Recent reviews by Pritchard

So. Much. Value. For. Money.

It's just... bad. Especially in terms of game balance. Sheesh.

Most of the game is pretty fun. I would absolutely be giving this a positive review, if it weren't for two things: The general bugs - braindead enemy AI that can't pathfind to save its life, lag as soon as combat of any kind starts, etc.

And.

In the second segment of the game, there are two kinds of 'boss' enemies on the top of the three towers you need to climb. Their encounters are all absolutely awful. The least offensive is the Lightning-type boss, whose attacks are so pitifully slow that it's almost amusing. Naturally, he has the most cover in his arena, which is where it's needed the least. I consider this an awful encounter because it's so incredibly easy compared to the others that it emphasises how broken they are.
The other boss, the fire-type, is far, far more frustrating to deal with. You fight that type twice, and both times the arena is wide open, with no opportunity to reliably avoid damage from his nigh-instakill attacks. While you fight the various enemies scattered around his arena, which are generally no walk in the park either (but at least a fair challenge, if it weren't for the lag... Seriously, the CPU and GPU requirements for this game are far below what they should be), you need to dodge his attacks... Which are instant, and impossible to predict.
If you've played the game, you might comment that each attack is highly telegraphed - a red laserbeam tracks your every move around the arena, after all. Unfortunately, because it is constantly tracking you, it's basically useless. A big improvement to the fight mechanics would to simply only start showing the laser for a second before the attack actually begins. As it is, you have to try and track a small red laser through the chaos on screen, notice when it stops moving, then consider what direction you've been moving in and dodge out of the way of the actual attack - which sweeps in a line between where it starts and where you were when it started, dealing an insane amount of damage.

Sadly it's just not possible to recommend this game when it forces you into encounters like this. There is nothing more frustrating than having to climb up the spiral ramp for the dozenth time, knowing full well that you'll probably go down to another cheap shot in just a few moments. I suppose if you don't want to go through the story and would rather just grind mindlessly against the enemies in the areas around the towers, it'd be worth playing - after all, the core combat and gameplay loops are pretty damn fun.

Short (Beat it in 36 minutes) but well worth playing if you want some new Half Life content. Production quality is quite high.

After two years of extra development and patching, you would think this game would have decent performance. Instead, it barely uses more than 50% of my CPU or GPU and runs at 45-50 fps on minimum settings. Who out there can actually run this thing well?

Like Din's Curse, but with more content and more importantly more depth! Din's curse got boring quickly as it was simply a grind saving town after town but in Zombasite there are many more things to do around your town and you become much more involved in ongoing tasks like the relationships between your clan members, as well as the inter-clan diplomacy system which borrows heavily from games like Civilization (which is a good thing!)

The core gameplay loop is still the same good ARPG action, but adventuring with a party of up to 2 NPCs adds even more variety and doing quests for the various clans ties in nicely with the other systems in the game.

A greater level of tactical depth than its compatriots that is presented through an interface that doesn't hold your hand. This is the sort of game you'll only really enjoy if you're already competent in the genre or willing to learn the hard way.

A short but sweet interactive movie - there is very little to do in this game aside from listen to its well-crafted story.

This game is a prime example of how not to make a platformer and brawling game. Every platform you can stand on is railroaded in with invisible walls that stop you from making mistakes and learning how to play the game properly - What's going to teach someone to stop mashing the jump button to try and make an "obvious" jump more? Falling to their death, or their character awkwardly stumbling at the edge as if they COULD jump, but won't?

The combat portion of the game is decent in a one-on-one situation or two-on-one situation - you can block, dodge and attack without having to constantly spam crowd control attacks to avoid being killed. Unfortunately, the game doesn't seem to know its own limits and will often throw you into fights with three enemies - or potentially even more. At that point it becomes a battle just to keep yourself alive and avoid bleeding health left right and centre as you're completely surrounded and forced to constantly knock back enemies rather than perform useful attacks.

Another example of terrible battle design is the first boss of the game, at the end of chapter 2 - he has clearly telegraphed attacks, which is good, but if you dodge too early he swivels on the spot to hit you as you get up again. There is no clear point at which it is safe to dodge - which is absurd! Being aimbotted by the AI while they appear to be locked into an animation feels and looks terrible.

Many of the issues with this game can be overcome if you mould yourself into the kind of gamer it wants - one who looks for the next flashing, shiny metal pole or handhold and who doesn't try to explore or try new things, and one who's willing to put in the effort to learn specific attack timings and perfect attacking and dodging even when vastly outnumbered and battling a camera system that often obscures nearly everything useful from view.

I can't imagine there are many gamers out there who are going to be able to fill both shoes at once, and so I find it difficult to think anyone could enjoy this game in its entirety - many will simply persevere for the story.

I spent 15% of the week after I bought this game playing it. I haven't been this hooked on a game in a long time. This game has one of the best gameplay loops I've seen in a long time, and the way that it drip feeds you content means that just when you're getting bored of the monsters you're fighting right now a new challenge will come along.

I definitely recommend getting the expansion pack, it adds more content and increases the amount of things you can do around town.