Trove

This online adventure promotes creativity and cooperation, but its depth and lack of tutorials make it harder than it needs to be. It's one thing to be the hero thrown into a world of adventure, but it's something else completely when you're the hero of a world you've had a hand in building. That's why people love games such as Minecraft, Lego Worlds, and Portal Knights. Trove also gives you a measure of control over the world that you're part of. Right off the bat, there's a ridiculous amount of customization, not only in the class you choose to play but in how you want your character to look. When you jump into the game, the customization options just keep coming. The ability to craft whatever you can imagine is fun; there are some great examples of just how crazy you can go with building in the dungeons and multiple environments to help boost your creativity and inspiration. You're not just fighting bad guys in any old world; you're defending a world that you've been actively designing. It gives the whole thing a more personal kind of feel.

Trove has a lot to offer. It's just frustrating that it feels like pulling teeth to actually get to any of it. For starters, the tutorials don't even come close to explaining how to play the game. The number of commands, menus, tabs, and other controls are overwhelming, especially if you're a newcomer. Even when you do start to get familiar with things, it feels like something's missing, and it is -- at least until you start spending actual real-world money to add things to play around with. Sure, you technically can play Trove without ever spending a dime, but unless you do, you can't help but feel like it's not a complete game, Plus, it doesn't take long before all those nickels and dimes you toss at Trove start to really add up. That's too bad, because apart from the push to pay and the tutorial problems, Trove is a fun, creative game; it just makes you cautious of the game experience because it's held back by these issues.