Is Grounded Good?
Simply put, not yet. I speak for everyone when I say- We have been waiting our entire lives for a “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” 4 player cooperative game. Grounded is almost completely unplayable by yourself and public servers still haven’t opened up 4 months after “pre-release”. Grounded plays like Ark, but instead of riding pterodactyls and kitting them out with miniguns and armor or building a house on the back of a dinosaur, you’ll fight some bugs and build a house in a soda can.
What does it do right?
Using the menus to build is easy and research stations are simple to use and plentiful- you’ll never be too far from a research station, which allows you to find new uses for your raw materials. Just being tiny
and running around a giant yard is cool, very cool. Every blade of grass can be destroyed and used to craft, every weed that towers over your head is waiting to be felled and turned into structural support. Grounded has a few combat options at this point, stab with spears, slash with swords, hulk out with a hammer, blast baddies with a bow, and toughen up with bug-themed armor. Armors also have passive abilities allowing a bit of character customization, unfortunately, it stops there.
What does Grounded do wrong?
These prerelease games are a great idea until they shoot themselves in the foot. I waited four months to write this review, I wanted to give them a chance to get the wheels rolling, we are honestly approaching half a year and there is barely new content. Right now Grounded has grinded to a halt. With only two interactive story points that take less than an hour to complete, grounded is a sandbox where you will build things from grass. If you’re on the edge of your seat waiting to build grass huts in and around a giant can of pop, Grounded is the game for you.
Should you buy it?
Grounded is free on GamePass, and even if you have friends you might want to wait on this title. Grounded currently feels empty and boring, if they follow the Sea of Thieves formula and continue to add content Grounded will be great by October of 2022, until then keep your 3.3 gigabytes open. Playing Grounded by yourself is less fun than a lobotomy.
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