Summary

As a man or woman stranded naked, freezing & starving on a mysterious island, you must hunt, harvest, craft items, grow crops, & build shelters to survive. Use skill & cunning to kill, tame, breed, & ride Dinosaurs & primeval creatures living on ARK, and team up with hundreds of players or play locally! http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

(Fertilizer Farm)

The Basics

Ark starts you out on the beach with nothing but your fist, a beacon in your arm, and a dirty pair of underwear. Your first goal is to make a basic structure to live in, but there are steps you must take to getting there. As most survival games hitting a tree with your fist is the way to start. This will grant you (Thatch) and (Wood). Next step is to pick up rocks off the beach. This gives you (stone). Once you gather these items you can go to your inventory and craft a pickaxe. This will allow you to gather flint from boulders, which will in turn allow you to craft a hatchet. While these steps are more complicated then they seem, i while try to cover as much as i can in the rest of this article.
(Picture of a beach)

Engram Points

Engram points are how you unlock your chosen blueprint. These blueprints will permanently allow you to craft that certain item. You gain engram points by farming, building, crafting, taming, cooking, etc... Well talk about a few of these later in the article.

(Look at the top of the picture)

Building

Just like any other survival game, having a home or "base" is very important. Farming the required materials will allow you to make the home of your choosing. There are 5 types of buildings. Thatch, wood, stone, metal, and tek. (ranking from weakest to strongest). Of coarse the tek buildings are going to take a lot more time and resources, while thatch can be slapped down in seconds. by adding a foundation, ceiling, walls, and a door, you can have a semi secure base.

(A Yacht i made)

Taming

Taming is another giant part of Ark. This is the knocking out and capturing of dinosaurs to make them yours. These animals then bend to your will. You can ride them, store items in them, attack with them, and so on. But taming is not a walk in the park. Some dinos take 3-4 people to tame while another may only need one. Each dinosaur can be tamed in its own way, but all are pretty similar. A larger dinosaur such as the Giga requires tranq darts or shock darts to tame, while you can simply punch a dodo bird to knock it out. When you have your target knocked out, something is going to happen. Its torpor is going to go down, once it goes down all the way your target will wake up. (and thats not good). To keep your dinosaur of choice unconscious, put either (Narcotics) or (Narco Berries) in its inventory, and hit use. Placing food in the tragets inventory will allow it to eat. every time it eats its taming levels goes up. Therefore starting the tame.

(One of my favorite tames)

Graphics

I cant lie, the graphics are kind of dodgy. Sometimes ark wants to run great, but sometimes it does not. When ran on the highest settings the graphics look great, but the fps is terrible. I have a decent pc, and i still have trouble. The dinosaurs have great, detailed models which i really enjoy. It has its own artstyle that i have come to appreciate. Check out my fps test on my youtube:

Servers

The servers on ark are hit or miss, while the PVE (Player Versus Enemy) servers are full of friendly faces. A majority of the PVP (Player Versus Player) servers are controlled by one to two tribes. Making it virtually impossible to get started up. This applies to all dlc's and all maps, including the new Ragnarok map.

(My PVE base)

Updates

Ark is being updated all the time, even as ark is now fully released. The wildcard team puts in constant work to keep the game running and fun, which i really like. They always add new dinosaurs, items, and mechanics to keep the game interesting for the older players like myself. Almost weekly they add new dinosaurs with its own "Dossier" like shown below:

Ending

All in all i believe ark is a great game. It takes someone who is really interested in playing. Although ark takes a bit to get used to, its definitely a great game to add to your library

See more screenshots on my profile: http://steamcommunity.com/id/AWESOMNAUT/
My Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeT6OCl_V7Poz6KfzT5HbAQ