Game:

The Hive (1995)

Category:

Review

Duration: 3:08

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19

The Hive - First Impression Review (Early Access Game)

The Hive is a story based RPG-RTS hybrid game by Skydome Entertainment currently on steam early access, having passed through the greenlight process. This is a first impression review of The Hive based on about 3 hours worth of gameplay. The fact that this is a first impression review (meaning it is not comprehensive), and that it is based on what is yet an incomplete game means you should take this with a grain of salt and look for some more current information on The Hive if such is available.

The Hive's steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/325730/

Ending Music Credit:

"In Your Arms" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Key points:

Overall, I think The Hive has the potential for interesting gameplay, but it doesn't quite manage to convince me of anything it tries to do.

The Hive has a fair bit of polish, and although the art and visuals are not mind blowing, the environments and levels in The Hive look great. The Hive also has a great UI that is both functional and fits the theme of the game.

The gameplay of The Hive is lacking in depth and difficulty. When it comes down to it, there doesn't seem to be any strategy involved beyond building up as many units as you can and smashing them into the enemies.

The absence of competing enemy bases leaves a gap in the gameplay that The Hive tries to fill with RPG style looting and killing of enemies. The problem is that these monsters are almost always passive and don't seem to pose any real threat towards your base.

The lack of a fog of war also kills the surprise and feeling of danger associated with the unknown that is present in most strategy games and many RPGs. It also negatively affects the exploration in The Hive by killing some of the mystery.

There are also a few ease of use features that I feel are lacking and make it feel like my time is being wasted. For instance, cutscene animations cannot be skipped, and the overall gameplay just feels slow at times with no way to speed it up.

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