Astroneer Impressions

Astroneer is one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen and while only in Alpha this game is impressive. It's a simple concept where you're an astronaut launched onto this planet and you need to survive. I'm not quite sure what my overall goals are, but right from the start I've spent my time simply expanding my base, exploring a gorgeous planet and collecting resources. It took me a bit of time to get a hold of the controls on both platforms, but once I did I was fairly good at using the various tools. They might need a bit of smoothing out, yet they do make perfect sense. I played the first bit of my time on Windows 10 on the maxed out settings having it look stunning and then afterwards to record some gameplay I carried over my game to Xbox One which also looks great. This is with the Xbox Play Anywhere program and I must say seeing it work here perfectly is sure sign of what's to come for others games in the future as it's flawless. With this program the game shares a save over the Xbox Cloud, achievements and purchase so you own it in either place.

In Astroneer you're left on this planet to do whatever you'd like though oxygen management is essential and also to be careful of any objects hitting you as they kill. I once got killed by an organic compound I was moving around, it was absolutely hilarious. Using a suck gun of sorts you move through the world harvesting resources and dynamically altering the world. It can also be used for straight up digging and I discovered caves with interesting resources by doing so. I found the most essential resources to collect at least at the start were oxygen, power and resin. The extra oxygen and power reserves on person can be burned through before affecting your standard supply so it allows you to survive longer than usual. The resin is what's used for expansion of your home shuttle base to create cables that extend further and allow bases to build more advanced stations, I should also mention that the cables provide oxygen. So far I'm very impressed with Astroneer and think this could be a huge hit provided they keep expanding on the core concepts as being only in Alpha, this is amazing.

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Impressions Made on Astroneer during the Alpha on Xbox Game Preview