Recent reviews by Lay

Constant server restarts, because it often breaks and doesn't let you play. Extremely high cpu usage.

I have an i5-4690k, devil's canyon. It sits at max cpu usage for all cores. It doesn't matter what your GPU is when your cpu is maxxed out like that.

My gpu is a GTX 1070, and on low settings the framerate is around 45fps but not smooth at all. I haven't played the first performance patch yet, i'll update later.

Not sure i want to finish this game anytime soon. The story reveals itself too slowly, and the puzzles/levels aren't actually challenging yet. I'm perhaps 25% into the story, or so the game says.

If they cut out some of the levels that are more or less just a variation of the one before it then the pace might pick up, but as is i'm falling asleep. I just wish is wasn't so damn slow and repetitive.

Note: i wish i didn't buy this.

I hated the story. It wasn't told horribly, nor did it feel amature. Instead, it's one of those stories that builds up your emotions, and then ♥♥♥♥♥ on you. It's not a cliff-hanger. If you are looking for a fun story to escape from life or don't want to be reminded of how trash people and woman can be then don't get this game.

Lots of other people will probably like this story though.

As for gameplay, it's mostly just a novel that you play with as a character. It's chalked full of invisible but misleading walls, causing you to bump into every wrong way f possible. As for the rest of the gameplay, it's pretty smooth. When you're just trying to get somewhere though, those misleading invisible walls pi ss on your experience.

back to the story: it ends just like a real life story could. an ending that will sh** on you and rip your heart out. so if you hate those kinds of endings like i do, don't get it.

back to the rest: voice acting and all that is good. basically everything is great execpt for those points i brought up. If you like your stories to have any kind of possible ending then you should get it, if bumping into every possible invisible wall doesn't bother you then you should get this game; however, it's less of a game and mostly just a great 3d world novel. Instead of a book, visual novel, or audio book...you get whatever you would describe a 3D book to be. virtual novel maybe?

so if those 2 things don't bother you and you realize this is not a game, but a story - then i think you'll like this story.

Initial impressions: woa.

Great music, immediat play (no controls needed to learn), and I can say that if you liked portal, you'll like this game.

Long term impressions: Will let you know. My only concern is that if the levels don't randomize then you can beat it just by temperarily learning the pattern for whatever part you're on if you're stuck; however, I haven't played enough yet to say that it is, nor that it'll be a problem.

Any game that has a ♥♥♥♥ feel on the mouse immediatly makes me want to chuck it out the window.

The ADS is fine if you don't have any zoom, but once you use magnification you can forget about smooth controls.

The feel of the controls and guns do not have the polish I'm used to in PUBG, Titanfall 2, and COD. Sure these are AAA games, but honestly i don't feel like they tried.

The difficulty is easy in some places, but the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in this game is over the top. Cops that can vault over a wall and still land a hit on you while there doing it is BS. Also the reality is BS too. The amount of lives you take just robbing the place in no way justifies the droves of people they send for you to slaughter. Why are we robbing this place? Apparently the people we are robbing are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ richa nd we should be working for them because they can afford 200 people to throw their lives away on us and not even think twice about it for a measely jewerly store.

This is a great game for most people, but my day dulls as soon as i spent more time trying to sort my inventory than i do playing.

For some reason this trend of poor inventory managment seems popular among the minecraft look alikes, and i wish someone would have the balls to say it's a lazy system.

They could make chest bigger so that i wouldn't need to sort through several different boxes just to put this damn 1 item away. They could make it so that just being near the chest counts it as part of my inventory and therefor means i can just dump my items, craft what i want, and go back to playing. They could allow forges and and cook fires pull the materials they need from nearby chest so that i don't have to open several different things just to cook a tea.

I'll admit that they have stepped it up from minecraft a lot, but for me. When i walk 10 feet away from base and have to return home because my bags are stuffed i don't neccisary mind. BUT I DO MIND WHEN IT TAKES LONGER TO GET IT OUT OF MY BAG THAN IT DOES TO PLAY!

It's fun if you are the type who doesn't take it personal when you lose. If you lose a match and get discouraged, you won't much like this game.

If you play because of that moment when, after intense study and practice you crush an opponent either because your always one step ahead and know the counter to their every move, or lose a fight that you made them crawl their way to victory through...those are the moments you live for. But they don't come without dedication

if you can't commit to that, you might enjoy stomping on the computer as you blow s*** up. Might even find some people to join you...but if you think it's "training" you to fight a human you'll find that nothing you leanred agenst the AI works well to someone who can actually fight back.

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on the flip side, when i played this like a year ago it had some serious memory issues for some people. this guy bought the game, and could never play it because you need 12-16GB to play. i got by on 8 for a bit, but it's hit or miss. He had 8, but it was maxed out and would crash.

If you have 8GB I would not risk it, or keep a sharp eye on your 2 hour limit and try it. This game was desinged with servers in mind. Though if your having crashing issues steam might give more leniance if you go over 2 hours. Don't quote me on that.

Also the games can get really slow when you start pumping out the units, anyway if you need a time sink this will do it.

It's fun when it's working, but almost every game it disconnects. This doesn't happen to me on other games. Happens like on average every 15-40 minutes

To be specific, in one session i had 13 games and 8 disconnects. One thing to note: it's hard to tell when it's the game screwing you over, or if the host quit, or it was you. Nonetheless, that's an extremily high ratio.

update: i'd like to add that their current player report system is one of the worst i've seen. Currently you must friend either of the two steam moderator and tell them in a private messege. This has major drawbacks:

1) you can't tell or even talk to them until they add you to their friends list.
2) you can't request friendship if their list is full (has happened recently)
3) dispite issue 2 happening, they remove you soon after talking to them, meaning if a week later you discover another cheater...you gotta wait the 1-2 weeks i waited to be added to their friends list again
4) It is the ONLY way to report a player, in any way shape or form. so if issues 1-3 are barring you, you can not report the player. not on other websites, not on their official website, and not even on twitter because those guys just redirect you to these two guys.
5) after providing video proof of a player botting, about 7 days later i see the same player doing the same thing again.

so all of the above taught me a) it's a true pain in the ass b) this system is atrocious and c) it seems like all that effort was just a waste of my time.

this, has really discouraged me from caring about this game anymore. Maybe i'll check back in another month and see if any improvements have been made, but my experience customer feedback on software and games in general has left me with little desire to help. There are a few execptions, and this game hasn't proven to be one of them yet.

other thoughts:

I also don't like that even when you give it your all, if your unlucky enough to get caught early on the match gives you little to no points.

You can get alot of points and never make it out alive, but that's only if you rescue teammates. Which fine, unless you get caught while trying to save one, or are the first to get busted. In these cases you really don't get reworded for being a good player and staying till the end. infact you get more rewarded for disconnecting and keeping the item you had because the 2-3 thousands points you might get isn't worth the loss of an item.

i just wish, that i had more incentive to stick through a game i didn't have a great run on. as it's not always easy to save a teammate, and if the killer is staying close chances are that unhooking will be your last activity. when it's apparent early on that your done, and you aren't good at losing them...there is no reason to bother sticking around.

update: the perfect example just happened. The entire team died or disconnected within 5 minutes of starting the game due to the fact that i tried to help and got caught helping the other downed survivors. 1 disconnected at the start and the other 3 were wiped out in no time. despite trying to help (couldn't) we all got almost no points.

points make the game fun because you can buy cool things to use later, and points are what makes a death after a long game of saving people and still dying equally fun as a succesful escape. when i die before i can really even do anything i virtually have no reason to play anymore and it spoils any fun to be had on the survivors side. which thanks to micheals invisibility thats better than even the wraiths, is easy to die to early game.

meh.

i'm somewhat null to alot of stories and games these days because of scarring left behind. this makes it difficult for me to let myself feel much, especially when it's pretty obvious that no one is going to live and that ♥♥♥♥ is never gonna go to plan.

that means aside from the twist, it was easy enough to guess that the character was gonna end up in a shi* situation and that bad things would happen to good people you don't wanna see hurt. which closed me up. i didn't find much to be scary enough to make my hairs stand on end, but the could be because as a game character you know you can't die otherwise how would you play?

then theirs the fact that i was expecting some creepy stuff, but none of it wasn't anything i haven't seen before.

mind you, this is my first time playing the game, back on release would i have been more freaked out due to being less exposed to other games like it? possibly...but i didn't play it then. which means i have to judge it on the here and now.

and my judgement is, aside from a few moments where i didn't see a erry monster coming at me from my corner i didn't really ever get scared. again i feel that i was emotionally guarded because i knew anyone i let myself get attached to would just die so that is a factor.

then, lets talk about AI. there were moments were they pressured you, but there were mostly alot of cheap shots. example, i'm in slow mo mode pounding a guy with bullets on the crappy AR and the guy still manages to get a good shot on me occasionally. often enough to make you think about health and cover even if he's the only guy standing.

a)to me this a cheap move or lazy work on the dev's part. it breaks immersion. in a game like this, immersion matters a lot.
b) the enemy, unless standing over your head on a walkway are completely silent. the only time you even know if someone is in the same small room as you is if you walk by them and get shot in the back.
c) so the next point is, the sound of tracking enemies is crap.
d) also their bullet sponges on hard or higher. it's not very bad though, you can still kill them in one clip, but when you get a gun that can literally melt everything but your bones it raises an eyebrow when you shoot a human in the chest and he could doubles over like he got punched in the gut.

3) level desing: you know, one thing i hate is getting turned around when i just wont to move on and shoot things. now sure, it's not entirely a shooter game, but it sure as he** is linier in level design. yet, i still can't make heads or tails and go around in circles because in some places it's alittle bit like a maze. then in another place, i spent 30 minutes in one small area trying to move on only to realize i'm suppose to jump off and over the ledge that looks perfectly like it goes nowhere execpt that it's a next level load point. i'll point out, that you get hurt jumping off of ledges in any other situation in-game so why the f*** would i think to jump off that one?

4) guns: the guns for the most part aren't bad, execpt that near the end of the game they remove your guns and stick you with the starter weapon. which is a good gun, but that's a BS move. FEAR isn't the only game doing this though, but i still wish they didn't. they aren't the best, personally i've played with better "feeling" guns. note: it was the end-game guns that i'm really complaining about. my remote bombs packed more punch than they did.

5) as far as i can tell, there is no level select or new game +, which is always a disappointment.

given the option, i'd rather play TimeShift again than this. the slow mo and puzzle are more brain food than the weak puzzles installed here. before you say there weren't any, there was...built into the maze level desings.

i won't talk about graphics because it's acceptible for the time period, i played at supported resolutions. i do feel the game would have benifitted from a FOV slider though.

In short, this game is worth it if you've never played it before. i recommend you wait for any sale price though, because it has some short comings.

1)this game is very linear, and yet you still get turned around in some levels because everyhting looks the same at maybe 5-6 locations.

2) on top of that, a voice prompt annoying kicks in every 15 seconds on those levels, so by the time you figured out what your suppose to due you've already turned voices off to save your sanity

3) this game is a jack of all trades, master of none.

a) from my memory on the xbox, the aim is hard. on PC, it was fine with some adjustments. the controls are OK, but could have been better. i changed my Shift key to time Slow because in this game the shift key inherently does nothing anyway. this worked for me, but the other controls took some getting used to.
b) the story, while there is one shows you almost nothing about your character. you have little to no interaction with the two other characters in the game, and the only thing to keep you stimulated in this department is the boastful comments from the soldiers about your god-like abilities. i wish the ending scene was more...rewarding.
c) graphics are mediacore, but i can't account for how they were on release day.

in short this game is jsut an FPS power trip. to that end it does it's job...but even to that end, it could have done it better

4) difficulty on the hardest setting: so/so. there were times where you could breeze through, times you had to find good cover and think about your stratagy, and then there are times where the enemy has you surrounded you need to just let the AI stupidly funnel itself down a hallway toward you. also, the boss fights are bullet sponges. the hardest one was the helicopter, and i found those to be the least fun.

5) the game has some fun time puzzles to play, i wish it had more.

so in the end, would i buy it again if i went back in time? (no pun was intended :P) yea i would. just google a weapons guide so that you understand it's not you that sucks (unless your not using cover) it's just the first 3 weapons you get suck.