Watch Contact starring Jodie Foster instead
There is seemingly no stopping to the end of the Early Access release video game train. So many games now come out in an unfinished state and desire to grow with a dedicated fanbase, for some like V Rising this works out great and for others like the now forgotten EA game Atlas which released in 2018 by the folks who also brought us Ark: Survival Evolved; itself an Early Access game. See what I mean, they are everywhere; and as it so happens, I have yet another one here to review in the sci-fi genre. Beyond Contact is as I said a survival game, but instead of opting for the usual first-person perspective all the action is done from above with an isometric view.
MSRP: $19.99
Platforms: PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
The plot of Beyond Contact follows an astronaut who was sent on a rescue mission but surprisingly (or unsurprisingly); things quickly end up FUBAR and they end up stranded on this planet. Players are free to choose from a few characters at the onset of the adventure, however the story campaign is only focused on one so all cutscenes will be shown from her perspective, regardless of the character who is being controlled. Each of these avatars has a variety of plusses and minuses that make them an ideal candidate for survival on this alien planet. The narrative is relatively light, as the whole purpose of this game is to survive on this alien rock. So, with that purpose in mind most missions will be scanning some new creature or finding new resources to help upgrade your base of operations.
Graphically speaking, Beyond Contact is a beautiful game with lots of varied biomes to explore, filled with various alien flora and fauna. While exploring players will need to monitor their oxygen, food and water levels. Oxygen can be pulled from bubbles that are scattered around the environment at first but as with most things in these survival games, the longer players play and unlock the better the equipment they will unlock to help with their goals.
Oooh boy, so for the bad; I really wanted to like Beyond Contact as a huge sci-fi fan but there are quite a few issues that is surprisingly seeing as this was an early access release. As I have said on the podcast I typically game with a controller on PC anymore, well the UI in Beyond Contact is clunky at best, there was times when I would press the three buttons (you read that correctly) to open one menu only for the game to respond half the time. The overall layout of the UI and how various menus are layered just adds to the frustration of things, especially when things get heated, and players are expected to engage in combat. Using a mouse and keyboard makes combat a little easier but even still some of my hits went unrecognized while others that I thought had missed caused damage. The great thing here is unlike most survival games where players will drop or lose all the items they may have been carrying, in Beyond Contact death is more forgiving and players will keep all their gear.
There are lots of survival systems at play in Beyond Contact, but due to the poor functionality of the UI a lot of those systems aren’t fun. While I did enjoy the actually base building, and research systems for upgrading gear and tools my constant fight with the UI and bugs just marred each of my play sessions with the game. If players can deal with the controls, the developers are promising more planets to explore. Those that prefer the mouse and keyboard might have a better time with this one than I did with the controller.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
