Akimbot was offered by PLAION for assessment. Thanks!
Akimbot is a third-person 3D Motion Platformer, and it takes inspiration straight from the greats. When you have checked out Akimbot prior to now and thought, “That appears like a Ratchet & Clank sport!” properly, you would not be far off. Ratchet & Clank is clearly an inspiration for this sport, however that is not dangerous.
With out delving an excessive amount of into the story and spoiling it, that is your pretty customary plotline. It feels prefer it’s taken straight out of an animated film 2010. An evil scientist has gone predictably loopy and is making an attempt to amass a vaguely named “Artifact” that provides its bearer final energy, which he’ll use to rule the universe. The “Algorithm,” primarily the ruling energy of the galaxy, has enlisted our two unlikely protagonists to defeat the scientist and defend the Artifact. The voice performing is on level right here, with the characters sounding completely villainous in that tacky means and others doing their half to slot in with these aesthetics.
The storyline is generally predictable, however regardless of you just about anticipating the place the storyline goes at every twist and switch, the comparatively carefree and cartoony ambiance the sport creates round galactic annihilation makes you forgive it for following established tropes.
Our protagonists Exe, a mercenary with a wide selection of abilities, and Shipset, a drone that has determined to comply with Exe in every single place (in all probability hoping to get cash), along with his fundamental weapon being his sarcastic wit. The dynamic between the 2 characters is fairly first rate, though 90% of the funnies will come from Shipset, whereas Exe may be frustratingly critical and angsty, you may quickly get bored with listening to him preface each sentence with “tch”. However having somebody critical to offset the vibes from Shipset is a requirement.
Motion is a key a part of any platforming journey, and Akimbot nails this down fairly properly. You may double bounce, sprint, and make a melee assault, gaining additional peak as a “triple bounce.” The sport totally makes use of this set of strikes, and you will be required to make use of all of them to navigate the perilous planets you may encounter in your journey. It is fairly satisfying to make some troublesome jumps afterward. Nevertheless, there have been some odd collisions involving tree branches at a number of factors.
The fight is maybe simply as necessary because the motion for a sport like this, and by chance, it does not disappoint both. There are 8 weapons to select from in whole, with 4 “much less highly effective” weapons which can be accessible on-demand, akin to an assault rifle or sniper rifle, and 4 extra highly effective ones that require ammo, akin to twin pistols and a laser. You may solely have 1 of those outfitted at any time, requiring you to discover a store within the sport to equip one other.
The “much less” highly effective weapons aren’t far off the facility of the extra highly effective ones, and ammo is relatively scarce, with you solely getting a handful of pictures from a full ammo bar, so I barely ended up utilizing my extra highly effective weapons, reserving them primarily for boss fights or very troublesome battles. The extra highly effective weapons may be upgraded within the store, however I really feel like ammo utilization ought to have been decrease, or not less than an improve to extend ammo capability ought to have been on the playing cards right here.
Luckily, the much less highly effective weapons are nonetheless enjoyable to make use of, and with the motion system being good, it allows quick and fluid fight. Enemy selection is maybe a bit missing, with many enemies on the bottom remarkably related to one another, largely standing nonetheless and firing periodically at you, with shielded ones showing afterward. Flying enemies spice issues up a bit when they’re launched, although, and are usually extra cellular, requiring you to maneuver out of their far more typically.
Akimbot presents itself fairly superbly. I wasn’t anticipating this degree of graphical constancy from the sport, but it surely makes good use of Unreal Engine’s options and might ship a really nice consequence. Whereas we won’t fairly make the most of all of this on the Steam Deck, the sport nonetheless comes away wanting first rate regardless of the compromises we’ve to make.
The sound design additionally works properly. The sport is usually fairly busy, and the sounds assist to immerse you on this planet. The voice performing can also be good more often than not. There are a few odd-sounding traces, however usually, the voice performing will get a thumbs up from me.
Akimbot seems like a Ratchet & Clank sport that has stripped a few of its non-linearity. The standard 15-hour journey is condensed right into a 6-hour one. It is rather linear, primarily mission-based, with no free-roaming or selection, however due to this, it could preserve the motion and story all the time on the transfer, which works properly for it.
Whereas many of the gameplay is on foot, you may periodically be put behind the wheel of a automobile, within the cockpit of varied spaceships, and even simply manning a turret. Whereas these set items break up the gameplay a bit, they often really feel like filler. The automobile physics is fairly terrible, with the automobile stopping after each bounce. The spaceship sections may be needlessly lengthy. After 10-Quarter-hour of flying by asteroids, you may start to appreciate that these car sections are largely right here to elongate the enjoying time, which is a disgrace.
Additionally, water damages every thing. It is a robotic civilization, however the first planet is sort of all water. Why has the robotic civilization constructed a vacation resort right here?! Heck, even dipping the automobile wheel within the water destroys it. It’s kind of overzealous and led to not less than a few deaths simply from by accident stepping right into a puddle that went above my waist.
Akimbot – Steam Deck Efficiency
Akimbot had a few oddities on the primary boot, such because the Decision setting being set to “Worth,” however fortunately, altering the decision fixes that. It does help 1280×800 as a decision, so Steam Deck customers will not get any black bars across the display screen. The sport additionally has glorious controller help, so you should have no difficulties controlling it.
There is not an enormous array of settings, however there’s sufficient flexibility to make the sport playable on the Steam Deck. It is a fairly intensive Unreal Engine title, which stunned me, however fortunately, with decision scaling, we are able to get an honest expertise from Akimbot.
Really useful Settings – 40 FPS
In SteamOS, you may need to apply a Body Charge Restrict of 60 and no TDP Restrict.
Within the in-game graphics settings, we’re protecting the decision at 1280×800, disabling V-Sync, Anti-Aliasing, and HDR. We’re setting the framerate cap to 40, the render high quality to 60%, the post-process high quality to low, the shadow high quality to excessive (the bottom), and the feel high quality to very excessive. I disabled the depth of discipline and movement blur.
Akimbot nonetheless appears to be like fairly good at these settings. I feared the 60% decision scaling would trigger the sport to look pixelated and tough, but it surely truly appears to be like first rate. You may allow TAA to easy out the sides, which has a minor efficiency affect, however I did not just like the mushy picture it produced, so I stored Anti-Aliasing off.
The body price holds 40 FPS more often than not; nevertheless, there are events when it can drop. Strolling very close to foliage may cause drops into the low 30s, and car sections the place you go close to explosions can drop into the teenagers, as do some cutscenes. There is a brief stealth part later within the sport that regularly drops under 30 as a result of visible results, however we can’t do something about that. Luckily, these symbolize a minority of circumstances, and normal gameplay is okay.
Energy draw varies fairly a bit relying on the enemies and the surroundings you are in. If issues are quiet, the facility draw is often round 15W, however it could go as much as round 25W in very intensive conditions. Steam Deck LCD customers can in all probability eke out 2 hours. Steam Deck OLED customers would possibly handle 2.5 hours.
Temperatures are usually round 70-80C, however in intensive areas, count on them to succeed in 85C briefly. There’s all the time some fan noise, but it surely ramps up when a variety of particles are on display screen.
Accessibility:
There are some accessibility choices in Akimbot. For one, all dialogue is subtitled, so you possibly can benefit from the story with out sound. There’s additionally some mild intention help and the power to invert controls. There are additionally 3 issue ranges to select from. Enjoying on the center issue, I discovered it nearly proper for somebody with expertise enjoying a Ratchet & Clank-style sport.
As a facet notice, the fight music stops enjoying when all enemies are defeated, because it is not all the time apparent. Nevertheless, the sport additionally briefly turns slow-motion on the defeat of the final enemy that has spawned, which is an effective signifier for these with listening to impairments or simply enjoying with the hold forth that the final enemy within the space has been defeated and you’ll chill out.
Conclusion:
As I mentioned earlier, Akimbot seems like a condensed type of a Ratchet & Clank sport, and that is nice. The sport is brief, and most gamers will likely be achieved right here in lower than 10 hours. Whereas there are collectibles within the type of knowledge logs, they do not add a lot to the sport in addition to backstory, so I do not assume that is the sort of sport you’d play by greater than as soon as. Nevertheless, the shortened size retains the story going, which means issues are attention-grabbing.
Good, fluid motion backed up by a strong fight system means Akimbot is a sport I can suggest to any 3D action-platformer followers seeking to embark on a brand new journey. The dynamic between our 2 protagonists is nice, even when it does take a while for Exe to loosen up a bit.
As for Steam Deck efficiency, we’re stored to 40 FPS and can nonetheless get body price drops often. We’re additionally operating on low settings with decision scaling, so the visible constancy is not notably nice. Nonetheless, the sport stays completely playable, and at no level did I really feel I died as a consequence of efficiency points or lack of readability. So I can provide Akimbot the thumbs as much as be performed on the Steam Deck.
Our assessment is predicated on the PC model of this sport.
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