Recent reviews by Kaiser Churchill

This is a mixed review. I'm leaving a positive one as I can see there is passion and effort put in here, but frankly the game should not have been released in current build. The art style is inspired, the concept is there, and there are some very inspired game play elements that give this game the potential to be a defining entry in the extraction shooter genre.

That being said, I can tolerate bugs and server issues, I don't expect the game to be perfect day 1 of early access, but there are some seriously game breaking issues, that if ironed out, I think would have made the launch of this game a lot smoother. First and foremost in my mind is the propensity of AI to just spawn on top of you. My friend and I just had 2 squads of enemies spawn on either side of us out of thin air, naturally we could not defend ourselves against such odds and we died instantly. The real time water system, as many have pointed out, basically precludes those with packed schedules from playing the game. Guns have a weird trigger delay. The movement controls need a lot of work. This game is built around the idea that your scavs really arent supposed to fight the hostile AIs except when no other option is presented to you. This is conceptually a very fun idea, but in current build makes the game very frustrating. Many of the maps are built essentially as giant choke points where trying to out think obstacles and enemies is very unreliable. An AI often walks straight towards wherever the scav is hiding without having detected the scout at all.

I hope to see the game improve a lot, and to me it seems the devs hope to as well, and as such i dont feel that in good mind leave a negative review, but I encourage prospective buyers to wait for a few updates for some of the fundamental problems to be addressed.

Look, it aint as good as left 4 dead 2. There are some mechanics like trauma that r just weird. But at the end of the day its a fun Left 4 Dead style zombie shooter w a good deal of content, and sometimes thats all you need. Pick it up if its on sale and I'd wager you wont regret it.

I'm giving this a tentative positive review because I think there is a lot of potential here but the game is very very much early access. As the game currently stands basically nothing is complete. In light of this I will also not be critiquing the duration of the game as it currently only has the first chapter available to the public.

The Gun Play:
A good start, the weapon aiming system and weapon models are pretty clean. There are a total of 3 ammunition types in game. .357, .45, and 12 gauge buck. I have only found the shotgun and the 1911 so far, but they are pretty fun to use. A major issue for them right now is balancing. The shotgun and the .45 are very effective against the enemies you'l encounter in current build of the game. I don't think that is a major issue, a shotgun is a shotgun after all, but what does become an issue is the availability of ammunition. To craft ammo you need just some gunpowder and a few metal scraps and there is no shortage of these resources. This means that once you get your guns there is no reason to ever use your melee and that you are more a less unstoppable (especially if you have healing items for those rare occasions where you do take damage). It also makes me wonder what good the .357 is if the .45 kills enemies in one or two shots most often. This could be fixed by either making the enemies more numerous or more resilient (I would favor more numerous).

The aiming mechanics are interesting as rather than letting you use the relatively well modeled iron sights you are forced to use a reticle to aim that will tighten if you hold right click and stop moving. This is a functional system and I appreciate the effort to make the gun handling more clunky, the only issue is it doesn't really make it any harder to aim than if you just had iron sights. I would advise a few tweaks. I think holding right click while holding still maybe should have you aim down the sights rather than getting a reticle. This would force the player, when wanting to make accurate shots, to stop moving and tighten their fov in order to gain a more precise shot. While walking you should be given a semi, good reticle and no iron sights and when running the player should get a very bad reticle and no iron sights. This game only has enemies that melee you so this may force the player to choose between fleeing to get distance from the things trying to melee them or standing their ground in order to accurately engage those threats.

The Melee:
The melee needs more work. The distances at which hits will connect seem very inconsistent, blocking is very ineffective, and the damage is meager. This makes the guns always a better option. Most of my play through I did not carry a melee weapon at all. This can be fixed in a number of ways. If you want the guns to remain more powerful than melee, then firing them should draw enemies towards you. This would make stealth important and give melee weapons a more clearly defined role. I would also advise either increasing the range of melee attacks by a foot or so or alternatively switching them to being things like knives where the existing range makes more sense. If neither of these options appeal I would advise a larger restructuring of the melee system.

The Enemies:
The enemies need some work. As it stands there are basically 3 common types you will encounter and a few rarer ones. Those are the zombie that runs at you, the big zombie, and the Forest esq humanish enemies that run away from you during the day most of the time and mainly come out at night.

-The basic zombies are mostly fine. Very bare bones, they walk up and attack you. You can outrun them for the most part and they usually only need a bullet or two to put down. Not a bad early game enemy, especially when the player only has the baseball bat, but nothing to right home about. You'l often find them slumped over stuff in the world and can wake them up by walking near them. I think they could be improved by having them do more hording behaviors. They aren't hard to deal with one at a time, but if you could accidentally turn a corner into a bunch of them or attract them by firing your weapon or making too much noise then they could be a bit more of a threat. There numbers could also increase as time goes on in the game. Model diversity could use some work. There grunts and moans need to be improved as well as currently they just kinda sound like someone grunting into a microphone.

-The big zombies look great. They are intimidating, and clearly distinct from their smaller counterparts. The problem with these enemies is in game play. They really don't work much different than the base zombies. They slowly run at you and if they get close to you attack. They may do some extra damage but if so I never really noticed. Despite their size, they only take an extra round or two to kill. They aren't as powerful as their model would imply. I would suggest upping their damage output and resistance, as well as possibly increasing their speed though this may not fit with the usual big zombie trope.

-The Forest esq humanish enemies are a bit strange to me. They look nothing like the zombies so at first I thought they might be some kind of feral human group or something that formed after pine harbor disaster possibly being affected by it. They have the most complex movement behaviors of the enemy types. During the day they seem to usually just want to run away but at night they become the primary threat to the player. As they stand right now they don't really visually fit into the game. They seem very inspired by the cannibals in the Forest, even making some similar noises. I think they could have an interesting role to play but if they are a different group than the zombies then that will need to be elaborated on significantly. I would advise also changing the models a bit more to change their look away from the cannibals from the forest personally, but that's not essential. As a side note, if they are different than the zombies, it would be cool to see them fighting with the zombies sometimes. Just a small note but could bring some diversity into the enemy encounters.

Sony has capitulated, another victory for Super Earth!

Fun start great potential

Excellent. Truly excellent. You ability to think around puzzles is critical. Resource management is present but not totally unforgiving. For a challenge play without using the generator (except where necessary IE the radio and the water pump). While in many ways a major departure from the Amnesia formula it clearly still has the bones of Amnesia in it and rather is a new spin or revamp on the gameplay. While the guns are useful tools they are unable to actually kill the beast which helps keep that feeling of tension present throughout the game as you loose a lifeline with each shot.

This game is much like Sisyphus's curse. You perpetually grind for the silver lions and research for the next vehicle. You want to just get to the next tier. When you reach the peak of that mountain, you instantly start the cycle over again. Its is painful. It is infuriating. The map design sucks. The balancing is terrible. But its really really fun. The rush of getting that perfect shot on the tank you thought was going to kill you is amazing. Landing that shot that seemed really impossible is wonderful. Getting away with that sneaky flank makes you feel both lucky and clever. This game is bad, but I have 1000 hours in it for a reason.

Seriously, this is hands down the best VR experience I have ever had. I have not finished the game yet, but already it has proved more fun than most games that I have played in recent memory VR or otherwise. If you have a VR headset this is an absolute must have.

Gonna be honest. This game feels like a notable down grade from its two stand alone predecessors. There are improvements. Bigger maps, better gun play (for the most part), vehicles, and better graphics. But ultimately the game feels like a step back sense some of the additions in day of infamy. Topping the bill is the fact that explosive spam is once again king of the day unlike in day of infamy. Strategy feels far less prevalent and game play is more like hardcore mode in battlefield than a tactical shooter now. I hope future updates can fix this but I am not optimistic.

Fundamentally I like this game a lot. However, of late it seems to me that with every single major update they bug some feature of the game to an extreme that I have never seen in any other game being backed by a company the size of Ubisoft. Its got good game play when it works. In their most recent update they broke thing so bad they are planning on making 1 operator unplayable, removing deployable shields making already week operators like Tachanka even less useful and removing claymores which are a key counter roamer / run out strategy until they can fix the bugs projected to be sometime next week. They have had a bug with how shields work for a few months now which has still yet to be fixed. I am deeply disappointed in Ubisoft's maintenance for the game