Recent reviews by Jade

I feel really bad for Crunch element because the games ratings over the last few years are likely to kill people who just look at it for a glance, and move on before looking deeper. So if you're reading this, stop for a sec and try to read the "most recent" reviews.

First and foremost, as of 6/27/25 this game *officially* is no longer abandonware, or at least for now.

So all those reviews saying to check something else, disregard those for now. The game got a massive update, with a complete overhaul of virtually almost everything in the game, and boy is it smooth.

I liked the old crunch element for what it's worth. Sure, it was clunky and a bit janky at times, but for what it was up against when it came out, it was pretty fun, and provided a few hours of laughs (I don't think my playtime is correct, I played quite a bit longer than what shows on the experimental branch). But compared to this update, it's hard to imagine going back.

The performance of the game is notably a lot better, I have a pretty beefy computer to be fair, but on the recent update, I have no stutters or serious issues with performance, even in hectic or chaotic engagements. The AIs aren't perfect, but they aren't dumb either. For better or for worse depending on who you ask, the time to kill against you is pretty fast too, especially in close quarters, which emphasizes good strategy, and teamwork if you got the friends to play with. In my eyes, this is a major plus compared to being a bullet sponge with no real risk or challenge against PvE ai. It can be cheesed don't get me wrong, but if you allow yourself to get immersed, it really fun.

Rainbow Six Siege style destruction with walls, windows, and doors is just such a good feeling mechanic in vr. And Crunch Element really nails it, you need to be thorough to fit through small holes, bullets going through soft materials, the cracking of glass as bullets fly, its immersive and fun, without taking a big hit in the frames department of performance.

The roguelike mode is gone (for now) however, I see this as a bit of a downside, but the dev has expressed how much time it would take to re-write something like that, but hasn't straight up said no either. In my eyes this is a bit of a loss for the new update, the "campaign" if thats what you want to call it, should take you a few hours, and is a bit linear, but definitely has charming moments. Replay ability might suffer a bit, but I do hope content keeps flowing over the next couple months. This great chance for the dev to prove this isn't just an abandoned project after this update, but time will tell there.

I also want to mention the gunplay feels SIGNIFICANTLY better than before, I really wasn't a fan of how the guns felt in old Crunch Element, but they did a MUCH better job in this update. There's still a few nuances I have, around some gripping points and chambering visuals, but these are nitpicks easily. I wouldn't say it is above H3VR for me, but I would place it around the level of Onwards (RIP) in terms of handling and feel.

Okay I could keep rambling for ages, and I am no means a professional reviewer. But I am glad to see this project get a breath of life. Keep up the good work devs.

TLDR:
NO LONGER ABANDONED, Better performance, Better handling/Controls, Fun with friends, no roguelike, but campaign + gear/intractables/mechanics worth the price.

Call of duty MW2019 meets battlefield 2042, except they actually care about the game.

Genuinely have not had performance issues at all, game runs great, really fun both solo and with friends. For the cost of free, Im really really impressed.

Fun game with friends. An enjoyable and affordable PvE Shooter.

Very fun gameplay loop, performance needs some optimization but Im writing this review on the DAY it came out for the public, I'm sure the servers are overloaded.

Feels like a modern Arma with Tarkov mechanics (Looting and Vendors), I can totally see the vision the devs have for this game.

Don't compare it directly against tarkov, I'm sure you have heard this but it really is a different game. They have similarities but it isn't trying to be the next tarkov. Not to mention the time Tarkov has had in development.

The game is fun as it is now, but I can only imagine it can get so much better from here.
Positive thumbs up for the game it is now, but if you don't want to buy it yet definitely keep an eye out for what Gray Zone will become.

I seriously encourage you to wait to purchase this game.

I spent roughly 15 hours in the Free to Play Early Access Alpha, and for an Alpha, the tag seemed right, not to mention, considering how janky and buggy the game is, and I don't mean inconvenience bugs, I mean game breaking / lose all your items styled bugs. Which if you have ever played tarkov, you know how big of a problem that can be. Items randomly disappear, clip weirdly through walls or objects, disappear of the gun racks, fling themselves 2000 feet into the sky, this game is by no means ready for a beta. The developers decided to run the Alpha into the launch days itself, there was a few patches released which addressed a few glaring issues, sure. But nothing massive like the game breaking issues seen especially in the inventory management.

The game itself feels really polished in some aspects, guns look visually, very appealing, the looting system feels rewarding, and not too punishing, and the maps are creative and surprisingly big in size, considering how smooth the games run, it's optimized quite impressively. I have an Oculus 2 via Oculus Link that I use (Please keep in mind for the gun to not be so "stuttery" and broken, you have to change in your steam preferences for the game to launch using Oculus VR.) That is about the end of the positive experience.

PLEASE keep in mind this game has only been in development for around 11~ months at the time of this review. What they have done in this time frame is impressive. But it isn't hard to see, this game isn't ready for release yet. Between Janky AI with aimbot 100s of meters away, Inconsistent latency to the server resulting in dying (Or killing someone) because you/they haven't pushed out of cover on your/their screen yet, A broken loot system in your hideout that results it items disappearing or clipping through objects randomly, gun bloom in a VR shooter game, Mundane tasks that they expect you to grind 10-25 times PER level of trader (Unlike tarkov, there are 5 trader levels), and a lack of a story entirely at the moment. This game just doesn't feel ready yet. And it's a shame. I wish the developers took a month or so after the alpha to really fix the game, because just at launch, I discovered 3 seperate massive economy breaking bugs relating item duplication and item deletion. It's simply not ready yet.

Come check back in 4-6 months, and the game might actually be really solid. Unfortunately I'm willing to bet most casual players will have dropped this game by then, and the raids will probably get really difficult for reasons other than game breaking bugs. So pick your poison.

This is the future of VR. Plain and simple.

Don't go into it expecting it to be Boneworks 2, I did as well, and at first was disappointed. But As I explored the game more, and dug deeper and deeper, I realized just how much there was to this game, and frankly, how much this game could expand, how much it can, and will become. Its already incredibly fun, and worth digging into. Just give it some patience (And if you get stuck at the labs its worth looking up a guide how to unplug the sink. Trust me if you really get stuck that will be worth it, I found it myself but it probably was a solid 90 minutes, I wish I knew how to just do it right away.)

This will be the kind of game worth coming back to in a few weeks, a few months, and even a few years. I really look forward to seeing how the community will shape Bonelab. And good god I hope this game gets multiplayer support down the road, it could be THE vr game if it does. Still has a bit to go beforehand however.

Welcome to Spark Notes Star Wars, featuring open world game play

Criminally underrated tactical first person shooter.

Does it have bugs, yes. But the devs put an incredible amount of effort towards this game, constant refreshing new content, maps, and mechanics. There are a few annoyances, but overall its impressively done, and worth WAY more than the current price tag of 12$

I would pay at least 40 for this game honestly. Worth the buy, highly recommend.

Man at first, I really had to debate on if this was a thumbs up or not. But for the sake of this game being made by one developer, and really having a unique concept I will say, the game is good, it different, and it's interesting. It's worth the affordable price tag. It's a new experience, but its very rough around the edges.

Starting with the good, this game has a fairly unique concept, you are an executioner (in vr, duh), and your job is to behead prisoners who have been sentenced to death, it's fairly straight forward, has a good plot line, and you can see how morals would play into the game. The atmosphere is good, the style is artistic, and I appreciate that, it's a short game, but it is more an experience than a game.

Now I really want to express that I feel this game is worth buying, and most of the current problems could be easily fixed with a few bug patches or changes, I obviously bought it myself, so if the premise of the game interests you, get it, play it, and than write your own review, before anything gets spoiled further on. Alright? Played the game? Or still not sold? Fair enough, let's get into some of the negatives.

This game is buggy, at least on the oculus. The first game breaking bug quite literally happened within seconds of trying to play the game. (After the very short tutorial). I couldn't. Sign. The damn. Paper. If you haven't played the game yet, the intro sequence to the story is you meet the Beadle, who goes on a rather long spheal about justice and your role as the executioner, what feels like an age long speech (which is probably more like 2-3 minutes of him talking), he wraps up talking about your first convict to execute, and tells you to sign the paper. This was impossible, the pen was hard to control, and after struggling with it for a moment, signed, and was insulted by the damn Beadle that I couldn't read, about every 10 seconds. After frustration of the pen not working, I went back to the main menu, restarted, sat through the whole speech, tried again, filled the page with ink. Tried to strangle the Beadle with my bare hands, with no luck I restarted the game entirely, assuming it must have been an issue with the game launch. Nope. Sat through the talk once more, had the same experience (though the beadle for some reason spawned towards the wall, facing and talking to it quite interestingly). I was pretty frustrated, and this may seem minor to some, but for me, this completely ruined the atmosphere of the game for me, i was about 15ish minutes into playtime now, and was about to give up, when I had one last idea, rebooting once more, and FILLING the paper with ink DURING the Beadle's speech. At first it didnt work, but after dropping the pen once he finished talking, getting insulted for the millionth time, and dabbing it on the paper once more (which was now virtually black on the signature section), something clicked in the game, and I was finally allowed to play. Of course this one section could get fixed, which I hope it does, and this entire section of the review will be irrelevant, but for me something this immersion breaking, and game breaking for that matter, I almost quit and refunded since I could not play the game because of this, I feel is surprising to see. And it wasn't the end of issues, from random ragdolling heads/bodies reducing in a bad paycheck, glitchy collisions from the sword on pickup with the table that once immediately resulted in the stabbing of a convicts foot, theres a bunch of small bugs that add up, again I get this was a small project, which is why I would say buy the game, (hopefully) play it, and still experience it, because if these bugs were fixed, it would be really good, for a start. What do I mean by that? (Can you tell I don't write reviews often? Im bouncing all over the place), I love the premise of this game, it was really cool, but the ending was a bit sudden, it felt as when things were finally getting interesting, that's when the game decided to end, maybe it would be different for others, but there are 10 executions in the game, only 4 of them I found actually compelling and thought provoking, again this may be situational with the player, but I really would have liked to see a bit more diversity and action in the game, (I hate to say it, but honestly pretty much everything you see in the two trailers is almost everything you can do and experiment with in the game, from the few interesting side "minigames" between executions, and the interaction with the crowd/table during the executions), now what could that entail? I have lots of ideas, but that isn't really my place to say either, I just hope perhaps we either see a second game or perhaps an expansion from Samuel Gordon down the road, so yet again I saw, support the dev. Because this is a good start.

Alright wow that was a lot more than I expected to write, I spent 30 minutes on this, that's almost half the time I spent playing the game... but yeah. It's a good VR experience, is it as personal as I was hoping the game would get? Maybe not, it could have been more immersive, and yes there are plenty of bugs, but we need more passion projects like this that push the envelope of these games. Anyways I hope this helped give you insight to the game, and once more, if you haven't got the game yet, just try it. It's pretty interesting. Samuel Gordon I sure hope we get to see some more come from you soon.

Normally I don't write many of these reviews. But for a bit of an indie game, this game seriously makes you stop and go. Holy ♥♥♥♥ we're kinda screwed.

It's a bit eye opening, immersive, and extremely fun to play. Highly, highly recommend it.