Stranded Deep is super fun and I'm glad it came to Xbox One. It's a survival game, which I'm usually not really into, but it's realistic. No zombies. No dinosaurs. No other players screwing you over. It's just you versus nature trapped on a chain of Pacific islands. I love it. Read more and watch gameplay video to find out what happens if you eat too many coconuts.
The worst part about most survival games is that it feels like the survival aspects were shoehorned into an existing idea and it ends up making the whole product worse. ARK Survival Evolved should be about the goddamn dinosaurs, not worrying about food and your body temperature and stupid shit like that. We Happy Few is a freaking terrible mess all around, but whoever thought it was a good idea to put survival elements on top of everything else should probably be fired.
When a game is built from the ground up to be a survival game, things are different. Stranded Deep is a pure deserted island dream scenario where your plane crashes and you have to survive. Every kid has imagined this scenario. A million books and movies and TV shows have been built around this premise. It's freaking perfect in concept and was executed incredibly well here.
Sure, it's a little janky. Picking up items is awkward, the menus are weird, and there are never, ever enough resources for what you need to do next, but you eventually figure it all out and get into the rhythm of things. I had a great time with it. Just make sure you don't exclusively drink coconut water and eat coconuts all day. That's bad times. Like, super bad times. I knew it was bad times in real life, so it honestly made me a little happy that the game also included it. Bad times.
I also want to touch on something I mentioned in the video. The Lost In Blue series on Nintendo DS was awesome. It was a similar survival scenario featuring kids and it was really, really cool. Play them if you haven't already.
