Recent reviews by Jesus Christ

THIS IS HOW YOU DIED

Let's get the bad out of the way now.
The game has a very, very, VERY high skill curve. What seems like a simple game is actually an extremely complex number of systems that takes literally anything you can think of into consideration. The game does not update frequently, with long gaps of time between each update. And last, you will die. A lot. That is not a "you're bad at the game so you died"; it will happen. One of the first things you see each time you load into the map is "This is how you died". There is no winning, there is only surviving as long as you can before the inevitable, often gruesome end. As a hardcore RPG, death is permanent and you will get frustrated.

With that out of the way, the good.
This game is by and far the best zombie survival game I have ever played to date. There have been too many times I've been so invested into the game and not noticed 6+ hours go past at a time. The modding scene in this game is one of the best I've ever seen on Steam, and offers to add almost whatever you want (and whatever you didn't want) to the game. While updates are slow, they are often massive in their scale. Usual updates range from adding onto the map, changing entire systems in the game, or completely overhauling the engine of the game itself. Not to mention the dev team is very active with the community by giving weekly newsletters on update progress and even doing shout outs for mod creators. The game is a ton of fun whether you play solo or with friends, and even dying will only drive you to do better next time (after you've had a small cry or tantrum over however you died).

8.5/10 - would go higher if updates were a little more frequent

Okay, this is TECHNICALLY a day 1 review since I played the day it came out and only got around to posting the next day.

Let's start with the good.
Its a refreshingly difficult and genuinely scary game that has had me feel uneasy at worst and outright terrified at best on several occasions. Not many games can do that to me anymore, and while some games like Phasmo still get me, I am glad to be able to add another to the list. The game has very creepy undertones and the locations are all set up in a beautiful horror fashion, between exploring an old abandoned fortress to a literal run down haunted house that looks like its been uninhabited for decades. A wide selection of equipment including several iconic ghost hunting gear as well as familiar items, as well as some I've not seen in a game before now. There are no true safe spots, and what safety you do find is often fleeting before a door is broken open or a warding item is consumed. The overall objective of the game is really interesting in the idea of just knowing the ghost type is far from the end of the round, and you have to actually exorcise the entity which leaves a very hands-on and rewarding experience... if you succeed. And let's be honest, when you do succeed in exorcising the entity and feel the calmness of normality return to the building it is such a relief after a harrowing dive through Hell.

Now for the bad.
Sadly, this game is currently plagued heavily by countless bugs and broken features. Some equipment doesn't seem to work correctly or at all, which can be extremely frustrating when you know the steps for exorcism and put yourself in grave danger only for the item not to work properly. The entity is always extremely active and very much hostile, often times trying to hunt and kill you the moment you step foot in the doorway. The multiplayer feature (however much there is) has a ton of issues; there aren't any public lobbies, joining/hosting games with friends is often a pain and might have to rejoin a few times to work, and loading screens often glitch to the point one or everyone has to fully close the game and try again from start. There is not much of a tutorial to learn the game, causing a very steep learning curve that leaves trial by error and several deaths to figure things out. The in-game speech recognition seemed to have a hard time fully understanding certain key phrases. The overall game just feels really rough and almost rushed at points with features not working as they should or at all. All of this on a rather high price for an early access indie game makes it a little difficult to recommend the game in its current state.

Closing thoughts and remarks
I really want to recommend this game, and will be very interested in watching it develop. Between this game and Phasmophobia, the ghost hunting genre is finally being explored with proper games I've not seen since the Fatal Frame franchise, and I'm excited to see how they both grow from here and perhaps even influence even more games of the genre to explore. With a few of the more game breaking bugs squashed and some of the equipment and ghost behaviors adjusted, I think this has very strong potential to be a big title game. I would also like to see a proper tutorial put in place that not only better explains how certain items work and their impact on the game, but get used to ghosts as well as the investigation and exorcism steps while in a safe format instead of learning everything when your life is in danger. Again, I LOVE that this game is joining the list of games that actually scare me, and its always fun to have that "I really don't want to be here" feeling and have to push past it to complete your objective. Any game that puts you in a position that you're uncomfortable and scared, but forces you to face your fears and conquer them to achieve victory is doing the horror genre justice. I look forward to seeing how this game develops further in the future.

Okay, so after playing this game for almost 10 hours on Steam alone (not counting many hours on my phone at work) as of writing this, I have only one single question to ask myself:

How have I not picked up this diamond of a game before now???

Seriously. It was released back in November 2018. That was almost 2 years ago, and its just now blowing up in popularity. This game is as absolutely addictive as it is fun. Even with fairly basic mechanics and a charmingly simple artwork design, this game will have you playing round after round after round as soon as you join your first lobby. The rules of the game are quite simple:

If you're one of the crew members, you complete a series of tasks or discover who the killer(s) are. If you're the killer, you try to slowly pick the crew members off and try not to get caught and voted off. As with many of these types of games, its a social deception and investigation game where people have to determine based on info they find and what others are saying to try and find the correct impostors without voting off innocent crew members and making the impostor's jobs easier. On the other side, the impostors try to kill off people without getting caught, then plant seeds of doubt with the group and blame others to get even more voted off and be closer to victory. Its very much a fun game of Werewolf and Mafia combined with mini games as people complete tasks.

If you love social deduction games, I cannot stress that you give this game a chance. And I promise you will love it. Way worth the price of the game and more. Highly recommended, 9.5/10 only for occasionally buggy servers (they are still working on that due to heavy influx of people, don't think poorly of them for it!)

I LOVE this game. Brilliant idea, and executed expertly. Dead by Daylight allows one of two options: you play as a victim or as a deranged killer. The match begins with four victims who must go about repairing a number of generators and finding and opening an exit from the arena, all the while running and hiding from a psychopath killer, who's job is, you guessed it: kill the other players before they can escape.

Everything the victim players do sooner or later involves a series of skill checks, which exactly like the reload in Gears of War is a wheel with a small area marked, and a dial the player must successfully hit to pass the check. Hitting the check too soon or missing the marked area will cause the check to fail, making a generator blow up in your face or you to stab the teammate you're trying to heal. All of these creates a noise that the killer will hear and be able to locate your area, so passing skill checks is a must.

The killer player wanders around the map searching for the victims, attempting to stop their attempts to activate the generators and run to safety. After hitting a victim player twice, the victim goes into a "dying" state, where they can be picked up by the killer and carried off to one of many hooks around the map, and will be sacrificed to the Entity if left on the hook too long. They can also bleed out if left too long in this state, or a teammate can find them and help them back onto their feet.

The game becomes a wicked rush of adrenaline and fear no matter which side you play. You're either terrified as the heartbeat warning the killer is nearby grows louder and faster, or rushing after a fleeing prey as the killer, attempting to catch and murder the four other players and stop them from escaping your wrath. To anyone who enjoys the feeling of both fear and excitement, I VERY strongly recommend this game. 9/10, only because of camping killers. You know who you are, and should be ashamed. Also because of a few bugs. Because games never have them.

For Early Access, it's pretty good. It has it's bugs which is to be expected, and the server wipes make it a little daunting to build a full base at the moment, especially if you're doing everything alone. But for what it is as of when I'm writing this, it's a pretty good zombie survival game. Zombies are as they should be; one by itself isn't much of a threat to someone even somewhat prepared, but in mass can quickly become overwhelming and deadly. Guns are somewhat plentiful, but some ammo isn't, which makes a lot of weapons very valueable and makes every shot count for many guns. Have to watch your energy, hydration, hunger, and health, making for a good survival system. And the crafting system is good, though the storage system for bags can be kind of a headache, and many things take a lot of bag space, especially weapons, which makes carrying multiple weapons somewhat of a pain at times. If I could recommend the dev's one thing, it's to bring back the ability to turn one ammo type into another, but increase the ratio to say, 5:1.

All in all, a good zombie apocalypse survival game, and can be either PvE or PvP. I'll give it 8/10 as it is now. Can be better, but it's still in Early Access, so we'll see where the game goes from here.

Full of danger lurking around literally every turn, Don't Starve is a fantastic game. Thrown into a very unforgiving world with nothing but the clothes on your back, you must work quickly to build tools, find food, and make a shelter in the often vain attempt to survive. This game is pretty difficult, and only gets harder as the game goes on; the longer you survive, the more dangerous the world becomes and harder it is to continue.

I cannot recommend this game enough to people who enjoy difficult and survival games. From plants and animals that want you dead to the very shadows and darkness of night out to get you, this game will have you huddled around just about any light source you can find in minutes. I give this game a very easy 9.5/10.

In short: YOU WILL DIE.