🔰SHREDVIEW🔰 - From someone who actually plays and finishes the games before reviewing.

🔷 ABOUT THE GAME & LORE 🔷

Ladies & gentlemen, here is the love story outcome nobody would’ve think to even ask for. Do you like Robocop? Well, I’m not that close to the subject either, but what about Warframe? Sure, about a few thousand hours should confirm it. But have you ever wondered what if Robocop f****d Excalibur and had a robot baby? These questionable developers outsmoked Snoop Dogg. Remember the word questionable, we’ll get to that later.

Deadzone: Rogue is a First Person Roguelite game that throws a whole bunch of elements at the wall to see what sticks. Surprisingly, almost everything does except the story and the voice acting. I haven’t seen a more indubitably, rotten garbage, boring and obnoxious voice acting in a videogame within a decade.

Let’s have a look at the story: Ass. I make sure to always summarize an idea very well for my readers, but here, I can’t explain nothing, so, behold the field in which I grow my f***s, thou shall lay thy eyes upon it and thou shall see that it is barren.

🔷 THE GAMEPLAY 🔷

👉 GENERAL:
Alright! Now, this game is not entirely bad. If you take away the abysmal voice acting, you will sure have a fairly good time. Unless… you do the achievements, that is where you get sick of it real quick. Here’s the breakdown:

• So the base, core and tip of the spear is combat which is fairly simple to master. We already know it’s an FPS and that it’s a roguelite. Obviously, the game relies heavily on RNG mechanics which reset with each run, but also includes a modest permanent perk tree which can be filled up to 100% by spending currency attained in runs. Once filled up, the specific currency becomes usable for re-rolling options when choices appear.

• The vanilla campaign is broken into 3 zones, each with a fixed number of missions and then is the Apophis free expansion which adds a 4th zone with additional trash voice acting and a weapon mastery mechanic. There are 5 difficulty tiers that each mission can be played on, ranging from adventure to nightmare and by beating T1 will unlock T2, T2 will unlock T3 and so on, but will do so only for that mission, not the whole zone. Eediyat thing!

• Weapons and gear are core. There are about 16 unique primary weapons, 11 secondaries, 3 melee weapons and a grenade. You start every single run with your default handgun, knife, grenade while primary/armor slots are empty, no matter the difficulty. Weapons & Armor pieces will drop from enemies or can be purchased from an inter sections terminal with credits. All items have 5 rarity stages, each stage allowing 1 extra random stat.

• Another core aspect are blessings. Now it’s important to note that weapons and grenades will drop with implicit elements, each having different standard effects. These blessings are granted upon completing rooms during mission and you can have only 3 major ones, each with 3 sub slots for minor blessings of the same type. You can only have 1 ELE major blessing during a mission, non discardable.

• The last notable aspects are items, their synergies and weapon mastery (I guess). Items are rewarded upon room clearing and each have a single stat, you can hold up to max 20 per run. With zone 3, you will start receiving superior items which can synergize into powerful effects if you have the right combinations of items, superior items and blessings. Typically, you get a selection of 3 and the options can be re-rolled a limited amount of times later on. Weapon mastery mechanic is useless.

• Words cannot describe the voice acting. It’s clearly that whoever wrote the lines done being a Nickelodeon fan. It is just as clear that the main guy as well as his girlfriend don’t know how to talk, I mean, what in the f***k is this jackoff? I’d rather keep the dialogue in text only, this was excruciating to listen to. Whenever they open their mouth feels like a boss level of “try not to cringe”.

• As a last generic entry, let’s get back to the word “questionable”. As a man of honor and of the community, I suggest you look up the reddit threads and general history of the publishers. I found out they have a history of abandoning multiple games, re-using assets, pulling out games to hide bad reviews, locking games to online connection even for SP, lies, excuses and so on.

👉 NAVIGATION SYSTEM:
Linear. There isn’t much to say here, the format is classic by now as in any other game from this genre. Every mission has a fixed number of contained rooms, split by a terminal hub every few rooms. You clear the room, chose from 3 options of whichever rewards and move on to the next. All missions can be replayed from the ship lobby. You die, run ends, all equipment lost and start over.

👉 PHYSICS & MECHANICS:
What saves the game in the big picture is that the main mechanics work perfectly fine. Physics, bullet sponges, hitboxes, weapon weight, reloads, weak-spots, boss fights, they are all fine. There isn’t much content, yes, a lot is quite repetitive but for a casual run, everythint hits the spot.

👉 GRAPHICS & OPTIMIZATION:
Also a great aspect, making it playable and somewhat helps bearing the idiotic cutscenes & dialogues. The game is set in space, it looks beautifully futuristic and flows nice as well. I had stable, solid FPS, no stuttering, no glitches, seems rather well structured visually. Don’t get too enthusiastic.

👉 ACHIEVEMENTS & COLLECTIBLES:
Achievement hunting is my main gig but for this one, I have mixed feelings. To be fair, out of 58 achievements, everything is do-able, but how, that’s a different story. You will get more than 70% by just playing. The grind and torture is the difficulty related ones and activate all synergies at least once.

🔷 CONCLUSION 🔷

I won’t recommend against, although I was nearly there. I can’t tell you that this is something special. What I can tell you again is that this has a curious back-log. Read about the devs and as always, you be the judge of your experience. The game is ok without that try hard, horrible voice acting. These guys better come clean or sod the f**k off, let’s see if Deadzone:Rogue stays alive, I factually have the right to doubt it will.

🔷 PROS & CONS 🔷

✔️ PROS:
- A decent core loop that is enjoyable.
- Great graphics & nice optimization.
- Satisfying items & weapon stats, they feel.
- CO-OP works.

❌ CONS:
- Dogs**t voice acting.
- Dogs**t story & lore.
- Not enough content & depth.
- Time consuming achievements in a game lacking substance.
- Sketchy Developers. Do research.

🔷 SHORT REVIEW & STATS 🔷

• PLAY STYLE:
🔳 PVP
🔳 PVE
✅ ONLINE CO-OP
✅ Online Multiplayer
🔳 SPLIT SCREEN
✅ SINGLE PLAYER

• GRAPHICS:
🔳 FIRE THE ART DIRECTOR
🔳 FAIRLY OLD GAME, WHAT YOU EXPECT?
🔳 NOT GREAT, NOT TERRIBLE
✅ GREAT
🔳 EXCEPTIONAL

• REPLAYABILITY:
🔳 YES
🔳 EVERY NOW AND THEN
🔳 NOT SURE
✅ RARELY / ON MAJOR UPDATE / DLC RELEASE
🔳 NO

• STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS:
✅ YES
🔳 NO (What the f**k man?)

• GAMEPLAY:
🔳 WTF IS THIS S**T
🔳 TERRIBLE
✅ DECENT
🔳 ENGAGING
🔳 HAD A BLAST

• DIFFICULTY:
🔳 DARK SOULS
🔳 BAFFLING
✅ CHALLENGING
✅ MEDIUM
🔳 WALK IN THE PARK

• STORYLINE:
✅ A WHAT? WE WRITE CODE NOT BOOKS
🔳 GOES FINE WITHOUT ONE
🔳 DECENT
🔳 ENGAGING
🔳 SHAKESPEARE AINT GOT S**T ON THIS

❗ NOTE: If you like my work, please check out the rest of my reviews, I put a lot of work in these to offer the best overall description of what you’re up against. Thank you in advance! https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/id/cervusrex/recommended/

❗ NOTE2: This is a review based on personal preferences and opinions. I always suggest you try the games for yourself before letting others decide for you. Even though we're all gamers, we are sure not the same.