First Impressions: Slime Rancher

With Slime Rancher getting an official release this month on Xbox One and PC I thought it would be a good idea to purchase and play the game that managed to receive a perfect 10/10 from steam and other similar ratings from other sources. I have just finished two 30 minute sessions of the game and I think I am ready to give my first impressions.

This game is far from perfect and I say that with little ill-intent. This games visuals and atmosphere blew me away with its cute, innocent art style and a slick, clean, and beautiful world to explore. I almost felt like I was in the world of slimes until the speed of the character and the overly-cramped field-of-view made me feel motion sick. I was originally planning to do a full review of this game but I found it impossible to play for more than 20 minutes at a time without putting a nice puddle of my breakfast between me and the television. This is not a common occurrence for me and I can’t remember another time a game has made me motion sick.

The whole game centers around corralling small, slimy blobs into pens and feeding them endlessly until they excrete a small rock that you can sell. With this, you can upgrade the pens and your equipment to catch more of the jelly bastards. This was quite fun as the large diversity of slime breeds was great. As well as this the individual personalities of each type made the game more interesting. I did, however, find that the game gave little instructions and, whilst I like a sense of freedom in games, I found that the game quickly became stale and repetitive.

Overall I can see why this game is liked across the board but I must say I don’t think it is deserving of the 10/10 CGM gave it or the 8.5/10 from Game Informer. I will admit that this game is a great little time killer and for the price, it is definitely worth the purchase, but it is definitely not amazing, let alone perfect.

PROS

• Great visuals
• Cute slimes
• You can feed live chickens to slimes

CONS

• People with motions sickness beware!
• Loses steam fast
• You can  feed live chickens to slimes