I didn't know anything about this until last week. The forgettable title went under my radar until I read about the Dead Space connection. Fair to say it has had a mixed reaction.
So it's not Dead Space. The combat may have some connections (the stomp) but it's not as shooting focussed ... instead you do a lot of battling toe to toe. Bobbing and weaving like Super Punch Out. Hold one way for one attack, the other way for the next (never twice in the same direction). It's pretty straight forward to manage this one-to-one but crown control is tougher. Conditions can be cramped, there is no quick 180 turn for your character and you are often attacked by another monster while dealing with one. Successful encounters might need a little luck along with your skillz but there are upgrades along the way that add to your arsenal/tactical approach a bit. Welcome additions as things feel a bit basic initially.
On top of the sometimes demanding combat the game can be unfair to you too. For instance, if you open a chest or locker or cabinet and don't need the item or don't have space for it, you can't go back and get it when you do ... it'll have disappeared. This is disappointing in a survival horror game where every resource counts (especially when you got the game from CeX and missed out on the day 1 dlc).
So it can be a little punishing, but after a couple of hours there hasn't been anything approaching rage-inducing. Quite the opposite. This is one of those games that keeps you wanting to move forward. Just get to the next area. Then the next. But don't to forget to explore alternate paths into storage and laundry areas as they might have precious supplies.
The atmosphere is great too. The space prison feels well lived in and dank, and with headphones on the sound really adds to things too with creatures shuffling around in the ducts and stuff. Oh, and there's the gore. It's proper OTT gore. Heads torn apart. Faces literally punched in. It's graphic stuff. Doesn't hold back. I like that.
It hasn't quite got the feels of a AAA release ... more like a cult classic in the making. With a bit of spit & polish and fine tuning it might achieve a broader appeal but really, it's one that you have to approach on its own terms. It might have me fuming by this time tomorrow, stuck on an impossible boss or scenario or something. But right now I'm fully on board and enjoying myself.
So it's not Dead Space. The combat may have some connections (the stomp) but it's not as shooting focussed ... instead you do a lot of battling toe to toe. Bobbing and weaving like Super Punch Out. Hold one way for one attack, the other way for the next (never twice in the same direction). It's pretty straight forward to manage this one-to-one but crown control is tougher. Conditions can be cramped, there is no quick 180 turn for your character and you are often attacked by another monster while dealing with one. Successful encounters might need a little luck along with your skillz but there are upgrades along the way that add to your arsenal/tactical approach a bit. Welcome additions as things feel a bit basic initially.
On top of the sometimes demanding combat the game can be unfair to you too. For instance, if you open a chest or locker or cabinet and don't need the item or don't have space for it, you can't go back and get it when you do ... it'll have disappeared. This is disappointing in a survival horror game where every resource counts (especially when you got the game from CeX and missed out on the day 1 dlc).
So it can be a little punishing, but after a couple of hours there hasn't been anything approaching rage-inducing. Quite the opposite. This is one of those games that keeps you wanting to move forward. Just get to the next area. Then the next. But don't to forget to explore alternate paths into storage and laundry areas as they might have precious supplies.
The atmosphere is great too. The space prison feels well lived in and dank, and with headphones on the sound really adds to things too with creatures shuffling around in the ducts and stuff. Oh, and there's the gore. It's proper OTT gore. Heads torn apart. Faces literally punched in. It's graphic stuff. Doesn't hold back. I like that.
It hasn't quite got the feels of a AAA release ... more like a cult classic in the making. With a bit of spit & polish and fine tuning it might achieve a broader appeal but really, it's one that you have to approach on its own terms. It might have me fuming by this time tomorrow, stuck on an impossible boss or scenario or something. But right now I'm fully on board and enjoying myself.
It's deffo survival horror territory but never at the level of old school Resident Evil. You can use your guns and stuff ... but it's better if you can use other solutions, especially with the GRP glove + spikey things (suck them in and launch them into the pain). On the subject of the GRP, in many occasions you can launch enemies off the edge or down to a lower level, but by not killing them you have no corpse to plunder for precious ammo/health/credits.
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