Recent reviews by tN|Steve-nC-

Fun little game. A bit challenging, but very enjoyable. Shame it is only 2 hrs.

Good story, good graphics, great voice acting, great game play, and a great game world.

I am quite impressed with how smooth transitions are between grappling, falling, parachuting, and flying. The devs did a great job making it flow with simple controls.

It's a perfectly fun sand box that anyone interested in the genre will enjoy playing.

Beautiful and fun platformer. Quite challenging and it may end up frustrating some people.

I needed to hit up the wiki to figure some things out because the in-game tutorial is sadly lacking clarity. The pressure to fight off the horde every hour is stressful, but enjoyable. It gives you something else to think about other than exploring and building. Your dwarves respawn in the event they die, so there does not seem to be much in the way of death punishment. You even get your structures back when the horde breaks through walls, so there is not a lot of negative reinforcement to get aggrivated by.

It's a charming mix of terraria and minecraft that you can casually play at your own pace. I'd definitely recommend it to a friend.

Early fighting is atrocious. It takes several weapons to fight back a small group, so you can’t really fight at all. It is a game of running away, which is fine, except it is pretty easy to simply run away. There is no actual challenge in scaling buildings that zombies cannot climb. The challenge is supposed to be in combat, and when you start you can’t kill anything with the abysmal weapon damage and durability. To say nothing of the cost of stamina to actually fight.

If you want to fight, you kick everything because it takes zero stamina. Meanwhile, you can only swing a melee weapon a few times before getting tired. L4D2 learned this lesson a decade ago. You cannot have endless shoves. It ruins the game play. As you get skills dealing with the zombies is even easier. You can stealth kill, stun and kill, and counter kill. Or, you can just kick them all to the ground and stomp on their heads to finish them. All of which leads to not using melee weapons; something you would think a player would be highly inclined to experiment with and enjoy using.

A handful of hours into the game you get your hands on the firearms, which makes melee even more irrelevant and descends the difficulty down to a dreary efficiency. Now, instead of running away using your parkour skills, you climb to high ground and mow down the horde. Again, there’s no challenge. Even the toughest zombie in the game can be whittled down from the safety of high ground. And those few zombies that can climb? You just kick them off the building. Satisfying, very satisfying, but simple.

To make matters even worse, the in game economy is an absolute joke. It costs thousands to tens of thousands for melee weapons, and a trifle $250 for ammunition. What are you going to spend your money on? There is no scarcity for ammo, so there is no disincentive to not use your guns at every opportunity. You end up with excessive money throughout the game since quests throw it at you, so being fully stocked is never an issue.

Ultimately, the combat in this game isn’t what it should be. The most fun to be had is in navigating the open game world. Alas, you will quickly find yourself dying when you shouldn’t. Like because a grab doesn’t catch, the grapple breaks mid fire, or the roof you thought you could grapple to you actually cannot. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the punishment for death was not so high. Every time you die you lose progress to your next survivor level, and as you level up you lose even more on each death. It is a cumulative punishment, and when you die because of game mechanics and not your own mistakes, it is increasingly frustrating.

Sadly, the story is anemic and boring, and the antagonist is a shallow nihilist. It doesn’t excite you to pursue resolution of the main quests so much as push you to finish quests through urgency and dire necessity. The result of which is poor pacing. You don’t have room to breathe or explore the way the story is laid out. It is a nonstop fire drill. The voice acting is good and the characters are decently developed, but it is uninteresting. The need to help the bitten that suddenly stops being a priority is a disappointing outcome. There could have been a lot of fun in elements around trading, finding medicine, and keeping your allies healthy. It is disappointing that there is so much unfulfilled potential with this game.

For a game with such positive reviews, I expected a great experience. I did not get that. I got an average one. If you really want to play a zombie game because you like the genre, this mediocre game will be fun to play through. There is enough to like about the gameplay that you won’t regret buying it. However, if you’re looking for a great game to play with your limited free time, this isn’t it.

One of the funnest open world zombie games I've played. The story is adequate, but predictable just like in all these type of end of the world games. Some of the combat aspects are annoying, but it is generally pretty enjoyable. It is fun on all the difficulty levels, and plenty challenging if you want it to be. Upgrading and switching safe houses is a great mechanic, as is dealing with your household. It has a ton of replayability, and I cannot wait for the sequel.

A

Solid game. Lovely game world to explore, but there are repetitive tasks. It's still fun to explore and roam through the secondary tasks. Good main story and enjoyable combat, albeit with some control flaws. The side quests add some variety, but not true depth. A good length, but lacks replayability.

B

Fun game. Good game world. It is basically the same world as Risen 2. The story is pretty decent, the combat is fine, and the quests aren't repetitive. Considering RPGs, the quests are pretty unique and never felt stale. It took me 30 hours to play through doing almost all of the side quests, so it is a nice size.

There would be decent replay value if you wanted to try a mage, a swordsman, or a rifleman. The different factions offer replay value too. I don't think the game world is compelling enough to warrant a second go at the story, but I can see some reasons one might.

I'd recommend it mainly because I heard a lot of negativity surrounding it, and I found it to be solid. It's not a great game, but it is a good game. Well worth your money if you have played others in the series.

Inferior to Bastion in every regard. It's worth checking out, but is not up to the standard of the previous game.

It is fun enough. Difficult because of bad controls and input lag from long movement sequences. It reminds me of an NES game that was limited by design, which made the game harder than it should be. For instance, when you roll, you freeze at the end of the move for no reason. The jumping mechanique is awkward as well.

Still, it's worth checking out for the right price. However, it is a frustrating platformer due to the bad controls.