Recent reviews by CheatCode

If you're going to play this game, there are a few things to know. Suffice it to say, it is a good game. The sound design, pacing are very on brand for the Alien movies. That said, see below to determine if this is a game you want to play.

Also, I have a playlist of my play through of the game on youtube, check it out if you like:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfCTcyJ57ToGVOtHd-Zc1NemBw8QXFxh7

Things to Know

1. This is primarily a stealth game, the stealth mechanics are also very finicky/busted at times. So there will be built in frustration with that.
   
2. This game is insanely long. Like at least 20 hours if you play perfectly and don't explore, definitely more if you die. There were more than a few times where I thought, "surely this game must be near the end". I was wrong, a lot.
   
3. The atmosphere in this game is amazing, like literally right out of the movies.
   
4. You will get mad at this game. It'll happen. I promise. Just accept that the AI is often BS and keep on going. It's worth it overall.

For starters, this is not a bad game. It seems like some indie developed title and the story can get a little muddled here and there, but all in all it was fun. There are a number of jump scares that will probably get you and there's definitely and eerie vibe to all of it. Plus the game is so cheap that you'd hardly consider it wasted money. If you want a quick fun little game to play, go for it.

If you have no intention of buying the game, or just want a sneak peak at what the game play looks like before buying. You can check out part 1 of my play through here:
https://youtu.be/grmY-8v6wn4

You can find the full playlist here, if you're interested:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfCTcyJ57ToE22yUgZo6tk50-pin504r4

Helltown is a pretty short game (a little over an hour to get through it the first time, and maybe another hour or so to unlock all the secret endings). That said, it's a pretty entertaining little game. It has the theme of a Silent Hill game and Graphics kind of like Minecraft (stylistically).

It's pretty cheap as it is, but if you can get it on sale then you really have very little to lose and will likely find the game enjoyable. I'd recommend taking your time and talking to everyone and exploring, there are more than a few secrets to uncover and the progressing dialog each night helps build put the world/story.

If you want to get a quick sense of what the gameplay looks like, or if you'd rather just watch someone playthrough the game, check out the link below to part 1 of my playthrough on it:
https://youtu.be/uQGeHkQt8_4

I will be adding part 2, which contains all the alternate endings, to the following playlist once I have finished producing it:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfCTcyJ57ToFgZFXycqP4pJUp9fNWN7Rl

Visage is a very well crafted game that many would consider to be very scary.

While playing through it I got heavy Silent Hill The Room mixed with PT vibes. Which is an excellent combination in my opinion. If you are looking for a scary game to dive into, you will not be disappointed with the purchase.

The one major criticism I have of the game is that their inventory system is pretty wonky. A word of advice too, switch to simplified door interactions in the settings, it makes opening doors and drawers infinitely easier.

If you’re on the fence about the game and want a visual reference, you can check part 1 of my visage play through here:
https://youtu.be/g5BxqLv2nxE

If you decide you want to keep watching more, you can find the playlist here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfCTcyJ57ToFOZ_ti_D8rMeTFd2mCM7uA

I will be adding videos to the playlist as I finish producing them.

Unfortunately this game doesn’t work very well natively for modern PCs. There are some workarounds to get it to be playable, but I don’t find the result to be worth it.

I really loved this game and bummed that the developer hasn’t updated it for newer systems. Maybe one day.

This game is amazing. I cannot believe it was developed by one person, alone.
Granted, there have been some bugs that I have run into which have been pretty annoying (though I number of them have already been patched out). But, the overall experience has been well worth the cost of admission.

From the developers explanation, the game has something running in the background called the Haunt System. This system is setup to provide Dynamic scares based on a number of different factors. Some of the factors mentioned: What stage are you at in the shift, how quickly are you running through it, what have you interacted with, what direction is the player facing. The Haunt System uses all of these factors to determine the best scare to serve up to you at any given time.

It's pretty awesome, I highly recommend the purchase.

If you are not inclined to purchase the game but still want to see what it offers. I have a playlist here that I am adding my playthroughs (shifts) to as I go:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfCTcyJ57ToF8QZ4giMCNF2Ly6R0GrIRy

Let me start off this review by saying that I personally love this game. It is, in my opinion, one of the few paranormal investigation games out that actually can compete with Phasmophobia. Now, does that mean that I think it is better than Phasmo, no...but it has the chops to actually rival it.

Good:

• This game strikes a pretty good balance during investigations to help creep you out.
  
• There are a number of items that are unique enough to be interesting without being over the top. For example: The voice recorder is a simple yet awesome feature where it records your voice and plays it back and if there is a ghost response you will hear it on playback.
  
• The jump scares and ghost events, while still limited, are cool and used infrequently enough to not make you numb to them.
  
• The existing "ghost" models are gross, scary, and cool to look at. Though, they are more zombie like than ghost like.
  
• There are a variety of locations already available in the game and they are going through and updating the existing maps with new layouts and lighting.
  
• You do not have to use an inventory slot on a flashlight (I cannot even tell you how much of an improvement this is, every game should do this). The flashlight is always equipped and can be turned on by pressing the hotkey.
  
• There are a variety of new features that add game play elements through a customization system. You can ramp up or down complexity of an investigation/exile ritual to suit your needs and the added features are pretty cool.
  
• Turning on all the lights in the house doesn't cause the breaker to short out...you know...because that how houses work. I know people have said that in other games they do it for performance reasons. They need to sort whatever that issue is out, because it's dumb that breakers turn off when 3 lights are turned on in a house.

Improvable:

• When you enter the houses, there is a camera filter put in place to make everything seem darker. I personally don't like it and it makes everything seem more muted.
  
• The jump scare noises are super loud, startling to be sure and it's not super frequent that it happens but could be toned down a bit. Looking at you red hell dimension jump scare.
  
• The ghost models need to be made to look more like ghosts. I like the zombie look, don't get me wrong, but they are not very ghostly.
  
• Some of the features and challenges in the game are not really explained well on how to do them. I guess not so terrible if you want people to figure it out on their own. So, a minor gripe really.
  
• More ghost events are needed, variety will win you a lot of points here.
  
• The additional options that you can add to rituals should probably be gated behind level or something, if people dive right into them then they will have no way to actually do most of them.
  
• The localization of the Ritual phrases needs a lot of work. The phrases in English don't totally make sense and it pulls you out of the immersion of it.
  
• Personally, I do not really like the look of the portals and trails to the portals in the game. It almost looks out of place to me. They could stand to look more like mystical energy than black and red pixel smoke.

Revised Review
Well, time has proven that the developers seem committed to improving the game, which is great!
There were a host of issues with the early game, many (if not all) have been resolved in one way or another.
There are still some game design choices I find puzzling, being early access there are still bugs to be squashed, but I feel comfortable enough now recommending the game to people.

It will be interesting to see how the game continues to develop.

The Good

• The ghost models are fantastic, hats off to whoever designed them (whether it's a premade asset or not).
  
• The concept of actually capturing a ghost, like a ghost buster, is something that I personally like/enjoy.
  
• Some of the ghost events are cool the first few times you see them.
  
• So far, the game has gotten a few updates already.

The Bad

• The Maps put in the game are all generic Unity assets with very little to nothing changed about them. It's very easy to make changes to things in Unity and it's like they decided to not even bother. Not a huge issue and can be changed later, but it does suggest some amount of effort was skipped there.
  
• Beyond the first few times, the "ghost events" start to get very stale. This absolutely needs more variety and for them to be less frequently repeating.
  
• The dragging mechanic, while cool the first time, just becomes rather loud and annoying and has very little consequence to the investigation/game.
  
• The now removed trailer for the game was extremely misleading on what would be included and possible in this game. Not sure whether they removed it strictly because of the negative feedback or if they just don't intend to follow through on what was in the trailer. Which would be a shame because it looked pretty cool.
  
• The lighting in this game is horrible. Light sources aren't even coming from where they should be...coming out of random walls or parts of the ceiling and not the actual light bulbs that you are turning on.
  
• Sound design in the game needs work. The ambient noises provided are more confusing and distracting than actually accentuating anything going on. For example: Telephones ringing on a desk that doesn't have a phone (or even a phone near by), random knife sharpening noises where it doesn't make sense at all. The jump scare noises are also all grating and super loud, it's not even scary anymore just painful to listen to.
  
• The ghosts don't feel unique at all, at least the ones I've encountered. They all seem to behave the same, and their behavior is so limited that it doesn't feel significant.
  
• Jump scares are way too frequent to continue being scary, especially with the challenges where you have to protect yourself. You are literally waiting for 3 jump scares to occur at a minimum.
  
• They need to find a good balance between ghost activity, hunting, and once that is nailed down then remove the insane amount of protection items.

Additional Concerns

• This game has a larger development team than most early access games, and granted they only spent a year on it so far but the level of polish on the game leaves a lot to be desired with 10 people working on it. That swings back to not even bothering with changing maps from the default.
  
• The other games released by this company have had a number of complaints from players that the game is abandonware, with a number of core/key features still not having been fixed yet.

Anyways, this is my initial first impression. I look forward to revising the review when things improve and I am hope that my concerns are proven wrong and the game turns out to be awesome in the end!

It's been a while since I first wrote my review of the game, and I figured it was about time for me to update it.
This game has gone through a major overhaul and added a ton of new content since I played it and it's still evolving now.

The general idea of this game is to provide a more realistic game play experience when it comes to paranormal investigation.
Where as in a lot of games in the genre, you have hunting/hiding/running away mechanics, this game focuses more on the investigation and haunting elements.

The locations (maps) provided have all of the ghosts (and for many locations there are a lot of them) roaming freely.
Each ghost has backstory, lore, and personality associated with them. This makes investigating them more impactful.

An investigation will consist of searching for EMF and Cold Spots, snapping photos of ghosts, trying to record ambient paranormal audio, or performing EVP sessions to try and get responses. When visiting the locations you will also want to keep an eye out for archive evidence, which are essentially lore tidbits that you can use to better understand the history of the location or the spirits.

Once you are ready to focus on a ghost you can use the archive evidence, and other in game sources of info to build notes on the ghost and the next time you launch into the map that particular ghost will be more active and easier to fully investigate.

This game just recently added a way to release the spirits, which is very cool and feels very much like a culmination of all your hard investigative work.

All in all this game is a amazing, I cannot recommend it enough for people that are looking for an alternative to the normal formula for these types of games. The developer has put an enormous amount of time and energy into updating the game and it's a very worthwhile experience.

If you'd like to check out game play footage, below you'll find a link to a video of my first time playing after the major rework:
https://youtu.be/nraQIq4PexQ

I will be continuing to add videos to the following playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfCTcyJ57ToFNR4Pl6zC-t6WWmyoB74rM

Classic Monkey Island. Beware the 3 headed monkey!