Recent reviews by John Balmetheus Esquire

i wish i was blind and deaf and also lobotomised

Would make a very on-brand [REDACTED]-Life joke, but this game genuinely carves out its own spot in a way that is very hard to describe- and I want more people to purchase and enjoy it.

You wouldn't make a guy ask twice, would you?

mod it for huge lobbies

I can already tell I am going to enjoy this as much as hotline miami

PERSONAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW-
GPU- 3080ti Eagle OC, CPU-Ryzen 5 5800x, RAM-32gb DDR4 3200Mhz

The game is installed on an SSD, loads within 15 seconds and stays at a consistent 140+ fps (while streaming to discord,) thusfar with all settings maxed and RTX disabled- WITH RTX maxed out as well, the game sits at around 45-52fps in combat & ~65-76 while wandering aimlessly.

Systems info during playtime shows heavy CPU usage (76%) and mid level GPU usage (57%) without severe increase in temps. (Highest reading I got was around 68c after an hour of gameplay at the second node between my CPU and GPU before plateauing,)

Will amend this initial performance review if I have any issues with performance or stuttering, however so far there has been no trouble until turning on all ray tracing options to the maximum. It is a shame that so many people are having issues, however it is certainly possible to have this game running butter smooth without absolute top shelf gear.

If you enjoyed Dead Space 1/2 you will likely have a blast from what I have seen with my limited gameplay :)


(feel free to post specs and any common issues to try and assist in narrowing down potential hardware specific issues or if it is simply denuvo being d0gsh1t for some people once again.)

Played about 2 minutes of the demo and decided to buy the game outright, no regrets it is phenomenal.

The actual gameplay itself is phenomenal, short of a few minor balance issues & nitpicks that can build up and somewhat sully the experience- which is why it hurts my soul to say avoid this game like the plague until they listen to player feedback on progression and monetisation.

Monetisation is absolutely absurd, unfathomably greedy- and downright predatory. Charging $15 AUD for a plain red colour mix that is ONLY applicable to ONE of my three armour sets? Cool, thanks guys- really appreciate the "player expression," you're offering me there.

What's that? You'd like a SINGLE light blue skin for the AR as well as some nameplate swag? $15 again thanks. Buuttt if you simply shell out an extra $15, for $30 you can get shoulderplates, kneepads, a helmet, colour set and an end of match stance! Oh, it's the skin we used to advertise the FREE event? Our bad guys, sorry- you'll need to pay for that one.

Progression-
- Upon release you earned NOTHING for completing a game, the ONLY way to earn XP was through completing challenges. (This has since been "amended," by a game completion netting you a whopping 50xp out of the 1000xp needed for a single level up in the battle pass.)

- You earn NO experience from your in-game performance be it through your K/D, your completion of objectives, or your teamwork, the ONLY experience you will earn from a match is the base 1/20th of a level you earn for completing a match (As well as any relevant challenges completed during,)

- Without paying for the premium pass you are allotted less challenge slots, and are therefore required to grind even harder for your measly reward.
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A battle pass system is (I would say,) one of the more reasonable ways to mitigate the cost of running servers on a F2P live service game when done properly. However in this case it is done awfully, and in an incredibly predatory manner- let me explain.

In the battle pass there are 100 tiers to progress through. In these 100 tiers, there are ~67 free rewards for players who haven't paid for the premium pass- pretty good right?
Well, no- as ~42 of these free rewards are 'challenge swap cards,' which solely allows one to re-roll a challenge in hopes of getting a newer and hopefully easier one, it isn't even a challenge skip token, it just changes what you have to do to go up 1/4 of a tier.

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AT THIS POINT THE GAME HAS CRASHED THREE TIMES JUST WHILE TRYING TO SKIP THROUGH THE BATTLE PASS TO CRUNCH NUMBERS, AND THUSLY KILLED MY RESOLVE TO FINISH WRITING THIS REVIEW.

This is not an isolated incident, the friends I played with all had issues with intermittent crashes however I seem to have gotten it the worst, at least one crash every 3 games.

TLDR: Game is great, but don't touch it with a 10 metre pole until they've listened to feedback in regards to progression and monetisation.

Don't let corporate greed ♥♥♥♥ up the only good thing you've had going in the last decade 343i.

game sucks

10/10

Honestly a wonderful turn based strategy game, with some great RPG mechanics, effective and distinctive atmospheres & funny/ often insightful writing. The kind of game that I would feel comfortable writing a proper length review for-however I feel as though I do it more of a service by giving a more easily accessible & succinct one in order to get a general yes/no consensus as to whether they should purchase the game.

(It's a yes, you absolutely should if the game interests you even slightly.)

>finally build up enough ammo, electrical supplies and meds to safely loot the prison
>the 'horde' mechanic starts, to signal that there are waves of zombies incoming
>wonder why there are literally 5-6 zombies in sight over the course of 20 minutes or so
>finish looting what we can with the electrical supplies we brought and go to leave the prison
>as we drive back across the bridge, watch ~500 zombies pop in instantaneously around 20 metres away
>the ENTIRE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bridge is blocked by a solid wall of zombies, around 40-50 deep
>not enough time to turn around in the car, get out and glitch onto various pieces of geometry to 'Survive the Night'
>zombie AI targets the empty vehicle that only has ALL the gear we just looted, and blows it up-nullifying the whole run
>game crashes from the explosion

+ Atmosphere. The zombies sound horrifying, and there are various points where you are genuinely on the edge of your seat for a moment, regardless of jank
+ Looting system. This is more of personal preference, but loot items don't glow and are placed to actually fit into the world, meaning that you do need to actually look around rather than seeing an item with double the gamma of everything around it
+ Building and fortification. This has clearly been the focus for the devs, at least for an update or two- and it shows. Very nice to be able to pull out a hammer and actively put barricades over windows, doors etc. on the fly

- The world. A common problem with games such as this is the world feeling barren and empty, this game is no exception. The power station? Giant empty building with a turbine and (literally,) no other assets.
- The combat. No stuns from head hits, zombies clipping through each other and you as they run around in circles, do a melee hit at 2000% speed and then waddle toward you again
- The jank. Everyhing is janky, and I mean everything. Driving, fighting, moving, crafting, eating, etc. The driving, for example- the vehicles turn and move quicker when doing anything backwards, resulting in you barely missing a turn off, reversing to try and take the turn- only to spin out and do a doughnut backwards in an RV.

If I could give this game a neutral I would, it definitely isn't a positive but worthy of around 40-50%, closer to a negative than a positive in it's current state, but there is definitely promise if they don't get bored and just drop the project.