Recent reviews by Grumpy

I have no idea what is going on in this game, but it was quite enjoyable.

What is it about ?

It's a retro-styled "simulation" of special forces being dropped behind enemy lines and completing various tasks. The focus is on finding good strategy, combining it with available equipment, and achieving mission objectives. Unlike most first-person shooters, it’s not solely about shooting skills. The gameplay slightly reminds me of Arma, but imo, it’s much better executed. The ballistic mechanics are simple and work well, The weapons feel powerful (unlike in arma). It is very unique experience, and in years i again felt being challenged. It is sandboxy, but not in a way that would let you use some meta strategy that works everywhere, everything is balanced and brings pros and cons.

Missions
You’re dropped behind enemy lines, and your goal is to advance through waypoints according to the mission briefing, neutralizing enemies along the way, and completing multiple objectives in each mission. The idea is excellent, and I can imagine it being even more engaging with around 20 players - this would make total sense. However, playing alone or with just a couple of friends makes completing the entire mission feel more like a sci-fi scenario. On average, you encounter about 50 enemies, so keep that in mind. Other option would be to make the missions shorter in the combat time making it more believeable. Or making the scouting and planning even more important.

Enemies
The most mixed feeling aspect of the game is the AI. Their strategy - using smoke and flanking from the sides to surround you is effective, but there is a lack of variety. I’ve noticed detection inconsistencies. Sometimes I can shoot from 500 meters with a suppressed weapon while lying in a bush, and suddenly, all the enemies begin suppressing me with machine guns as if they know my exact location. On the other hand, there are times when a lost soldier has no idea where I am, even though I’m standing right next to him on the road. Night time detection has problems on its own. Also the vegetation should play a role in AI detection which should't be much expensive to implement based on other titles. (Simple cubing with reduced chance of being spotted ?)

Performance wise, the game struggles. While I understand that there’s a lot of vegetation, and that you likely avoid occlusion culling, it should be introduced at least for the grass. It is very GPU dependent.

While the game obviously isn't perfect, what game is? Compared to the average titles released these days, it is well above average, and I hope the developers continue to improve it.

Rating: 8/10

The game:
It's very unique game. Marketed as extraction shooter, but very different from normal extraction shooters out there. There is quest line that makes you feel like you are working towards higher goal so you don't get bored from just going in and bringing stuff out. Important items are also locked behind quests which makes questing really important. Weapons feel just right and the player controller is immersive. Audio is also excelent, but sometimes it gets broken a little (like gunshots indoor sound like outdoor and reverse) but this happens rarely. Graphic wise it can look really good, but you have to spend time in post processing and graphics tab. Performance wise it is really bad, heavily CPU dependent. Overall if you manage to run the game smoothly, I bet you will get something extraordinary out of it. It doesn't guide you through anything, you have to fight your way and that is intentional. Actually exploring the game is key mechanic that is the most important, even more than being good at shooting.

Things to consider that are outside the game:
The game was designed with realism and immersion in mind, but that restricts the devs from getting money out of battlepasses with skins and other stuff that such games usually profit from. That means they have not many opportunities to get money other way than by just selling the game. How long will the game live, or how long will it take until they add ugly skins or add p2w elements is unknown. But from what they did already in past it is almost certainly happening at some point. Over the years they released multiple different editions and even added option to buy larger stash or even the skins I talked about. But for now it doesn't affect realism or immersion much.

Do NOT listen to most of the negative reviews !
They are written by cry babies who complain about having to buy the game again on steam. When they purchased it, nowhere was written that they will be getting it for free on steam. And they did not have to buy it again, they can play as they used to.

It's fun with friends, but you could also go out with them and it would be fun anyways.

The game is very empty without mods, performance is awful, it runs like if there was a bitcoin miner in background. Its fun for first 10 runs but then its just annoying. No progress over sessions makes it extremely repetitive and annoying as well. Only positive thing is that it pretty much offered a new game genre which was unique at first, but now many better alternatives exist.

The core resembles Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., and Content Warning, but the difference is that the mechanics aren't as generic as in those other games. To be honest, this game does the genre best out of all I've ever tried. The player controller strikes a nice balance between active ragdoll and well-controlled movement. Climbing feels good and is entertaining. With daily changing maps, this game offers pretty good replayability, even though, like other games in this genre, it has a short lifespan with an average playtime of about 10-20 hours. I didn’t encounter any bugs; it was just a great experience. Performance is okay, but for such cheap looking and small game, the optimization is really poor. Despite these minor issues, the game is really good and fun.

The game sells you more the idea than the actual game. Graphic style is awesome, but at cost of performance that mid tier modern setups have hard time running well. Atmosphere is nowhere near i expected. The very arcady controls and vehicle maintenance makes it boring and repetetive. There is no open world, you basically just teleport between semi procedurally generated areas that share the exact same patterns. Anomalies are everywhere and they dont feel like anything, you just drive see some weird thing so you avoid it. To get out of area you basically always need to do the same thing, collect some generator items and then drive in specific spot to teleport back to garage. Looting is not fun, you find the same items everywhere. Its more fighting with inventory space than any fun gameplay mechanic. The way you progress is basically just going from area to garage milion times, there is nothing changing you just need to do this X times while story is being told from radio. I expected good atmospheric game which will be fun to play, but got repetetive game which is boring basically after you discover the game loop which is like in 2 hours of gameplay.

Pros:
- Visuals 10/10 with excelent performance (on dated setup in 2k 80+ fps in any moment)
- Immersive twisted atmosphere which i really enjoyed
- Seamless integration between gameplay and cutscenes
- Semi-open world design with intuitive progression, i never got lost yet didnt feel like being locked from open area exploration
- Excellent replayability through difficulty modes and new weapon unlocks
- Cool universe which reminds me of ds3, but with modern gear

Mixed:
- Classic RE controls feel dated initially but become enjoyable
- Story is straightforward but effectively executed

Cons:
- Relatively short campaign
- Boss fights lack challenge and feel underwhelming
- Limited character progression/upgrade systems
- Could benefit from more exploration

9.5/10 These days, finding a good game is as rare as hitting green in roulette.
- I dont even want to finish most games, they are boring after first hour, but this game is exception. After finishing it i felt like i want more of it.

Nice databreach, im glad i didn't set any meaningful password while registering in this game. Now my email address is forever associated with this game and password "blba_picovina".

Its awesome but there are couple problems. Main problem are the weapons. The weapons are extremely inaccurate even if you crouch and tap. That makes the game very frustrating, especially on higher difficulties. You are not held back by the difficulty itself, or by your skill, but by the inaccuracy. You are basically forced to push enemies up close (because of the inaccuracy) which exposes you and 90% of the time kills you (on higher difficulties) while the easier difficulties are too easy and boring. Overall though its very well made game, its nice mix between call of duty and doom.