EDIT : Changed from negative to positive on 3/1/2015. Dev replied. The devs are listening and are working on the game in a positive way, so im sure that it is headed in a good direction. The regular game is still a thumbs down, for now, but most of my issues with it have been addressed in the beta version. The beta version is playable for me with bloom turned off but imo its just not the same without it. Changes included in beta version detailed at the bottom. ............................................................................................................................................................. RECCOMENDATION : YES : I would wholeheartedly reccommend this game a few months ago, but not anymore. I am writing this review with the hopes of getting the devs attentions, youve made an amazing game and I want to point out some things so that i can play it again. I completely reccommend this game at 5$, but only after below said issues are fixed. Review will be updated as changes happen. Sound: 8/10 Graphics: 8/10 Gameplay: 8/10 Bloom: 2/10 Controls: 6/10 OVERALL: 6/10 for now ............................................................................................................................................................... GAMEPLAY : Rocketsx3 is a great PvP multiplayer game. Can be played against bots as well. You can play upto 4 player but the experience is best with 2. You could play 4 on a TV pretty well. You control a ship and you have 3 weapons. Mines, missiles, and bombs. Each of these attacks can be fired one at a time, or charged and released to dish out a devastating barrage of your weapon of choice. Mines launch behind you and detonate in an area after a while. Missiles launch directly in front of you and shoot forward. Bombs are like tiny missiles but have no thrust, so they fall off from the side of your rocket. You get a sheild that also functions as a speed boost, allowing you to block attacks or get out of a tight situation. First to 3 hits in a row wins! You can hit yourself and that deducts from your score. Controlling your ship may be hard at first but youll get the hang of it. Gameplay is fast, solid, and fluid. Matches are usually short but may last longer. And boy are those longer matches tense. Dodging missiles, falling for mine traps, using bombs to block your escape, a well timed charge attack to get two hits in a row or that moment when you engage eachother in a tense spiral of death. Graphics are great, a very beautiful and neon art style, and the announcer ingame is great. A female, robotic assistant type voice. The AI is amazing and WILL beat you many times. ................................................................................................................................................................ COMPLAINTS : I used to love this game. I played it everyday with a good friend of mine. Both of us have stopped playing this game now due to changes made to it over successive updates that has left the game unplayable for us. These reasons are : 1) WAY too bright. The brightness of the ship burner and particles, as well as environment objects and trails was multiplied by 20. There should be a slider for this. I miss the darkened out trails that the game had in the beginning, the bright trails before the christmas update were fine too, but it became WAY too sparkly after that. no reason that this cant be optional. 2) Difficult to fight in tight spaces now. Due to the changes to particles and brightness, when you clash with eachother in tight corners or against walls, you cant tell what is going on. 3) Unncessary clutter added. Your health is depicted by 3 balls around your ship. I feel that this adds unncessary clutter to the game and takes away from your focus. I prefer the healthbar at the top. No reason why this cant be an option. 4) Screen size : I play this game on my 21 inch 1980x1080 desktop, where the game is just about playable in its current state. On my 1366x768 laptop though, i cant see anything anymore. 5) The background was darkened out to try and fix the visibility issue i reckon, and it looks plain terrible. 6) The pulsating rocket trail. Please no. 7) The last life slowdown. Let this be an option. It takes away from the fast paced fun of the game for me.. Totally kills the mood, although it is cool sometimes. Could be an optional powerup or 5th button. .............................................................................................................................................................. CONCLUSION : Options are your best friend. Please dont just remove something and replace it with something else entirely. Some poeple prefer one thing over another. Online play will be coming to this game later on im sure. On a positive note the UI work is great. Always improving. The music score is also nice. There is no problem in the gameplay , but how the game is visually presented has totally gimped it for me and made it unplayable. If you could provide me with an older build of this game, I'd much rather play that than what is on the steam store right now. I dont have any reviews on my account, but i care enough about this game to write this out. Your feedback on this review would be much appreciated. Heres hoping a dev replies or these issues are addressed. ................................................................................................................................................................ EDIT : CHANGES IN THE BETA VERSION OF THE GAME : The beta build of the game includes a lot of improvements, which are : 1) A bloom and rocket trail slider. The lowest setting in bloom is still too high for me, its the same as the regular game. The bloom slider is overkill. http://i.imgur.com/IyQAukE.gifv 2) Tug of war is back! But if you prefer the health bubbles, you now have bubble size, rotation speed, and distance from ship. 3) An option to enable/disable speedup/slowdown pickups. Though there is a bug that the pickups still appear in game, they just dont do anything. Other misc things and comments : I still find the game more difficult to play than pre christmas update. Colors are brighter? The particles? I cant pin it down for sure without playing an old build again but here are my comments : The pulsating rocket trail and environment objects distracts me. Also, i still prefer the discolored rocket trails. The speed boost sparks are something id want to turn off too. In the tug of war end game timer, white on white is too difficult to see. Its hard to tell how much time you have left, please change that. No 1980x1080 resolution in the beta build, but thats a minor gripe. A new gameplay feature i noticed that i DID like, is that you can now visibly see when a rocket is charging an attack. Awesome. But instead of the white lines that indicate this, a colored outerglow or border so that its easier to see? Progress is going well, i look forward to it.