Recent reviews by Bowels of Holly

Plagued by disconnect bugs combined with leaver penalties. sucks

great for some spooky times

spppopopoppy mummerino game, grate for the whole crew who enjoy gettin spooked, traps, puzzles, and treasures

It's a good start for the game. Similar to the way the first Forest began, it still feels like there is a lot of room for the developers to add items, locations, and story to the game. It has a good foundation with the AI system the enemies use, base building, and survival mechanics. The game is a lot easier if you coordinate playing in a group and a lot more challenging in smaller numbers. The world is more detailed and there's more to explore. Overall, I've enjoyed everything so far and look forward to what's to come.

a great successor to the original. maintains the fast pace of the first and expands on it with new ideas.

Interesting take on a small scale battle royale setting with mixed PvE elements. This game is a lot of fun but comes with a very different playstyle. The initial learning curve can be high but if you want to fasttrack your experience there are some nice community-made youtubes geared towards beginners that are really helpful. https://youtu.be/UxQ4U13e3XQ - for example. It can be long but worth it before you jump in. The game offers a great depth of detail in the environment and how you engage enemies, whether those be AI or players.

Sound is hugely important in the game and managing the amount of sound you generate either through environmental factors or direct action (firing your gun) can give you away. Your survival and success can be greatly influenced by how carefully or recklessly you navigate the map. Over time you'll eventually start to recognize what types of guns other players are fighting with on the approach to a firefight with each one being distinct. This can lead into some more advanced decision making as the weapons you're carrying can be advantageous at certain ranges and a liability at others. Recognizing the weaknesses of enemy weapons and playing to your own strengths can be highly advantageous. That said, positioning is an important factor too.

The gunplay comes at a much different pace than most shooters. This game offers old western types of guns, so the rate of fire is generally slower. Managing your ammo is important and each weapon takes time to reload. Your actions have weight and take time to perform so making the right decisions at the right time will have a big impact on your chances of survival. How you manage your ammo and when to reload are a large part of that.

In Hunt, it's very easy to die and some parts of the game can seem slower, but when you get into the action portions they're intense. Coming out victorious is highly rewarding, but sometimes you can go through a series of deaths one after the other. In one sense, it is great though, because all hunters can be eliminated so quickly by any level of gear. Even if you are outnumbered 3 - 1, with some smart tactics and good positioning you can turn the tides.

The matchmaking seems to be good for the most part. If you're playing with randoms, you should be able to find a team within just a couple minutes. As a new player, I did get passed up by more seasoned hunters in the beginning, which is understandable. I just re-queued and was able to find a new team quickly enough. That said, there's also a community discord where you can find people who are willing to queue with new players more directly.

For the most part, the community is smaller-knit and friendly. There are some butts out there in the Bayou that will trash talk you after they kill you, but they're not really that common. The streamers are great and I've met a lot of great random players where we've had some good laughs, even if we ended up on the losing end.

Overall, despite the high learning curve and ease of death, the victories make it all worthwhile. They carry with them a really rewarding sense of accomplishment. I'd recommend at least checking the game out, but the gameplay may not be for everyone. There's a very distinct feel to the game that I find refreshing. I will say that playing feels much different than watching a stream of gameplay though, so bear that in mind if trying to get a sense of what the gameplay is like through streams.

no dlc, but the music is awesome and you get some new skins. i like the base game a lot already so was happy to support the devs further.

Awesome, fast-paced gameplay that builds on and improves over the original. The combat system is intense and there are many combinations of weapons / playstyles to choose from. Lots of new enemies to chew through as well.

This is a really fun co-op game with a group, or if you want to solo the AI has been improved over the first VT and is more helpful. They'll pickup bombs and potions and hand them to you - provided you ping them on discovery. You can now also command bots to pickup tomes / grims as well, so you can full tome a map even without a full team of players.

Mods are a plus and give some nice quality of life improvements. Make sure to check out the ones that have been sanctioned because these can be used on official servers and some are really nice to have.

There can be some connectivity issues with joining others, but it doesn't seem as prevalant for my connection. It's also possible for a host to leave mid-match and you get d/ced. You'll still get your experience for the distance you've made it through the map, but yeah, that's it. While that is a drawback, there are also times when you can join a game mid-match and be right near the end of a full tome run - you basically get full rewards for very little time or effort invested on your end. So, that can help balance out the bad connectivity issues or hosts leaving. Hosts leaving mid-match is kind of rare from my experiences, most people don't just bail and are interested in getting through the level any way they can.

In fact, most of the community is rather polite / kind. If you don't know the locations of some secrets and ask, most will be glad to show you. They'll even carry you through the level if you try to queue for a harder mode and are having a tough time adjusting, just don't be surprised if the lobby disperses at the end.

In addition to this, I believe dedicated servers are planned for the future. From what I've been able to tell, they've been a goal for a while - they just haven't made it into the game yet.

I did have some issues with hosting where nobody would join, but it turns out that I just needed to forward some ports on my router and lobbies filled quickly afterwards.

Overall, this is a great game for a good price - even more so if you buy during a sale

very polished for early access. ridiculously intense, mouse gripping gore fest. awesome

SUPERFASTNONSTOPACTIONPACKEDHOLYSHIT