Recent reviews by Tazhar

Honest opinion from an honest gamer! Be advised, I've played the game for 10.4 hours!

Okay, so I've never really taken the time to review a game on Steam before, but after reading some of the reviews on here, I feel I need to defend this game somewhat. So to get started, as we all know SCUM is in it's very, VERY early Alpha stages. The developers warn of performance issues, optimization issues, content issue and so forth, and for that reason I can't condone people negatively reviewing the game based on that alone. It's in Alpha - you were warned.

That being said, I have personally only received minor performance hits whilst playing SCUM on my own public rented server, these included a few jolty lag spikes, server crashes and one blue screen. During the release period, the devs updated the game twice - rectifying these issues and thereon out, the lag was a lot less disruptive and the game overall played very nicely considering it's short period of release. FYI I'm running a 1080 with 6850k i7 and 16GB ram. A few friends of mine had PC's less equip, and also experienced similar performance, so the "streamer rig" reviews aren't 100% accurate unless you quite literally are plugging your mouse and keyboard into a large, spotty potato, it's 2018 man, come on!

To move more into the actual depth of the game, considering it's release period the game has a decent amount of content. Loot is mixed, you either search a town and find only the essentials, or you find too much to carry. I ran the airfield twice and ended up with three heavy firearms, two sidearms, a bundle of ammunition, bulletproof vests & helmets, a backpack, military clothing and various utilities. The loot for me, is well balanced.

The survival aspect of the game is excellent. The depth of the character metabolism screen is something I've never seen before and it actually works! I've experienced no bugs with the game's core features whilst playing and nothing has happened that has made me regret playing in Alpha stages (yet).

As an ex-DayZ SA player (for obvious reasons) this game has really scratched the survival itch for me. The zombies are exactly what we would expect and move / behave well. The robots at the airfield really aren't that hard currently as I managed to avoid them several times at the airfield and a few secure locations around the map - they require some stealth however.

I won't divulge too much as I haven't got a lot of time. But as an overall point, if you don't mind a few 'Alpha Hiccups' then this game is already fantastic. It's an excellent survival game with great PvE / PvP aspects and I'm not regretting my purchase one bit! For previous DayZ players, THIS GAME IS FOR YOU! And for everyone else, I'm sure you'll love it.

Let's just hope the developers progress the game in the Alpha stages, unlike another development company we're all aware of..

**UPDATE**

There's already been regular updates / patches and the game is consistently running a lot smoother. I'm really, really enjoying this - the game mode events are a fantastic addition. I really have high hopes for the future of SCUM.