one day VACnet will collect enough data to catch the cheaters and then this game will be as good as it will be dead

Great demo, the bones of a good simulation game are definitely there and the ship combat reminds me of Star Trek: Legacy turned into a more auto-battle type system.

Ignoring the placeholder artwork and sounds there's an evocative atmosphere that makes me feel like I'm directing a Star Fleet vessel. The UI design features similar panels and button designs to the Federation ships of the 00s TV series' fame, though unfortunately loses consistency for some of the buttons, menus, and on-screen elements; fortunately many of these things can be fixed with a few more rounded edges and slightly better colour and font choices. Once I start hearing the musical chirps and whistles that echo in my mind till today I'm sure I'll be hard pressed to complain about it.

Since the game is mostly menus as well, I hope that some additional work is put in to have other factions overlays represent their own technologies. Star Trek has always celebrated the various set-designs and console elements as a plot-point concerning different character's familiarity with said technology so it's very important to Trek fans that this shines through whenever possible, especially in dialogue and combat.

System exploration feels and looks fantastic, though I hope that in future builds there will be a cost to scanning planets, the systems and how they are presented already is on par with similar 4X space games. To go the extra mile though and add anomalies that need to be navigated around (or through at a cost) should be top of the list for rounding out the rest of the game.

Replaying the first act of Voyager was very nostalgic, and gives me high hopes for later chapters in the crew's journey like the Maquis mutiny, the Borg space crossing, and the Year of Hell. I'm excited to see what branching paths will come up when we reach later parts of the story, Voyager having it's rather unique set of characters and circumstances opens it up to even greater options, and my only hope going forward is we are presented with further options for customising the crew we have as well as inviting other characters who aren't canon members of the Voyager crew onboard to expand on the fun interactions.

Also, I see that holodeck Gamexcite... lets see you get real creative with how that will integrate with the gameplay.

1 hour comp ban for your first leaver penalty offence when the game crashes regularly and is known to crash regularly is an insane policy change to make especially when you are already 4 seasons into a full-launch title

this game sucks i suck at it i hate it but i can't stop there's too much sauce (CAPCOM please stop stealing my money)

I just made 1 negative review completely useless.

This War of Mine meets Night of the Living Dead, a pretty competent first draft of what could be a very immersive entry into the Zombie Survival genre. Seems to have completely abandoned the original "Into The Dead" flavour in favour of a more grounded and character driven sense of immersion, which would be favourable if the characters were interesting enough--though at the moment that remains to be seen. Despite the little blurbs about each pair of survivors, none of those personalities are reflected in the gameplay in this demo, nothing about those dynamics is apparent once you're in the game.

Unfortunately for me this makes it a little hard to get into, since narrative is the driving force behind this type of survival game it would have been preferable to be following a story rather than just replenishing bars and gathering materials. I understand they wanted to push out something for Next Fest, so I'm not waggling my finger too hard, this is clearly more of a vertical slice than a demo. The only thing I even remember a character "saying" is that they hope they will meet someone from their school, it would be cool if this lead to a chance encounter with a zombified classmate! One can dream.

It also in general simply feels *too much* like This War of Mine while not really setting itself apart, right down to the same stack sizes for certain items and crafting recipes for tools and improvements. The main difference is each phase is not time-limited, so you can take your time before committing to anything, which was honestly what made This War of Mine exciting! Into The Dead instead has no time limit for each phase which is less punishing but also less immersive, while I understand there's benefits and drawbacks to both I hope this "stopped time" mechanic is relegated to an easier difficulty setting.

Overall I could see the game being very good on release as the combat, visuals, progression, and ambient storytelling (so far) is a great framework. I will patiently await a full release and hope that what comes in the full game carries the same weight as their excellent introductory movie!