3 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 0.7 hrs on record
Posted: 26 Feb, 2018 @ 4:50pm
Product refunded

Early Access Review
Way too early access. There's early access, which should really mean "we need to work out a few minor kinks, and do some tuning" and then there's realeasing an alpha product that people in the studio should know is not meant for consumption just yet.

Pros:
-The environment looks great, the sounds, the effects, the design and lighting of a swampy region feels immersive. i could almost smell the hillbilly BO coming from my pits as i trapsed through a hazey world of volumetric lighting, and dark disgusting looking houses.
-related to the environemt, the mechanic of so many things making noises that will attract mobs is really good. stumble into some meat hooks dangling from a rafter and the clang will draw attention. It looks natural in some places, but then unnatural when you see a living room scene with 6 perfectly place hanging hooks with no discernable purpose other than to be a crappy door alarm.
-The weapons LOOK good.
-There is a chance of this game getting much better because there's plenty of upwards room for improvement.
-provided the detection doesn't bug out (which it will occasionally), popping a zombie in the head with a rifle shot is a satisfying feel.

Cons:
-This is sort of a big one which i don't see changing for a long time. The core mechanic of this game seems to be *walk around a very large map quite aimlessly, looking for a bounty, until you find a clue. then we'll narrow it down a bit. do that twice more. there's other players on this map. will you encounter them? maybe, who knows really. good job, here's some money, it gets you some more guns and a lot of this stuff looks the same.*
-for a game with the level of graphical polish as this has, i wouldn't expect the melee combat to be so MASSIVELY buggy. I can't even tell what's happening on the back end to make so many misses with large melee weapons going through a zombie body causing no damage. Everything melee feels massively clunky, and more of a crap shoot than shooting by far.
-your character has bandages, this only stops bleeding, doesn't heal. you can equip the bandages, but for NO reason. it's hotkeyed to H if you're bleeding. equipping bandages is just going melee with your fists.
-WAY too large of a map for far too few players. I feel like someone plopped me into the state of louisiana with 5 other people and our job is to kill a guy who's "in a house" somewhere in the state. and to kill eachother.
-I get the feeling there was a marketing guy recording trailer footage and he was like "ok group up, make some noise, be excited. yell 'ThERE's THAT MOB THAT YOU SEE EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME! OH MY GOD!". i feel duped. it's not very exciting.
-There's loot to be bought, but man is it not exciting. a bunch of rifles that look almost identical, some abilities that i don't know why i need. "bandage faster" - why? i bled once in a game and it wasn't bad.
-I got poisoned. what did it do? i dunno. it turned my health bar green.
-I'd say if you want to market this as a full fledged game, create a story, write a decent single-player or co-op hunting campaign and add the multiplayer to something that gives me a sense of purpose. who am i? what happened to these people? why are some more important than others to kill? who's dog was that? why am i relegated to 15 variants of pappys old rifle?

I'm certainly willing to try this upon an actual release, maybe on a free weekend, so i can see where it goes, but it's a definite no buy for me right now.
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1 Comments
26 Feb, 2018 @ 6:16pm 
That's not what early access means though.