Interesting Yet Shallow
The entire premise of the game is extremely intriguing. The abandon world, the bots, the art style. All of it is exciting to see and it makes you want to dive right in. When you get down to the meat of the game, all of that dissapears.
I mentioned this before but the game is a grind. The constant need to farm, and later convert those crops into packages, and trade them in for nearly nothing at the trader shop. All of this takes away from the game.
The game on the outside is very interesting when you get into the mechanics and the gameplay, it becomes apparent very fast that it isn’t that interesting anymore.
Starving
I lastly want to bring up the starving issue in the game. You have to watch your food and drink meter in the game, which is expected in a lot of other survival games.
The issue with the starving is that both of these meters get drained way too fast. Every 10 minutes or so you are starving and die within seconds. This was a huge let down and make the game annoying at times.
The first couple playthroughs, me and my friends opted out for starving ourselves and respawning rather than trying to find food. The food was never enough and the farming took too long. A survival game should be realistic and fair enough to allow you to survive an entire playthrough if you choose.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the game for a while when I first started playing. After a few hours, I realized all the issues and I have no drive or desire to play it in my steam library. I know the game has massive potential and I hope the developers keep working on it. For the time being the game isn’t ready, and in my opinion, not that good.
