Recent reviews by theColeHardTruth

The game is a Mafia-Like game (think Among Us, Deceit, or Trouble in Terrorist Town) except better in a few key ways:
+The combat. In that there is some. The ability to fight back forces killers to plan their kills a bit more carefully. A welcome addition. However, this is only really an upgrade when compared to Among Us, since Deceit, TTT, and some others have combat elements.
+The movement and associated mechanics are well thought-out and effective.

However, these positives pale in comparison to the ways in which this game is hopelessly inferior to other Mafia-likes:
-Needlessly obtuse puzzles with extensive use of RNG and other randomized elements. It is totally possible to trapse up and down the entire level and never find a single weapon for a the entire duration of a match. Likewise, it is possible to get stuck on a computer puzzle for whole minutes because the task keeps randomly failing per RNG, with the only remedy being to try again and hope the dice roll is on your side this time. Also, the puzzles, though explained in tutorials, are so incredibly unintuitive that they are basically impossible to perform correctly without either knowing all of their minutae beforehand or getting incredibly lucky.
-Mechanics that are poorly explained and/or unintuitive. It is never explained why some items are dropped when bringing up the tablet and others aren't. Why must I go back and retrieve the screwdriver when I bring up the tablet to check my objective, but not the fuses? Why do you have to inspect weapons to know how much ammunition they have? Why is the fish one of the strongest weapons, yet the shorty shotgun takes several volleys to dispatch someone? It's simply poor gameplay design, in my opinion.
-Being killed essentially ends the game for a player. This isn't a huge issue were it not for the fact that other Mafia-likes have innovative ways for the deceased to still influence the game, giving the victims reason to continue playing. Here, a character death essentially indicates the appropriate time to alt-tab and do something else for 3-8 minutes.
-Perhaps most damning point is that the killer is demoted to nothing but an obstacle compared to other games of this genre. The fact that they start with no weapons or advantages of any sort over the other employees makes playing as one a chore to begin with, and the fact that there is no recourse when one is found out other than to try and out-FPS them is reductive from a gameplay perspective on quite a few levels. Finally, the fact that killing them doesn't automatically result in a win for the innocent employee team means that not only is finding the killer largely irrelevant to the overall game as a whole, it completely removes the need for the killer to stay hidden. Since they can simply camp and puppy-guard the most difficult task and so long as they get a couple kills victory is essentially assured so long as they know how to play a FPS game.
-There are many technical problems with the game. Crashes, some performance issues, some missing settings (no motion blur setting?) However, I don't count that against the game, since it is still early access.

In summary, this game is just below mediocre. Not horrible, but definitely lacking in ways that aren't explained away by the "Early Access" label. In many ways it is simply boring, and in others it is flawed from a mechanical standpoint. Mafia-like games are interesting since they pit the players' mental fortitude and quick-thinking against the need to be in situations that can be extremely revealing (e.g. killing, venting, or deploying exclusive powers). Lockdown Protocol has no such elements. It is common to get funneled into essentially "Errand Simulator 2024" with the lone wrinkle being that occasionally you are forced to stop playing the game and sit and be dead with the other dead people for 5 minutes out of a 10 minute game. However, there are some redeeming elements that the game has that give me hope for the future. Here's hoping they address some of the game's shortcomings in coming months.

Phenomenal. It's been decades since I've been proper scared by a game, and I forgot how much I love/hate that feeling. Thank you for reminding me, Indigo Park.

The fact that the graphics and characters are all excellent, the story is completely enthralling, it was made by an Indie developer, and was FREE? You have no reason not to give it a shot. Well, except for that it's terribly optimized, pretty unstable, and is very short (~1-1.5 hours). But honestly that's a small price to pay for an otherwise stellar experience!

Phenomenal. Simply phenomenal. The combat is the true shining point, but the graphics, story, characters are all fantastic and worthy of praise. I hadn't played an R&C game since the PS2 days, but man am I glad I spent the money here. Now I wish I could go back and play the old games on PC!

The game is not without fault, of course. The port isn't perfect, I had three crashes throughout my first playthrough and some of the controls weren't brought over perfectly. Also, there were some interface bugs that appeared sometimes (especially when traversing rifts or loading new areas). But even then, the game is surprisingly well optimized and feels excellent on KBAM and controller! Highly recommend!