But, for real though, if I could give an 'eh' review, I would.
This feels like it could be a great stepping stone for a incredible sequel.

I do believe this was a great attempt, from a small development studio, but this was honestly more tedious than horrifying. The unique areas and optional objectives were generally great and pretty unique and were pretty fun to go through. But the game is marred with some lack of extra thought and polish that would have turned it into an incredible experience.

TL;DR - I recommend this on sale with the basis above, and that it did have some good moments worth playing. More detail below.

Let's list them off:

• It's way too easy,
  
• The melee weapons are annoying as hell,
  
• The 'open world' is empty,
  
• And the preset areas could be organised better.

Let's go over this in more detail.

You're tanky as hell and can easily take a few hits before biting it, and the guard and parry system made any encounter super easy to deal with. Even the bosses can be parried, and it made most of the game a joke.

"But, uhh, Beanie" I hear you say, "The difficulty comes from the lack of resources, meaning that the limited ammo and healing supplies count for every mistake you make, making it harder and harder to stay alive"

Now, that is a great point, Mr. Strawman, however what you are forgetting are two key details:
You REGENERATE health
And you are INUNDATED with resources

Because of the above, for about 80% of the game, I had a full inventory of healing supplies, light sources and pipe-bombs (as is common in England).

And this isn't just a bit of self-glazing here talking about how good I am at niche indie horror games, resources are conveniently placed pretty much everywhere. So even if your aim is terrible and you have a 3-5 business day reaction time, you're never lacking. There are even numerous safe houses with respawning items for you to use and abuse to your leisure.

Since there is no threat in any encounter, there's no weight to the gameplay, nor any critical thinking you have to do on how to engage enemies since you know you'll come out perfectly fine.

This was on the standard, dev-intended difficulty, and to give credit there is a "impossible" difficulty instead, which might of helped with this. But seeing as the description for this was "even the devs couldn't beat this", I didn't particularly feel like having a vasectomy every five minutes playing the game. It's a delicate balance to get in these games, but this felt like a general lack of understanding on this concept rather than anything else.

Every melee weapon is the same, the only thing that changes is the damage. That's pretty lame.

The variety is great, you can use anything from hammers, blades, pipes and (my beloved) sledgehammer. The issue is that they are basically all disposable, there is no reason to chose one over the other unless you know it will take one less swing to kill something.

There is little difference in the speed, stagger and reach of them, excluding some unique weapons in hidden areas which are generally overkill on everything excluding a boss.

To be constructive, I think less time could have been spent on the variety (because it is impressive) and more time on the complexity of the weapons. Let me pick a knife up and know it will be quick enough for me to get in, and duck out before the counter attack, or let me grab a pipe or sledge hammer and have a slow but powerful weapon that can hit multiple things and stagger them, with the reach to stay away from the basic swipes.

I honestly think having the guns be extremely limited ace-up-the-sleeve type weapons would have been more beneficial to the game, unlike what they are in-game which is generally only useful for some enemies and bosses (and when you really can't be bothered to melee something). Plus, having guns be more limited would fit the setting far more, seeing as we aren't as over-saturated with them as are other counties.

I think it's important to provide the distinction between strolling above-ground in "London" and going into the more interesting side-areas, as this issue does not apply.

One of the selling points of the game is that you can go where you please in this little world and it's up to you to choose where to go next. However, all you ever do above ground is hold shift and walk in a straight line to the next objective or side-area.

That's it.

"Erm, but there are anomalies to fight and melee weapons lying around for you to interact with!" I hear you cry.

My answer is: What's the point?
You get nothing from fighting enemies. The melee weapons you can find are generally all basic, hammers and pipes which are typically the worst in damage, so why would I do any of that? Just hold down shift and book it to the next interesting thing.

On a more annoying note, the anomalies aren't patrolling, nor can they be seen leisurely strolling around the streets to be avoided or engaged with. They literally spawn behind you, at random intervals. It felt like a beta feature that wasn't changed.

My point here is that it adds very little to the game, while also taking up a lot of dev time which could have been dedicated to polishing the experience and bug crushing (did I mention the game can be buggy? The game can be pretty buggy).

Honestly, pull a Yakuza and reuse the map for the next game, but add more interesting events and objectives to the top-side map, like notes and lore, collectables, secret stashes, or add really difficult enemies patrolling so you're fighting for your life to get to the next """safe""" haven inside.

Some minor spoilers here, reader beware.

To cover the path I made, I went to The Theatre -> The Church -> The Weapons Facility -> The Hospital. The rest are set in order.

My main issue with that is how some of the areas were treated, and others were not. I think it was clear that the Hospital and the Theatre received the most amount of dev time as they were the most interesting, but the other areas were lacking in... polish?

The Hospital was a clear step towards a more horror focused section, with few enemies and a couple of unique, miss-able scares, which were fantastic. While the Theatre had a semi-unique setting, theme and anomalies (albeit very annoying ones). These were clearly more horror focused and had a much better atmosphere than the others.

The church, which honestly could have been a fantastic setting, was both pretty bland and over in five minutes (the horror there is that it mirrors my love life). And the factory was longer, only due to the map being larger, with even less things to do.

The odd thing though, is that the Hospital serves as a great starting location, due to the low amount of enemies, and even serves as great introductions to certain anomalies you'll see through-out the game, however for some reason, the Theatre is recommended as the first place to go? Just feels like a bit of a miss-step.

You will always have this issue with the freedom of choice, however I think its a proven recipe in horror games to have more control over the direction the player takes in most cases, the idea is neat, but a bit flawed in execution.

Finally wrapping up my thought dump after finishing this, I think what someone else wrote sums it up pretty well:
"The idea is neat, but a bit flawed in execution.
Not sure who wrote that, but he seems like a great, handsome guy who writes way too long steam reviews that no-one is going to read.

[h1]Average Londoner experience.[/h1] But, for real though, if I could give an 'eh' review, I would. This feels like it could be a great stepping stone for a incredible sequel. I do believe this was a great attempt, from a small development studio, but this was honestly more tedious than horrifying. The unique areas and optional objectives were generally great and pretty unique and were pretty fun to go through. But the game is marred with some lack of extra thought and polish that would have turned it into an incredible experience. [b]TL;DR[/b] - I recommend this on sale with the basis above, and that it did have some good moments worth playing. More detail below. [h2]The Problems[/h2] Let's list them off: [list] [*]It's way too easy, [*]The melee weapons are annoying as hell, [*]The 'open world' is empty, [*]And the preset areas could be organised better. [/list] [h3]"It's way too easy"[/h3] Let's go over this in more detail. You're tanky as hell and can easily take a few hits before biting it, and the guard and parry system made any encounter super easy to deal with. Even the bosses can be parried, and it made most of the game a joke. [i]"But, uhh, Beanie"[/i] I hear you say, [i]"The difficulty comes from the lack of resources, meaning that the limited ammo and healing supplies count for every mistake you make, making it harder and harder to stay alive"[/i] Now, that is a great point, Mr. Strawman, however what you are forgetting are two key details: [b]You [u]REGENERATE[/u] health[/b] [b]And you are [u]INUNDATED[/u] with resources[/b] Because of the above, for about 80% of the game, I had a full inventory of healing supplies, light sources and pipe-bombs ([i]as is common in England[/i]). And this isn't just a bit of self-glazing here talking about how good I am at niche indie horror games, resources are conveniently placed pretty much everywhere. So even if your aim is terrible and you have a 3-5 business day reaction time, you're never lacking. There are even numerous safe houses with respawning items for you to use and abuse to your leisure. Since there is no threat in any encounter, there's no weight to the gameplay, nor any critical thinking you have to do on how to engage enemies since you know you'll come out perfectly fine. This was on the standard, dev-intended difficulty, and to give credit there is a "impossible" difficulty instead, which might of helped with this. But seeing as the description for this was "even the devs couldn't beat this", I didn't particularly feel like having a vasectomy every five minutes playing the game. It's a delicate balance to get in these games, but this felt like a general lack of understanding on this concept rather than anything else. [h3]"The melee weapons are annoying as hell"[/h3] Every melee weapon is the same, the only thing that changes is the damage. That's pretty lame. The variety is great, you can use anything from hammers, blades, pipes and (my beloved) sledgehammer. The issue is that they are basically all disposable, there is no reason to chose one over the other unless you know it will take one less swing to kill something. There is little difference in the speed, stagger and reach of them, excluding some unique weapons in hidden areas which are generally overkill on everything excluding a boss. To be constructive, I think less time could have been spent on the variety (because it is impressive) and more time on the complexity of the weapons. Let me pick a knife up and know it will be quick enough for me to get in, and duck out before the counter attack, or let me grab a pipe or sledge hammer and have a slow but powerful weapon that can hit multiple things and stagger them, with the reach to stay away from the basic swipes. I honestly think having the guns be extremely limited ace-up-the-sleeve type weapons would have been more beneficial to the game, unlike what they are in-game which is generally only useful for some enemies and bosses (and when you really can't be bothered to melee something). Plus, having guns be more limited would fit the setting far more, seeing as we aren't as over-saturated with them as are other counties. [h3]"The open world is empty"[/h3] I think it's important to provide the distinction between strolling above-ground in "London" and going into the more interesting side-areas, as this issue does not apply. One of the selling points of the game is that you can go where you please in this little world and it's up to you to choose where to go next. However, all you [i]ever[/i] do above ground is hold shift and walk in a straight line to the next objective or side-area. That's it. [i]"Erm, but there are anomalies to fight and melee weapons lying around for you to interact with!"[/i] I hear you cry. My answer is: What's the point? You get nothing from fighting enemies. The melee weapons you can find are generally all basic, hammers and pipes which are typically the worst in damage, so why would I do any of that? Just hold down shift and book it to the next interesting thing. On a more annoying note, the anomalies aren't patrolling, nor can they be seen leisurely strolling around the streets to be avoided or engaged with. They literally spawn behind you, at random intervals. It felt like a beta feature that wasn't changed. My point here is that it adds very little to the game, while also taking up a lot of dev time which could have been dedicated to polishing the experience and bug crushing (did I mention the game can be buggy? The game can be pretty buggy). Honestly, pull a Yakuza and reuse the map for the next game, but add more interesting events and objectives to the top-side map, like notes and lore, collectables, secret stashes, or add really difficult enemies patrolling so you're fighting for your life to get to the next """safe""" haven inside. [h3]The preset areas could be organised better[/h3] [b]Some minor spoilers here, reader beware.[/b] To cover the path I made, I went to The Theatre -> The Church -> The Weapons Facility -> The Hospital. The rest are set in order. My main issue with that is how some of the areas were treated, and others were not. I think it was clear that the Hospital and the Theatre received the most amount of dev time as they were the most interesting, but the other areas were lacking in... polish? The Hospital was a clear step towards a more horror focused section, with few enemies and a couple of unique, miss-able scares, which were fantastic. While the Theatre had a semi-unique setting, theme and anomalies (albeit very annoying ones). These were clearly more horror focused and had a much better atmosphere than the others. The church, which honestly could have been a fantastic setting, was both pretty bland and over in five minutes (the horror there is that it mirrors my love life). And the factory was longer, only due to the map being larger, with even less things to do. The odd thing though, is that the Hospital serves as a great starting location, due to the low amount of enemies, and even serves as great introductions to certain anomalies you'll see through-out the game, however for some reason, the Theatre is recommended as the first place to go? Just feels like a bit of a miss-step. You will always have this issue with the freedom of choice, however I think its a proven recipe in horror games to have more control over the direction the player takes in most cases, the idea is neat, but a bit flawed in execution. [h3]Summary[/h3] Finally wrapping up my thought dump after finishing this, I think what someone else wrote sums it up pretty well: "[b]The idea is neat, but a bit flawed in execution. [/b] Not sure who wrote that, but he seems like a great, handsome guy who writes way too long steam reviews that no-one is going to read.