Recent reviews by concat

Although this is in early access, you can see many hints of a game which will blossom into something truly fun and engaging.

The graphics are quite good. A lot of care was taken in ensuring everything was consistent and balanced. Things which you need to interact with are clearly marked in the world, and different goals are well-communicated to you, the player.

There's some small details which I wish were different or more polished, but given this is an Early Access title, we just have to wait and see where things go with this otherwise good game.

I recommend it.

I think we can all agree that this had a VERY rough launch. Between the unbelievable oversights made on the Store page (where it mentioned Denuvo as a requirement + linking to the EA App, neither of which are present in this release), plus the unfortunate plethora of bugs which this shipped with, both big and small, EA was in for a tidal wave of negative reviews.

It's understandable, to an extent. It was advertised as being compatible with Windows 10 and 11 (though it works perfectly in Windows 8!), and "just working" without the requirement to install some patches, most notably Graphics Rules Maker (so the game adds your graphics card to the game's GPU database)

The reality of the situation is bringing 20+ year-old games to the modern era isn't an easy task. A lot of advancements have been made in every aspect of computing, and as time went by, the game (and by extension, the game engine) was built on a now very old codebase. Old rendering API, old compiler and toolchain, and likely a specific setup / environment to build it all from a clean slate.

Under no circumstance did this have the ability to be perfect. This game is ancient now, and the massive amount of hardware combinations out there makes it near-impossible to just guarantee it'll all "just work" out of the box.

They've already patched nearly all of the problems. Performance is way better than the original release, Sims' voice clips are extremely high quality compared to the original (the Mac version is like this too - I think there was a bug or something in the original release which both Aspyr and EA managed to fix, which Maxis never noticed).

I look forward to future patches!


UPDATE: March 9th, 2025 - It seems like the game is near-perfect at this point. The game works without Graphics Rules Maker at this point. It's wonderful what they've finally done with this release.

Those complaining about the free versions being taken offline via DMCA requests don't seem to understand that "abandonware" doesn't even exist. It's just a stupid concept made up by the internet to try and justify piracy. If it's not being sold anymore, I don't see an issue in it personally, but the court of public opinion doesn't prevail over laws and such...

They're putting in the work to make this the definitive version. Give them a chance.

I greatly prefer L4D1 over 2, for many reasons, but at the same time it's beyond frustrating sometimes. The survivor bots are beyond awful here. Their response times are tuned in such a backwards fashion they're utterly useless in most cases. They'll just stand there and let you be dealt a large amount of damage before doing anything (if they do...)

Otherwise? The levels load lightning-fast compared to 2, there's a nice amount of content (not over-saturated with crappy melee weapons and other weapons which don't thematically fit the game at all), and there's a wealth of custom content out there on sites like gamemaps.

It's a shame this game wasn't updated much at all after release beyond general maintenance and that worthless campaign. It deserved a lot better.

Some may call me crazy for actually recommending this game, but... It's not QUITE as bad as others are saying.

Is it a masterpiece? No, not at all: However, it has fairly addictive gameplay which will keep you engaged and attentive to your surroundings once you get in the groove.

Here's a breakdown of everything you need to know about the game, to help you decide:


Graphics:


The visuals in this game aren't great. A part of this stems from it being a port of the Wii game "Deer Drive Legends" (made by the same studio, of course - a 3DS version also exists). The different title was due to licensing issues on their end, not being able to secure it for the PC version due to numerous similarly-titled games already existing.

If you're adventurous, you can make the game look MUCH more presentable if you use Reshade to adjust the overall contrast, saturation and brightness. That alone does wonders for the game's visuals.

The GUI is pretty basic, if not uninspired and clunky in some spots. The smaller details just aren't there, like some text not being perfectly centered on the buttons.

The environments are pretty nice to look at and the animations on the animals are nicely-done. The Savana, however, looks awful. There's some issues going on with the alpha channels. It's an eyesore and a total distraction, which is unfortunate since so many new animals are introduced in that area!


Texture resolutions are low, but keep in mind that these animals aren't going to be in your face most of the time, so there's no reason to use anything higher than 512x512.

This being a port of the Wii version is apparent. No PC-specific enhancements were made, even though the game's engine (Blue Roses) is more than capable of doing better rendering. It's a rush-job, and it shows.

All in all, they dropped the ball on the graphics. The art itself is actually very good, and it shows the team at Raylight Games S.r.l.s. are talented in this regard: The issue is they didn't bother to do ANY graphical upgrades for this version, like add normal maps to the animals (which is possible - I've done it), add a bit of post-processing, such as bloom (which the engine supports) and color correction to make it less washed-out and bland, and of course have custom resolution support and even a windowed mode.

2/5 for this aspect. Sorry!


Technical issues:


Some earlier reviews mention the non-functional store being a thing (and being the only way to get extra lives in-game) - I'm happy to say the game was updated in April of 2023 and the store feature was completely removed.

They unfortunately didn't go the full mile and make it possible to gain additional lives whilst updating the game, so the issue of starting over from the beginning if you die once is still there.

A workaround happens to exist for this, though! If you ALT-TAB out of the game whenever you finish a stage successfully and then navigate to your Documents / Raylight folder. Copy the SAV file (since if you die, the game will reset your save file). This way if you die, just delete the original save and restore the copy. This allows you to keep playing from where you left off if you die.

It's a silly thing to have to do, it really is, and I hope some day this game is updated again, with some of these points addressed.

Performance-wise, I have to say, the game runs well. It's definitely well-optimized, so kudos to them for that. This is the same studio which made some very impressive GBA games and tech demos for that system, so they know a thing or two about making fast code and graphics renderers!

It's unfortunate the game is capped to run at 30 frames a second, with no option to change it. I'm guessing the game's timers are all designed to expect this many frames a second, and to make the game more accessible for players with lower-end hardware + it being a port of the Wii game, they decided to not change this.

I think the multiplayer option still works, but I haven't tested it, so I can't say much about that feature.

3/5 for this. It has some glaring flaws, but nothing which a patch or two can't fix.


Gameplay:


As mentioned above, the gameplay is generally quite satisfying. It's a fairly mindless, arcade-like experience which is designed to be rewarding if you learn the intricacies of what to (and what not to) do.

Depending on how well you perform (it seems to be tied to both the amount of points you score AND overall accuracy, among a few other parameters, such as the amount of headshots you managed to do), it will present a screen where you are allowed to upgrade certain aspects, such as health / resilience to attacks, accuracy, reload speed, and even your heart-rate.

The AI on the animals is a bit more nuanced than just them running from point A to point B. Some animals, such as the Moose, are more elusive in their movement patterns and sometimes try to predict when you're trying to shoot them, and in that case they change directions, adding a layer of challenge.

Now... That's the positives. There's only a couple of negative things about the gameplay which I can personally think of, but still worth noting.

The first negative thing is... Later in the game, you'll fight a T-Rex (yes, really - it's a bit jarring, but whatever). This is all fine and dandy until you realize how badly the camera-shaking feature was implemented! Basically, when he roars, the camera does an earthquake-like shaking motion. It doesn't just shake up and down, though. It actually rotates the camera to the right (or left) by a decent amount. This really makes it difficult to shoot him because right after that happens, there's a chance that they'll want you to shoot his head.

If you didn't upgrade your accuracy at any point prior to this part, then God bless your soul, because it's not going to be fun; doubly so if you don't back up your save and happen to die!

The second problem is the lack of instructions given to the player. Here's an example: In the first area, there's a mission where you need to tag 5 dire wolves (the slightly red-tinted wolves). The problem is if you didn't check the game's controls before you started playing (and didn't realize the blue bullets on the second weapon are "tagging bullets"), you'll end up failing that part. It doesn't help that the wolves themselves are very similarly-colored to the standard wolves. Very subtle difference. A bit of contrast adjustment would make them stand out more from the standard ones.

4/5 for this aspect of the game. There's a couple of small dents in the armor, but nothing deal-breaking.


Sound:


The sound in this game, simply put, is primitive.

The music isn't going to win any rewards, but it's still nicely composed. It has all the National Geographic / outback music vibes.

The sound effects are a mixed bag. The environment / ambient sounds are spot-on, I can say that much. They're well-chosen and mesh well with the visuals. Weapon sounds are the same deal.

However, where the sound effects take a nosedive is with the animal sounds - almost every animal uses the same death sound, just with a speed variation applied.

3/5 for this aspect. There's nothing thrilling about the sounds, but it's not the absolute worst, either.

In total, I'll give this game 3.5 stars out of 5. It isn't a 3 because there's some bits where it absolutely shines and tells me there's so much potential to be had (hence the .5 extra stars), but on the other side of the coin I can't give it a 4 because it NEEDS some extra TLC, because in it's current state, it's just... Passable.

Hopefully this helps you decide whether or not to give this game a chance. It isn't deserving of the mostly negative ratings, but it's also not the greatest game out there either.

Good engine