Ecolibrium

Ecolibrium is deep and well designed but won't appeal a wide range of players. It's however a solid entry in the ever-growing compendium of PlayStation Vita's free games.

Ecolibrium provides bite-size play that needs to be periodically checked up upon rather than taken in hour-long chunks. It's good fun, but unless you're packing a 3G PS Vita, it's not the best title for when you're out and about on the road.

Ecolibrium is a simulator of ecosystem that deserves a chance. It is free and has a gameplay adequately articulated. Fans of the genre might find it slightly limited, but it is capable of giving fun.

Don't lose the chance to be a demigod, especially now that's completely free!

Whether you believe God(s) or not, you have always wanted to be one. Wouldn't it be great to invent strange creatures all day and decide which ones can live and which ones can't. Too bad it takes about just as long to create something in this game as it does in real life. Unless you pay up. [November 2012, p.92]

It's hard to recommend a game like Ecolibrium to anyone but the most bored.

This is a very pretty engaging sim type game. I found that it was very possible to play the game effectively without requiring to spend real money on extras. Biggest draw back was it's constant desire to go online, and long delays when there was no connections available. Definitely many an hour enjoyed on this free to download game.

In Ecolibrium, you create your own ecosystem with herbivores, carnivores, and plants. The organisms are fictional, yet often have real world counterparts. The game's graphics are beautiful. The environment and the animal models are gorgeous and show off the Vita's capabilities. The game is free-to-play and with micro transactions ranging from $.0.25 to $1.50, Ecolibrium's business model is extremely fair. The game falls short, however, in terms of game play. Like many free-to-play games, there is an energy bar which limits how many actions you can take at one time. This in itself is not a bad thing. What is bad is that often times you pick up the game and while your energy bar is full, there is nothing for you to do. This is because at a certain point, the game restricts you from adding additional animals or plants to your ecosystem. So you are literally stuck until you can save enough money to sell one of your current organisms so that you can replace it with a newer organism. What this translates into is a game that you will quickly abandon because of boredom.

Ecolibrium tasks the player with creating and maintaining a balanced environment in which a variety of plants and animals can survive. In order to do this four variables (water, minerals, vegetation and meat) must be carefully managed to keep your equilibrium rating as high as possible which in allows you to purchase more plants and animals for your world. The tutorials arguably take a little too long to explain everything but once you get a handle on things Ecolibrium reveals itself to be a fairly deep title and certainly could have been something worth returning to on a regular basis. I say could because unfortunately this is a game designed using the dreaded ‘free to play’ model which restricts the resources available to the player unless they either wait for a few hours or are prepared to pay a fee to speed things along. Granted this is not a game designed to be played for hours on end anyway, and the micro-transactions aren’t as unscrupulously used as they are in some games (ahem, Dungeon Keeper), but it is still frustrating when you are stopped from playing the game when you want to. Without the micro-transactions I’d have awarded this game a sold 7 out of 10 and recommended it to Vita owners after a more sedentary experience but as it is I’d say give Ecolibrium a miss.

This game gave me a decent first impression as the sort of ongoing tycoon game being time based. The drawbacks of it being free to play are that of an energy meter that limits how much you can do, which only refills over time or by cash items. However the major flaw this this game lies in its lack of depth and sophistication. Its not really a game so much as it is a sort of ant farm or fish tank. It gets pretty boring very quickly with the lack of detail in the environment, or really any graphical impression whatsoever. You cannot move around to design or explore your "3d" habitat, and alot of the features in the game do not seem to work correctly. Example: i keep running into the problem of food chain carnivores that constantly give me warning notifications telling me i do not have enough abundant lower tier animals to sate their appetite, even though i spent all of my in game resources to buy massive herds of herbivores and fish eaters, which the tutorial told me i needed to feet these carnivores, yet having only a single lone carnivore still penalizes my equilibrium score because i "do not have enough animals to eat." For what little gameplay there is, this roadblock completely kills any progress or fun you might have found with this game. Unless that is, you pay money to buy the other species in the game, which serve no purpose other than to stand there..well. Like a dumb animal. I do not recommend this game to anyone because it really isnt that entertaining unless you really REALLY enjoy pointless micromanagement over time.

I won´t rate this as a game since i think is more like an app, but is an app i like to use! I must admit that i have spend hour upon hour buying, selling and maintaining my Ecolibriums Certainly not everybody will like it as much as i do, but if you haven´t tried it yet you should give this free application a chance.