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What's a month long listicle without a few surprises and deep cuts? Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is a little unassuming. At first glance it's a dating sim/visual novel with anime style. But what lies beneath is a whole lot of horror. And not just jump scares (though there are definitely some moments) We mean existential dread, actually triggering, really, really scary stuff. It's memorable because the dread sticks with you. This game brings the kind of horror that really gets in your head and makes you need to step away from the entire thing for a while. I do recommend it, but with a few caveats, including a CW for suicide, self harm and violence in general. Go into it knowing this is more real life horror and less monsters in the closet and you'll do fine - just give yourself an out if you need to take a mental break. It’s fair to say I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I was offered Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! for review. Despite its popularity when it released back in 2017, I hadn’t really heard a thing about it. I saw part of a trailer during a games presentation earlier this year, and therefore knew that it had some “horror” elements but I expected…I’m not sure. Suffice it to say whatever I expected, it wasn’t Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!. And maybe, just maybe, I’m lucky to have not known, since I get to experience the expanded version with all its new unlockables, side stories and extras packed right in. I love a good narrative, and I enjoy visual novels, so I jumped on in, and well after the end credits rolled, I’m still thinking about it. For better or worse. Different people have all different feelings on trigger warnings, and some folks may even respect them but not tend to take them seriously for themselves. I want to vehemently advise against blowing off the game’s content warnings and to consider carefully, if going forward, enabling the setting in the game that warns you if you are about to see something that won’t sit well. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, as most had figured out long before I did, is not at all for children, despite its sort of kawaii, let’s go on dates and giggle surface. It’s not “Boo!” scary either. It is turn the lights on, hug a pet, check in with yourself psychological horror. And I would not recommend it if you are not feeling okay–even if you’re highly anticipating this expanded release. It’s not about jump scares and it’s not even about scary images. Instead, it gets under your skin. When Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! says it’s disturbing, don’t take it as a challenge. In Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, you’ll play as yourself–or a version of yourself. You sort of enter the story with a predetermined background and personality–which is something I don’t typically like. You’re shoehorned into the world, a slightly curmudgeonly but goodnatured guy who, like many teen boys, is a little bit girl crazy. Not particularly weird, right? Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! starts off in true visual novel fashion, with gameplay consisting of advancing walls of text, making some dialog decisions and writing poems. It is a literature club after all, and…is that what literature clubs do? I don’t know, but for the purposes of this review, let’s say it is. The poems are very important to the gameplay, and where some strategy comes in. You’re there to spend time with a bunch of beautiful girls after all, and you’re going to have to decide who to flirt with. The “poem” you write is actually a mini game in which you select different words to try to appeal to the different personalities of the girls you’re interested in. There’s Yuri, a shy, secretive type who’s eloquent and intellectual, Natsuki, the sort of super cute but tough type, Sayori, your best friend as long as you can remember who dragged you into this ordeal, and Monika, the extremely popular, athletic, beautiful–well, you can probably fill in the rest. Most of the action takes place inside the school where you’re attending literature club, with a few other outside scenes, and most of the action takes place in conversations, in a cheery background with upbeat music accompanying it. Though much of what happens happens in text, Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! does a great job with visual and auditory cues and compliments. When tensions rise, the music changes. When you say something a little awkward or weird, you’ll get actual raised eyebrows. When you’re flirting…well, it’s gonna get steamy, potentially. Honestly, the sort of romantic visual novel thing never really appealed to me, oftentimes because it made me uncomfortable. I knew I was supposed to be flirting and trying to attract someone but it didn’t feel good or right. Surprisingly, though your character says and does some questionable things, there’s a lot of surprisingly good insights they make, and just in general, at least at first, it seems that there’s a lot more to everyone than meets the eye, and that though these four are different people, they really aim to understand and accept each other. At first. Another thing that Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is so good at is nuance. Each little element is there for a reason. This is the beginning of the genius, I think, of the game. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is fantastically, deliciously, insidiously subtle. Things shift, but not seismically. People say things that seem a little weird, something in the background is odd, or there’s a quick flash of something just at the edges. Characters sometimes break the fourth wall, and sometimes speak in what seem like nonsequiturs–but not so much that the game becomes absurd or over the top. Pacing is fantastic, and you won’t be able to dwell on minutiae for long. There are lots of decisions to be made, after all, and second-guessed, since it’s never 100 percent clear if you’re doing the right thing or not. That’s the case in almost every narrative game I’ve played recently, but it’s glaring here. No matter what you think you’re doing right, the next moment will have you questioning it all. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is, put most simply, a mindfuck. It has you on your toes, it lulls you into a false sense of safety, it tears you out of that, then it completely changes again. I don’t want to spoil the story at all, so all I can say is, you won’t see it coming. No matter what. Time and time again Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! subverts expectations. To me, that’s one of the signs of great art, and something that’s hard earned. No matter what the genre–comedy, romance, horror, etc…we all feel like we’ve seen it all. Not only have we seen it all, but we’ve seen it all flipped on its head, and we’ve seen those big twists coming a mile away, too. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is one of the very few games, movies, books…that really, really keeps you guessing. No matter what I thought would happen next, no matter how much i thought I’d outsmarted the narrative, it kept surprising me. And scaring me. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is some of the best horror I’ve encountered in film, literature or games period. I was unsettled almost immediately, but before long, turning the lights on and mocking myself for doing it. It’s slow burn horror, too, not achieved with cheap jump scares or gore, and not at all predictable in its timing. It’s more a feeling that something’s wrong, or that underlying feeling of being ill-at-ease than it is a hiding under your desk feeling, and it keeps you staring into the face of it because you can’t look away. It’s a horror that creeps, and gets inside you, and makes you wonder why you won’t just put the game down and walk away sometimes. Surprisingly, though too, it can be affirming, and almost therapeutic. There were some times that Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! legitimately horrified me, and at least one or two times where it also made me shed some tears out of a legitimate feeling of release. I’m not sure I even wanted to like Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, but I ended up loving it, despite having realized after finishing it up for this review it may not have been the best time for me to play it. Even so, I persisted, and found myself trolling the game for unlockables and different endings well beyond what I had to for the review. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! has the subtle hand of a master chef in Dan Salvato. It messes with everything, but not at random and not maliciously. It doesn’t come in mocking the genre, nor does it become masturbatory to it. It’s intentional and careful not to be insensitive at the same time. It gets into your head, in a way that’s interesting and unsettling, and leaves you wanting more. And though I still stress paying heed to the warnings, I also heartily recommend this to anyone looking for something interesting, unsettling and different. Whether you’re a fan of it from back in 2017 or not, you’ll find lots to love in this iteration. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! features extra cutscenes, a 13 track soundtrack, a ton of unlockable images and even some behind the scenes things that can provide even more insight into the game’s creation, and makes this release well worth the price of admission. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! releases today on PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4|5 and Xbox Series S|X. This review was originally published on June 30, 2021 at this location.

Sons of the Forest is still in Early Access, but it’s shaping up to be an exciting game. I refused to let myself play much more than the first hour or so in, to save myself from spoilers. However, I’m itching for a new open world survival game with a compelling narrative, and Sons of the Forest looks really appealing about now. Despite its jankiness, I have some fond memories of The Forest. My summer of 2018 was filled with laughter and cries for “more bones for the bone basket” as my friends and I fought off legions of cannibalistic mutants. Those were heady days—literally filled with so many severed heads. Sons of the Forest seems to be more of the same, full of familiar terrors, but with a surprising amount of polish for an Early Access title. Sons of the Forest is a first person open world survival game with horror elements developed by indie studio Endnight. You play as an agent sent to find a billionaire on a remote island full of cannibalistic tribes and mutant terrors. Things go wrong right from the onset as your helicopter crashes, leaving only yourself and Kelvin to survive—unless you’re accompanied by friends in multiplayer. Kelvin represents one of the new changes in Sons of the Forest—companions that can help you gather materials and build structures. They won’t help you fight however. While Sons of the Forest is an open world game that tracks stats like hunger, thirst, etc, it's also a game with an underlying story. As you look for the missing billionaire and his family, you'll run into roadblocks, and you'll need to search for items to overcome them. To do that, you'll need to get into the bowels of the island -- into its deep dark caves, where all the most horrible creatures dwell, and where the island keeps its most compelling mysteries. Since you’re not looking for your son this time around, as you were in The Forest, you might not feel as guilty frolicking around with Virginia, or taking your time building the biggest and coolest base you and your friends can manage. Base building works similarly to how it did in The Forest, with a guidebook acting as a building catalog of sorts. You choose what you want to build, place an outline of the structure, and you and your companions can bring materials to complete it. Combat in Sons of the Forest is probably its weakest feature right now. While there are a whole bunch of horrific creatures to fight, using melee weapons feels weightless. Enemy AI can be interesting, however, with some enemies advancing to harass you with rocks while others sneak up behind. It would be great if there were hotkeys you can assign to weapons, but right now we’re stuck with its cool, but unwieldy inventory system. Sons of the Forest has released into Early Access, which will last from six to eight months—an optimistic estimate, since its predecessor took around four years to finish development. However, Sons of the Forest is at a high level of polish already. According to its Early Access info box on its Steam Store page, developer Endnight plan on adding more to do, discover, and build while keeping community feedback in mind. With over 2 million copies already sold, Sons of the Forest hardly needs my recommendation. I’m just excited to see how it looks when it finishes its development. I do hope that Endnight tweaks the combat system a bit, however. While it isn’t perfect, Sons of the Forest is definitely fun solo, or with up to seven friends. This review was originally published on February 27, 2023 at this location.

This game has been beset by problems since release. Mired by bad reviews, most gamers just wrote it off as a generic zombie game. While Days Gone certainly looked generic on its cover, it ended up being a pretty good game that was just as much about people as it was about surviving against zombies. It really does take a few hours before it becomes fun, though–and that’s a front load of commitment that not a lot of people want to endure. However, if you do, you’re treated to a zombie game with an excited horde mechanic and a story that managed to be compelling. Bummer we won’t get a sequel. Very minor story spoilers follow: When I first saw the announcement for Days Gone at last year’s E3, I immediately thought, “why do we need this game?” I mean, it’s an open world zombie game—and that’s been done to death—and it didn’t even look particularly original. But after spending a lot of time with Days Gone, I started to realize that I was enjoying myself. My first impressions weren’t great, but by the end, and despite its occasional misstep and glitch, I was trying to experience everything I could in Days Gone—and I realized it’s a pretty damn good open world zombie game, even despite my initial reservations. Days Gone is an open world, third person zombie game that takes its inspiration from almost every open world game, zombie game, and every other game I can think of. There are even slight survival elements—though you don’t have to eat or drink. Even your relationship with your motorcycle and reliance on it, while unique, turns Days Gone into a sort of zombified Red Dead Redemption 2. The biggest thing I have to be up front about with Days Gone is the time commitment involved to get to the “good stuff.” I played for about 10-20 hours before I really got into Days Gone. I initially hated everything about it: the characters, the motorcycle controls, the generic zombie “freakers,” etc. I think the only initial redemption was the inherently fun gunplay, and compelling open world. The characters I ran into were all your typical post-apocalyptic “only the assholes survived” type jerks, or religious nuts. Ho-hum. And that isn’t to mention the clichés in the gameplay mechanics. But all of these elements ended up coming together in a way that’s actually pretty fun, and interesting. Just like in almost every other post-apocalyptic zombie story, the humans are the real antagonists, while the zombies (freakers, in this case) are a force of nature—a constant background threat, and occasional obstacle. But the freakers in Days Gone turn out to be one of the best, open world implementation of “zombies” I’ve encountered in a video game. The freaker variations are generic (big strong one, fast one, small ones) making the most common freaker you run into the threat. Noise attracts them, and it’s hard to fight more than one or two at once early on. The large, roaming hordes of freakers are a constant (and sometimes sudden) threat, and one that could mean death if you can’t get to your motorcycle fast enough. Your motorcycle is one of the main characters, and your constant companion through your adventure. You’ll be upgrading it, refueling it (quite a lot before upgrades), and repairing it. If you get knocked off of your bike, there’s the real chance of becoming swarmed. With the constant threat of human ambushers setting traps (like wires across the road) getting knocked off of your bike will happen. Weaponry in Days Gone is handled a little like games like The Division or Destiny—just without the gear score. You can have a sidearm, a main weapon, and a “special weapon”—usually a heavy machine gun or sniper rifle. The open world in Days Gone is compelling, and it feels worthwhile to explore. Its representation of post-apocalyptic Oregon wilderness is a pretty setting to ride through. The open world takes cues from the Ubisoft-style of open world—with outposts to capture (called “ambush camps” most of the time) and lots of other things to explore and find. There are several main camps, all of which have their own characters, vendors, and currency. I can’t remember the last time I’ve played a game where the currency isn’t shared between different factions. It’s an interesting touch that requires some thought, but ended up not changing the gameplay in any significant way. Endearing yourself with these camps will give you access to better motorcycle upgrades, as well as better weapons, etc. There are three tiers of trust with each camp, but trust tier 3 is something you won’t really have access to until near the end of the game. You can turn in freaker ears for bounty—money and reputation—but without the firepower you have access to in later games, this would be a long grind. Sam Witwer (from Force Unleashed) plays Deacon St. John, the rough and mumble biker protagonist that always has something to say—even mumbling to himself constantly while he’s alone. He rides motorcycles, didn’t care for the law much before the outbreak, and cared about nothing more than his bike and his “old lady.” He’s certainly a “badass with a heart of gold” type that is just another cliché in an ocean of them. But, it works. And let me just say: what a fucking name. Deacon St. John sounds simultaneously like a religious figure or a professional wrestler. Or even a place? I don’t know. He hails from Farewell, Oregon and was (is) part of the Mongrels Motorcycle Club. His best friend is a buff dude named Boozer and he mourns the loss of his “old lady” when the outbreak first happened. The story is actually good. It REALLY doesn’t seem good at first, and with the way it is first introduced, it seems like a version of Last of Us with bikers and a more convoluted storyline. Deacons St. John’s wife is injured during the initial freaker outbreak. Knowing his wife would die from her wounds, St. John sends her away on a helicopter, which lands at a rescue station that is almost immediately overrun. St. John spends the next two years mourning his wife, only to discover that her fate wasn’t quite what it seemed—and he navigates the politics of post apocalyptic camp life while following the clues that will uncover the fate of his wife. It’s a story that’s full of interesting characters, with twists that kept me hooked the whole way through. The story essentially feels like three pretty good seasons of a zombie TV show. The first season is an introduction to the world, the freakers, and the camps you help. The second season introduces the “Lost Lake” camp, which propels the story forward by introducing characters that will be recurring throughout the game. And the third season changes the formula up in significant ways, which I don’t want to spoil those who might take the 20+ hours (or more) to get there. And that’s the thing. I mentioned it earlier, but Days Gone really takes a HUGE time commitment before it even starts to get good. Despite all of the moral quandaries the game presents, you don’t really get any choices in the matter. The narration is on-rails, despite its open world nature. While the freakers are pretty generic, the lore built up around them is intriguing. They’re not undead–rather, they’re people affected by some sort of virus. They talk about how the virus is transmitted—something about young people and old people being more susceptible—but a lot of that is told in background narration. Still, they’re an interesting force of nature, if not a little inconsistent. The freakers build nests made of excrement and sticks, and they cram themselves together in these small spaces. But they come out at night or during inclement weather, so what are the nests even for? They sure are fun to burn out, though. The freakers move in hordes, and one of my favorite late-game activities was hunting down every horde and eliminating them. Some hordes only have a few dozen freakers in them, but other, larger hordes remind me of something out of World War Z. In fact, the in-lore recordings have people describing the hordes climbing over each other and tearing people apart, much like World War Z style zombies, even though that actually doesn’t happen in-game. In fact, if you are overrun by a horde of freakers, or you pull a bunch of freakers into an enemy’s camp (one of my favorite things to do) no one gets torn apart at all. I mean, I’m not one for gruesome violence for its own sake, but there are so many references to people getting torn apart by hordes, just watching them knock people down to death was disappointing. Despite this, the roaming hordes of Days Gone were one of my absolute favorite parts of the game. These hordes also gave the open world a significant feeling of danger when they exist—and it feels a lot safer when they’re gone. While not perfect, and even occasionally bad, Days Gone is worth checking out. While it takes a significant time commitment to get to the good parts, those good parts are pretty damn compelling. I enjoyed the story, and actually find myself wanting to know what happens next—especially after a crazy twist that’s revealed once the main story is concluded. I really didn’t think it would be something I needed in my life, but now just find myself wanting more Days Gone. Days Gone is available now on PlayStation 4. This review was originally published on 05/16/2019 at this location.

The Evil Within series is a bit obscure these days. Directed by Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Evil Within is a difficult and gritty survival horror game. Evil Within 2 is a competent follow-up that is much more polished than its predecessor–but somehow loses some of its charm. However, Evil Within 2 is a fantastic survival horror game and one of my favorites of 2017. Tango Gameworks’ Evil Within released in 2014 to mixed reception. Uneven framerate, a strangely disjointed story, and unyielding difficulty overshadowed a gritty, nightmarish game that is, I think, worthy of cult status. Unfortunately, deep discounts within months of its release and bad word-of-mouth has kept Evil Within from widespread popularity. Evil Within 2 goes out of its way to undo some of the transgressions of its predecessor and it turns out to be a solid survival horror game. Immediately apparent is Evil Within 2’s smooth, even framerate and much improved controls. There are vast improvements in almost every aspect. The skill point system is much more streamlined, as is weapon upgrades. The story is also an improvement over its predecessor. Evil Within reveled in placing you in nightmare world situations with little connection to each other. Evil Within 2 has a much more cohesive story and setting. Protagonist Detective Sebastian Castellanos has been troubled for the three years following his ordeal in the alternate reality simulation called STEM. The nightmare of the first game was just a simulation – but with deadly real-world consequences. The evil Mobius corporation has set up another artificial reality STEM system and things have gone wrong again. Sebastian’s former partner and Mobius sleeper agent Juli Kidman convinces Sebastian that he must reenter STEM to save his daughter, who he previously thought perished in a fire. It turns out she was actually kidnapped by Mobius and is the core of their newest STEM system. Sebastian is sent in after other attempts fail, and inside he finds another hellish nightmare, now centered on a town called Union. The story itself is improbable and, frankly, insane, but it has its charm and it is more self-aware than the original even managing to inject some humor into the whole ordeal. There are good chunks of Evil Within 2 that are set in large open environments that allow you to explore at will. There are secrets to be found, along with side quests and valuable healing items and ammo. While not quite as ammo restrictive as Evil Within, you must still conserve munitions if you want to survive. Stealth and avoidance are sometimes the best options, but the ability to craft ammunition for all weapons makes the guns-blazing approach viable for those who find the ammo to do it. The open world nature of the town of Union allows Sebastian to completely avoid some conflict by finding alternate paths. There are safe houses and NPCs scattered around the world that not only progress the story, but add incentive to look around this hostile environment. Evil Within 2 is a polished game, but it just doesn’t seem as scary as its predecessor. Evil Within reveled in low ammunition and helplessness, and while Evil Within 2 makes attempts at it, it never quite captures the grindhouse horror feel of the original. There are difficulty settings that allow the experience to more mirror the original as the default setting feels softball in comparison – but that isn’t to say it’s still a walk in the park. Even with the ability to craft ammo, it is still scarce and there are many interesting and grotesque new horrors to be found. Ironically, I found Evil Within 2 the scariest when it called back to the original. Also missing were the difficult and intense boss fights of the original. There were some great set-piece bosses in Evil Within 2, but I just wanted more of them. Evil Within 2 offers massive quality of life improvements, but it loses a tiny bit of its charm and grittiness in the transition. A great survival horror game with a compelling but banana-pants insane story that manages to make its predecessor better in the process, Evil Within 2 is full of genuinely good horror game moments even if it isn’t always that scary. If you want a horror game this Halloween, this is one to pick up. Evil Within 2 is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows. This review was originally published on 10/18/2017 at this location.

Made in the image of Build Engine classics like Blood, Cultic is a “Boomer Shooter” that pits you against an evil cult. Luckily, you have access to a whole lot of guns accompanied by some extremely satisfying gunplay. If you’ve played through it before, there’s been free DLC released in the form of an “interlude” map that bridges the gap between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. It’s too bad Chapter 2 is going to be paid DLC. Oh well. You can always get your frustrations out by blowing up cultists! I don’t mind the rise of retro shooters, or “boomer shooter” to those who insist on using that term. While I don’t like to call them “boomer shooters” I definitely appreciate the rise in these old school inspired games. I spent many hours of my youth fighting sprite-based demons through pixelated corridors. While some retro style shooters really missed their target, others like Dusk raise the bar. Cultic, while not the best I’ve played, definitely feels like an old school shooter. Cultic is a first person shooter that is inspired by Build Engine shooters like Blood. In fact, Cultic almost feels like a Blood knockoff, or even a spiritual successor in a way. Cultic has an emphasis on horror, and that means mowing down legions of cultists (how appropriate) and the demons they cavort with. You don’t have much choice, however: you rise from the dead into this nightmare, and it’s up to you to mow down legions of cultists to find its cause—and stop it. If you’ve played any Build Engine games, Cultic will feel familiar—yet a little off. That’s because Cultic is styled like an older game, but has the bells and whistles you would expect in a modern experience, including dynamic lighting, physics, and a fully 3D worlds. The enemies, however, are sprite-based—and boy, they’re ugly. I don’t mean ugly as in horrific, but rather, ugly as in muddy sprites with a pixelated distortion. I don’t know why retro shooters insist on making their graphics so muddy—perhaps it’s to emulate CRT monitors and low resolutions or video cards with limited color palettes—but the result is something that manages to be a little uglier than actual retro first person shooters. Since Cultic is a shooter, it’s important that the shooting part actually feels fun—which it does. Weapons have the appropriate heft and oomph when fired. Enemies lose their heads or explode spectacularly into piles of gore if blown up, or shrivel into husks when set on fire. There is also a decent variety of weapons available, ranging from the usual shooter fare to the more exotic. I really appreciate the variety of enemies in Cultic. A lot of retro inspired shooters just have waves of enemies that walk to you, but Cultic has enemies that behave in more interesting ways. Human enemies will hang back and shoot you and take cover while inhuman enemies tend to be more feral, and will attack you. There are certain other enemy types that will try to remain hidden and harass you from a distance—or even telekinetically, by throwing objects at you while they’re out of line of sight. Some Build Engine games were known for their large levels, and Cultic has seemed to take this information sincerely. Each level is pretty big, in fact, I found them to be a tad too large. I often found myself backtracking to find where I needed to go next. Now, backtracking isn’t automatically bad, but with such huge maps it’s no fun. But Cultic’s levels manage to be atmospheric, and they incorporate some genuinely spooky moments. Cultic is a decent retro shooter that pays homage to classics like Blood: and it does a pretty good job. I wish the enemy art was a little more interesting, and there was less of a “retro” filter over the whole thing. But the gunplay is great, and the level design is well done—despite the levels being on the larger side. If you like old school build engine games, especially games like Blood, you’ll find something to like with Cultic. Cultic will be available tomorrow for PC via Steam. A Steam key was provided to us for this review. This review was originally published on 10/13/2022 at this location.

I don't think I would have believed you if you would have told me that the animated Star Treks: Lower Decks would be one of all-time favorite Star Trek shows–but its ensemble cast managed to endear themselves to me, and it doesn’t hurt that Lower Decks expands on the TNG era of Trek. Star Trek: Lower Decks episode six, “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” once again does what Picard and Discovery didn’t by giving us a peak at our beloved TNG-era characters to see where they’ve ended up. In this episode, the USS Cerritos is on Ferenginar overseeing their entrance into the Federation. Yeah, that’s crazy right? The Ferengi went from scene chewing, energy whip wielding, (inferior) Klingon replacements to being a race that is being considered entrance into the Federation. That’s a hell of a character arc. And we get to catch up with Rom (Max Grodenchek) and Leeta (Chase Masterson) to see into the life of the now baseball obsessed Grand Nagus. At first, I thought they did Rom’s character a little dirty. While Rom’s character on Deep Space 9 always seemed a tad infantile and stupid, he was actually a brilliant engineer. I was surprised that the Lower Decks writers didn’t understand his character–and how wrong I was. This part of the plot mainly revolves Captain Freeman as she navigates this diplomatic hurdle, in a similar way we saw in "In the Cradle of Vexilon," but this time Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) comes off as much more competent. “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” does a lot to expand on Trek lore in meaningful ways–something some of the other modern Trek shows tended to fumble more often than get correct. It manages to do this while also managing a “big bad” style season-long threat. It also manages to stay a show that uses its ensemble cast to great effect. While Captain Freeman is wrestling with Ferengi-style diplomacy, the rest of the Lower Decks crew is on Ferenginar on a special assignment: they have to assess the validity of the Federation travel guide to Ferenginar by experiencing the sights and sounds of the always-wet Ferengi homeworld. Mariner (Tawny Newsome) meets up with an old friend–a familiar face from Season 1– and hashes out her issues in the only way Mariner can. Meanwhile, Boimler (Jack Quaid) discovers Ferengi television and his extremely ambitious plans get washed away by trash television. And Tendi (Noël Wells) and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) are stuck pretending to be a romantic couple. Strangely, nothing really feels like the B plot here, even when a lot of the attention is spent on Tendi and Rutherford’s fake (and extremely awkward) romance. The Lower Decks writers are experts at shoving two or more plots into each episode. And while that’s something that was pretty common in the TNG era of Trek, it’s impressively done here within half the runtime. Beyond a little “will they or won't they?” during the first season, Tendi and Rutherford’s relationship has been depicted as a close friendship. However, I get the impression that the writers are coming back to lean in on the Tendi and Rutherford ship–and I’m here for it. It’s also great watching them having to navigate the Ferengi culture’s idea of romance–and it’s obviously heavily commercialized and exploitative. No surprises there. While we got to see another crew get obliterated by the mystery ship, we don’t get much more information about it. While I do like the lead up, I feel like the mystery ship story isn’t progressing any further. I get it: it blows up ships with no problem. Maybe I’m missing some clues that would make it more compelling, but I’d almost rather the episodes start giving us a little more information than “ship that easily blows up other ships.” The season is quickly (and sadly) coming to a close, so I’m sure I’ll get my answers sooner than later. I know that Lower Decks is renewed for a fifth season, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the answers are withheld cliffhanger-style. But unlike other shows that rely heavily on their season-long arc, if this season’s Lower Decks big bad is a dud, the entire rest of the season has been a delight.

I’m terrified of the open ocean–as you would probably guess by seeing Subnautica on this 31 Days of Horror series. If Subnautica doesn’t register as your typical horror game, Iron Lung fixes that problem. Sure, it doesn’t have any of the base building or very many bells and whistles. But it distills the parts that were terrifying about Subnautica into a tight little game that is absolutely brimming with atmosphere. There’s just something about low fidelity horror games that scare me more often than games using cutting edge graphics. Perhaps the fuzzy, low poly graphics force my brain to fill in the horrifying details—or maybe it’s something about how games with PlayStation One era graphics somehow feel cursed. Iron Lung uses that aesthetic well, resulting in a masterpiece of tension on the part of developer David Szymanski. You might know Szymanski for his work with New Blood Interactive, and games like Dusk that utilize similar, “old school” style graphics. But while Dusk empowers you with speed and an arsenal of weapons, you’re as helpless as can be in Iron Lung. Iron Lung is a first person, vehicular-based game. In it, you play as a hapless prisoner, forced to explore an alien ocean. While at first it might sound a bit like Subnautica, Iron Lung takes the thalassophobic horror of diving into an alien ocean even further by adding an extreme horror element to it: the entire ocean is made of blood. If that isn’t scary enough, you’re lowered into this bloody ocean in a rusty submarine that feels ready to fall apart at any moment. Your goal is to photograph several points of interest as you navigate the ocean floor—blindly. You don’t have a porthole to see out of, either — instead, you have a map of the ocean floor and its obstructions. You can navigate only by sonar and number coordinates, with the only view of the outside world a slow-to-process camera that you use to take snapshots. Essentially, the entire gameplay consists of you piloting a rusty sub that is barely holding together, as you try to navigate blindly with all sorts of unseen creatures lurking around you. The ocean of blood is full of them — and you’re teased with what these creatures may be like when you come across an early photo site, and discover the remains of a large sea creature. If that isn’t bad enough, your submarine begins to fall apart, too. Tense moments are often punctuated by a gas line springing a leak, giving out a terrifying hiss when you least expect it. If you’re not a fan of jump scares, Iron Lung doesn’t rely solely on them for its horror, but it certainly uses them—and effectively, for the most part. Iron Lung is a masterclass in atmosphere and suspense. David Szymanski expertly builds dread by using sound effects, and constant teasing of the unknown. The game’s original soundtrack, also composed by Szymanski, is perfect for its environment, too. As much as I absolutely love the atmosphere of Iron Lung, its gameplay was a bit frustrating at times. While I really liked having to blindly navigate the sub—it reminded me of something out of The Hunt for Red October—any mistakes could cost a significant amount of play time. The entire game only takes about an hour to play through, but most of that time is spend navigating from place to place. If you ram into an obstruction, it’s game over, and you have to restart from the previous checkpoint—and sometimes those checkpoints are frustratingly spread apart. The long stretches of blind navigation do a ton to add to the tension, but can feel tedious if you make a mistake and have to replay chunks of the game—even if it is incredibly short. Iron Lung is one of the most unique and effective horror games I’ve played in a while. Not only did it succeed in being tense, but it also invoked my sense of discovery. I wanted to know what was in that bloody ocean, despite the hidden horrors. If you have an hour and a few bucks, you should definitely check out Iron Lung. Iron Lung is available now on Steam. This review was originally published on 3/14/2022 at this location.

I’ve always been a fan of the developer Frictional Games. They have some scary stuff that plays with your mind more often than it relies on jump scares. And I mean, real existential dread, not the pseudo psychology related torment on display with other schlocky horror games that claim the same. Amnesia: Rebirth is a strange departure from their regular fare, and ended up being the closest to AAA that Frictional has gotten. Still, some of the magic of the Amnesia series was lost in the transition to bigger, but it still has some great moments. Perhaps they pulled the curtain back a little too far, but it’s still a fantastic game to play if you want to be spooked this season. Minor spoilers for Amnesia: Rebirth follow: Developer Frictional Games has become one of my favorite developers. I first ran across Penumbra: Overture about twelve or so years ago, and I was enthralled with the atmosphere and cryptic story telling. But Frictional didn’t really gain widespread popularity until the excellent Amnesia: The Dark Descent in 2010. And 2015’s Soma is probably one of my favorite games ever. I was excited, to say the least, for the opportunity to cover Amnesia: Rebirth. I’m happy to say that Rebirth manages to take the Amnesia series into an exciting, more spectacular direction. Amnesia: Rebirth is a first person horror survival game. In it, you play as Tasi Trianon, a woman who’s suffering from memory loss after a plane crash. You wake up in the plane, which has crashed in the desert—but you discover that time has passed, and you have no recollection of the last few days. It turns out that something has happened to the survivors of the crash—and it wasn’t the desert that got to them. Tasi has to survive a host of horrors while retracing her steps in search of answers—and to save her unborn child. If you’ve played an Amnesia game before, you’ll know that, when facing unimaginable horror, the best thing to do is run and hide. You can’t fight back against the creatures that stalk you in Amnesia: Rebirth, either. Many times Tasi will have to traverse darkened areas, and to do so, all she’ll have is a gas lantern and matches. You can use matches to light other light sources—but moving too much makes the matches go out more quickly. This can lead to some tense moments if you’re running low on fuel or matches, but some of the tension dissolves with Tasi’s amazing night vision. Being able to see almost perfectly in the dark (even with the gamma set to the recommended level) makes the dark less scary—even if it does mean that Tasi’s fear is going up. Amnesia: Rebirth utilizes a sort of fear mechanic that acts a little bit like The Dark Descent’s sanity. Except, instead of a meter, you get a screen effect showing the influence of some dark entity overtaking you. If it takes you completely, you run as a wild creature—waking up later back at an earlier location. It’s a way to resolve player failure while keeping the narrative going forward, and it’s clever—though I think it leans a little bit too much towards player forgiveness. If you’re caught by certain creatures, instead of being killed, you are brought to an earlier point—and those creatures are sometimes even missing. I can’t say this is the case for every encounter, but I failed a couple of encounters—and in both cases, the monster that caused me to fail wasn’t even there anymore when I returned. There is some excellent world building in Amnesia: Rebirth, and the entire game is quite a spectacle. Frictional Games really outdid themselves with the settings and locations. The Algerian desert, despite its bright sun, is a horrifying desolate wasteland that only emphasizes Tasi’s desperation. The other world– that of the portal builders–is a horrific glimpse into a society that is literally powered by torture, and its architecture and iconography is appropriately horrifying. But it’s almost too much information, and ruins the sense of the unknown. There are plenty of tense moments in Amnesia: Rebirth—and even a few outright scary ones—but the overwhelming sense of dread I found in other Frictional games just never manifested. I’m not sure if that’s because too much of the veil was taken away for this story, too soon. A lot of the horror of Amnesia: The Dark Descent was in not knowing exactly what was happening. In Rebirth, it’s almost spelled out in painstaking detail. This is true for Soma, too—but Soma’s revelations heightened the horror, while Rebirth’s dampened it. Soma left me with lingering existential dread while Amnesia: Rebirth’s exploration of “the other world” left me more with a “huh, that’s interesting” impression than a horrified one. It’s almost like playing a game based on Lovecraft mythos, and reading the Old Gods’ discarded diary pages—it takes away some of the unimaginable horror aspect. When I finished Soma, I was left with lingering existential dread—while at the end of Amnesia: Rebirth, I felt a little underwhelmed. Tasi’s struggle ends with a few unanswered questions, but it doesn’t feel like those answers are necessary. It leaves room for a sequel, perhaps, but now that the veil has been lifted what new direction can it take? It’s really a shame, too, because Amnesia: Rebirth’s setting and story is so much grander than that of Amnesia: The Dark Descent that Dark Descent’s events are almost relegated to being Easter eggs than narrative beats. That’s not inherently a bad thing; it just shows how much bigger Frictional went for Amnesia: Rebirth, but I think Rebirth suffered slightly for it. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Soma had a good amount of areas to explore, but Amnesia: Rebirth just has so much more. Each of these areas has their own mysteries to uncover—but the narrative is constantly pushing you forward to the next area, with only a puzzle or two in each section. The puzzles themselves were pretty simple, and felt more like finding the right items than deciphering complicated mechanics. They also overuse transitional subterfuge—and what I mean by that is this: you think you’re going to exit out of one area, just to be put somewhere else, sometimes more dangerous and scarier than the place you wanted to be. It’s used so often it degrades its effectiveness towards shock. Don’t get me wrong: Amnesia: Rebirth is a great survival horror game. Its story is a little underwhelming, and it would have benefitted from more detailed areas instead of just more areas—but it has several tense moments, and an outstanding production value. It really feels like Amnesia: Rebirth is a blockbuster sequel compared to the indie gem that was Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It lifts the veil behind the mysteries of the previous games so much that I wonder if Frictional is finished with the Amnesia series—or just plans on taking it in an entirely new direction. Amnesia: Rebirth is available now on GOG, Epic Games Store, Steam and PlayStation 4. This article was originally published on 10/28/2020 at this location: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2020/10/28/review-amnesia-rebirth/#:~:text=It's%20story%20is%20a%20little,was%20Amnesia%3A%20The%20Dark%20Descent.

While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre might be the new hotness for Gun Media (formerly Gun) I still have a place in my heart for Illfonic's Friday the 13th. Jason Voorhees is the perfect stalking killer and Camp Crystal Lake is the perfect setting for a DBD clone. It's too bad legalities got in the way of a great slasher game. Developed by Gun Media and Illfonic, Friday the 13th: The Game looked to be the definitive horror game, and where it succeeds in some aspects such as atmosphere, music, and tension – it fails handily in others. Bugs, early server issues and some wonky animations detract from a surprisingly fun horror survival game. Friday the 13th: The Game started as a Kickstarter project in October of 2015 and quickly garnered a lot of attention. To keep the look and feel of the films they brought in Friday the 13th alums such as FX artist Tom Savini as the game’s producer, Harry Manfredini (who scored many of the previous films) as composer, and popular Jason actor Kane Hodder to do motion capture. While Hodder and Savini’s presence might not be as noticeable, Manfredini’s score is pitch perfect, retaining all of the Psycho-like accents while keeping a classic 80s slasher-horror sound. The developers set out to create a game world exactly as you remember it from the 80s, and they succeeded. Then they marketed it to those born in the 90s – rather successfully. There are 3 maps at launch, each based on locations from the Friday the 13th films. You can play as Jason Voorhees for the first time ever, or as one of 7 camp counselors trying to evade certain death at the hands of the hockey masked killer. There are 10 counselors to choose from, with only a few available initially. As you level up customization options, counselors, and even different versions of Jason unlock. You can eventually play as 6 different versions of Jason, with a seventh variant only available to Kickstarter backers. XP is gained as you play no matter if you’re killing counselors or playing as one. Playing as a camp counselor can be tense, exciting, and thrilling – but it also tends to be frustrating, and sometimes dull. As a counselor, much of your time is spent quietly moving around the camp and gathering supplies to repair your means of escape. Each map has different, yet similar objectives: repair a boat or car to escape, or call the police to help you out. Making the repairs doesn’t guarantee your win though, as you must still make it out alive. There is an amount of skill required to stay alive as a counselor, but a lot of luck is involved, too. Parts needed to make repairs are randomly scattered around the map, as are weapons and other items. You can’t memorize an efficient route to the items you want, and it changes up the game every round. Each of the 10 counselors you can eventually choose from has their own strengths and weaknesses – some are better at stealth, others are faster at repair, etc. This is enhanced by being able to equip perks you purchase with points you accumulate as you play. As a counselor you aren’t totally helpless, though it isn’t necessarily a good idea to go toe-to-toe with the killer. Some weapons allow you to stun or even knock Jason down, forcing a slow and inevitable return from his latest mortal wound. Sometimes no matter how well you do, you can still get unlucky, singled out, and murdered early on. This can be frustrating as you’re stuck looking at the round timer until Jason kills all of the counselors, the surviving counselors escape, or you return as Tommy Jarvis if he was called. Dying very early on can leave you stuck waiting over 10 minutes or longer for the round to end. Practice will help, but it also pays to work together as a team, though other counselors can betray or even kill you. Direct communication with other counselors is possible, but only when you are in proximity to each other, or if you have found a radio, though Jason can hear you too. Fellow counselors can also be used as a distraction if you’re being chased, or as a means of pinpointing Jason’s location via death screams. The main draw for many will be playing as Jason Voorhees. Each Jason has their own appearance, strengths, weaknesses, and weapons. Playing as Jason can feel like you’re playing with cheat codes on, but he is not invincible. You can stagger him, hide from him or even kill him. Jason also has multiple supernatural abilities available that make it easier for him to move around Crystal Lake and spot the hiding counselors. Morph allows him to teleport to most major locations in each area, while shift allows him to travel invisibly faster. This allows you to literally appear in front of a counselor, despite having just been behind them. This may seem unfair, but it lends itself directly to the type of experience a Friday the 13th game should have if it were to stay true to the films. Friday the 13th: The Game has a lot going for it – but it feels like an early access release, despite being sold as a full-fledged retail product. Single-player was a widely touted component, but is absent at release. You are also unable to rebind keys on PC, and many players are having problems with earned achievements unlocking. The game also suffers from janky animations, character clipping, and random bugs that detract from the experience. My earliest experiences with the game were negative – I felt like I was fighting the game itself more so than Jason. Some of that was the bugs and animations, but a lot of that was the learning curve. Learning how the game works can be a barrier to entry, with little guidance in the game itself. The players I encountered online ranged from downright creepy or toxic to incredibly helpful and fun. This is normal for almost any online community, but something about playing as Jason Voorhees brings out the extra weird in people. Still, the more I learned the game, the more others were willing to help. I had some matches where I was intentionally left for dead by counselors I was just helping, but others where someone miraculously came back to save me in the car after I decided to try and fight Jason. At the same time, in matches where I played as Jason against counselors who did everything right, I just happened to run into them one at a time, a la’ the films, and finish them off. This is where Friday the 13th: The Game really shines and each encounter feels unique. If you are playing Friday the 13th: The Game to just play as Jason, prepare to play as a counselor more often than not, even if you selected Jason as your preferred character. Despite my initial frustrations with Friday the 13th: The Game I eventually started to like it and now I’m trying to convince my friends to play. It feels like what it’s trying to emulate: a low budget gory experience that is unintentionally campy. But with only 3 maps at release, no single-player promised for months, and a high price tag, you might want to wait for more content or a sale to visit camp Crystal Lake. Friday the 13th: The Game is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. This post was originally published on May 31, 2017 at this location: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2017/05/31/game-review-friday-the-13th/

Subnautica has been in development for over four years, and has been in Steam’s Early Access program for nearly as long. With it, Unknown Worlds Entertainment, best known for their Natural Selection series, has moved away from team-based shooters and into the survival genre. Released into early access when a glut of open-world survival games were flooding the market, I dismissed it as “just another” survival game with a water gimmick. I usually despise “water levels” and a game that forces you to be aquatic didn’t seem the most appealing. How wrong I was. Unlike most other games in the genre, Subnautica has no multiplayer. Instead Subnautica focuses on solo survival, base building and braving the deep – which holds many terrors. You are the sole surviving member of the Aurora, a 22nd century corporation’s spaceship sent out into the furthest corners of controlled space only to be hit by an energy pulse, crash landing on a planet that is almost entirely covered in water. This fact is made clear when you emerge from your escape pod to see nothing but the wreckage of the Aurora and open water. You are forced from the very beginning to dive in and brave an ocean teeming with life, and rife with danger. Subnautica takes a lot from the survival genre, but puts you in an environment which no other survival games capitalized on: open water. Luckily, your 22nd technology makes converting surrounding matter into useable resources in a way that feels reminiscent of Star Trek. In fact, the sci-fi technology in the game helps to remove the suspension of disbelief most survival games require when combining items, or constructing buildings. The array of tools you have at your fingertips is also impressive, but not always useful. I found myself skipping over some early game items entirely for their more useful counterparts. The base building in Subnautica is fully realized, and can be a massively fun part of the game. I challenged myself to build a huge, underwater dwelling that could provide fresh water and renewable food for myself. The base building features are extremely robust, and allow for you to build in almost any environment – even the most hostile. I found a challenge in building habitats in the most inhospitable locations I could find – just to see if I could. Sometimes base building can have its frustrating moments – pieces not connecting easily, and some inconvenience with having to (very rarely) deconstruct entire buildings if you misplace a foundation or wall fixture. But these problems were few and far between, and I found much joy in just building these habitats and taming the most inhospitable undersea biomes. Oxygen is ever a concern in Subnautica, as your initial O2 tank holds less than a minute of oxygen. Soon, you’ll find that you’ll need to leave the shallows and dive deeper and for longer periods to explore the real depths of your environment. Luckily, in addition to o2 Tank upgrades, you can construct vehicles to help you get around. You’ll probably start off by building a handheld device to help glide through the water, eventually graduating to a fully-fledged 178 foot submarine that you can dock smaller vehicles in. And while you have some tools that can also be used as weapons, your role is mostly that of a passive observer. Even with a submarine at your disposal you’re still at the mercy of the larger, “leviathan-class” creatures that inhabit deeper waters. The amount of creatures in Subnautica is impressive, and makes the ocean feel like it’s absolutely teeming with life. Some creatures are passive, but others definitely want to eat you. Some can be fought and killed, but most can only be scared away or avoided at best. This definitely makes you feel like you are low on the food chain, and makes diving into Subnautica’s depths a terrifying experience. Even with my now extensive playtime, I tense up when diving into dark, murky waters – especially if I can hear the bellows of a Reaper Leviathan nearby. There are multiple different biomes you’ll find yourself in : kelp forests, sandy dunes, grassy plains, deep underwater caverns lit by bioluminescent flora and fauna – among many other marine environments. Once you outfit yourself with a Cyclops submarine or the mechanized Prawn suit, you can upgrade your maximum crush depths to see the extent of Subnautica’s underwater world. There is a lot of verticality in Subnautica, with a good amount of this alien world to explore both in shallower depths, and in the very deepest parts of the part of the ocean you inhabit. There are multiple different play modes to experience Subnautica. While in all modes but creative you have to manage health and oxygen, “survival” mode is perhaps the “default mode,” adding in hunger and thirst. There's also a hardcore mode which makes player death permanent. “Freedom” mode removes the need for food and water, and a “creative mode” eliminates the story, hunger, thirst, etc. and just lets you build and explore as you wish. There is no conventional “sand box” mode, as the story is woven throughout the experience (except for creative mode). You can pay as little or as much attention to the story as you’d like, but you’d be absolutely remiss to ignore it. It is one of Subnautica’s best features. A lot of survival games force you to find your own fun, or make your own objectives. Subnautica’s story goes hand-in-hand with your need for progression and exploration making it the absolutely best-paced, well told, and amazing story I’ve experienced in a survival game. It really is that good. I’m intentionally not spoiling any aspect of Subnautica’s story – I went in totally blind, and I feel like it really is best experienced that way. This speaks to another of Subnautica’s strengths: everything felt so intuitive, I never really needed to look anything up. During some survival games, I’ll find myself looking up recipes, or how to obtain a certain item, but Subnautica’s in-game database is so comprehensive, it’s hard to completely miss out on information – especially with the dry, sometimes funny AI apprising you of unique or new situations you may encounter. The pacing of the story is nearly flawless, and it’s always pushing you to the next thing and out of your comfort zone. The excellent pacing of Subnautica’s story, and the story itself, makes it feel like an absolutely complete game – something that most games leaving “early access” struggle with. Unlike more cinematic story-telling, Subnautica’s story is given as short audio/text snippets, or through exploration. The pacing is excellent, ensuring you’re never really stuck. It’s true that you may not know exactly what to do next, but there are always clues being left to guide you (sometimes subtly, sometimes not) to the next point of interest in the story. Of course, you can always ignore this and work towards survival in your own way –but the clever part is: you often find that working towards your own survival happens to move the plot forward on its own. If a game has a story I will complete it to review a game. Sometimes with open world survival games, the story is something that grounds the player and adds context. Subnautica’s plot was an obsession. I didn’t want to find out what happened for completion’s sake: I was absolutely compelled to finish it, even at a detriment to my own health. Subnautica became an obsession. There is some of Subnautica that doesn’t always feel completely finished. I’ve run into a few bugs that, while not game breaking, were certainly annoying. Some of the most obvious lack of polish also happens towards the end of the game, but by that time I was so invested in it that I was able to forgive these small issues. Subnautica is a surprise, and easily the best game I’ve played so far this year. Go into it blind if you can, but even with spoilers there is a ton to experience for yourself. Developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment has poured lots of love into this game and it shows, with its polished gameplay and great story told in an amazingly minimalist way. The Steam version is full release, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions destined to reach full release eventually, with no dates set. Either way, Subnautica is available to play now on Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It is also compatible with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift VR headsets for immersive, submarine terror. This article was originally published on 02/01/2018 at this location: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2018/02/01/game-review-subnautica/

I know that Sons of the Forest is out right now in Early Access. But there’s still a place in my heart for the original, The Forest. My first experience with it was one of the most memorable horror game experiences–and I talk about that a bit in my review. It balances survival horror with storytelling that is all held together by a mystery and the impetus to find your son. But don’t let your child’s fate stop you from building a multi-story dwelling. Minor spoilers follow: Developer Endnight describes The Forest as a “terrifying first person survival horror simulator” and it is certainly all of those things. In development for four years, The Forest originally started life when open world survival was the next big thing. Now that everyone has moved on to the battle royale genre, many of these survival games are finally hitting version 1.0. Those with patience, and a love for the genre may find this to be a pretty exciting time, as games like The Forest and Subnautica are taking the open world survival genre and successfully adding a compelling story to discover along with the challenge of day to day survival. The Forest fully embraces its horror nature, and also like Subnautica, can be pretty scary. I vividly remember my first experience with the The Forest: I thought it was visually impressive at the time, and the premise was extremely exciting. You are flying in a commercial jet with your son, only to crash land in a forest. You wake up as a survivor only to see a creepy, primitive looking person taking your son away. Not only did I have to survive, I needed to get answers and to find my son. And there is, of course, the immediate danger of another visit from creepy tribal guy. Later, I found myself hanging and bound in their cave and discovered that creepy tribal guy belongs to a group of cannibal mutants pulled straight from the 2005 film The Descent. I somehow freed myself and fought my way out of the cave, killing cannibal creatures indiscriminately with my axe until I emerged, covered in blood, knowing I had something special on my hands. I put it down to wait for its “official release,” and four years later, I’m not disappointed with the results. Like recently released survival game Subnautica, The Forest has a story with a beginning and end, featuring narrative bread crumbs that help to move the plot along. Unfortunately, The Forest is not as well paced as Subnautica, and its breadcrumbs, by the game’s design, are harder to find. There are no waypoints on your HUD in The Forest holding your hand to the next major plot point, so you may find yourself searching repeatedly for the way to proceed. The answers that you find in The Forest are actually pretty compelling, I think, and worth the long searches through dark caves—though don’t feel too guilty if you resort to a guide, for time and sanity’s sake. The Forest, at its core, is an open world survival game. That means worrying about things like hunger and thirst, as well as building shelter to save your progress and for safety. In survival games, making a safe place to rest is a matter of luxury, and a source of fun. Don’t get me wrong: building in The Forest can be fun, but most of the time I didn’t build for fun, but out of necessity. While nighttime can be dangerous, hunting parties, monstrosities and other horrible things prowl the daytime as well. Since you will be beset upon day and night, the best defense is a sturdy wall, but you have a bunch of options at your disposal. You can build shelters big and small (which also serves as a place to save your game) as well as custom buildings, and tree houses that would suit a Wookiee. Amusingly, you can also build rafts to paddle around the peninsula on which you’re stranded, as well as a house boat—a floating home away from home. The way surviving works in The Forest relies heavily on shameless video game logic—with improbably fast building and an inventory that is impossibly large. While building a structure requires nothing more than placing its blueprint and adding materials to it, gathering those materials can take a really long time. Building in The Forest can be fun, but it can also be exceedingly tedious. Chopping down trees with most of the in-game axes can take a little bit of effort. Crafted items are also often more powerful than some of their commercially manufactured counterparts, you may discover. How a skull on a stick is a better weapon than forged steel is beyond me, but skulls on sticks are pretty fuckin’ metal, so I’ll let that slide. Hunting is simple. Often chasing down deer and clobbering them on the head suffices. Some animals (and creatures) are skinnable, and yield crafting supplies or, in some cases, you can wear their skin directly for a bit of armor. Crafting tools and other items isn’t the most intuitive at first, and can be a bit unwieldy. But once I got used to the system, I was able to use it with ease. Inventory management is interesting, as what you carry isn’t determined on the max load you can carry, but how many of any single item you can. You can only ever carry five sticks dynamite, for instance, and that’s completely independent of how much of whatever else you’re carrying. Exploring the island is a treat, and can be simultaneously awesome and terrifying. Horror movie tropes abound as you come across camp sites whose inhabitants have come to grisly ends, and you stumble across the splayed and mutilated corpses of the other passengers and other unfortunate people that came before you. Not only are the scenes, settings and clues horrifying for their own reasons, the cannibal mutants themselves are both simultaneously horrible and amusing to fight. It’s strange to admit, but there’s something satisfying with the extremely gory, visceral combat: to fight these barely human, horror-movie cannibal creatures was quite cathartic for me—almost therapeutic. Instead of feeling bad for killing them, I reveled in hacking away at these laughing, screeching, barely human abominations as they climbed trees to leap over my walls or surrounded me as I was out hunting. It was like “Facing my Fears of Mutant Cannibals: The Game.” (I mean, who doesn’t have a healthy fear of being cannibalized?) You can eat them for sustenance, hack off their limbs to create effigies, or use their bones to make all sorts of tools, armor and other stuff. “Throw another body on the fire” and “bones for the bone basket” became oft repeated phrases between my partner and I, which brings me to one of The Forests’ most compelling features: multiplayer. The Forest has extremely fun, yet extremely buggy co-op. You can play with up to eight players on a server, paying as much or as little attention to other players as you’d like. Most of my experience was playing cooperatively with my fiancée, and sometimes managing to survive together presented its own challenges. Whether an item will be persistent, existent, shared (or not) within a play session is sometimes baffling to me. Items will inexplicably respawn, despawn, or just not work correctly while in multiplayer. But as buggy as the experience seemed to be, it was never broken, and often hassle-free. It was definitely my preferred experience with The Forest, and I’m curious how a small group working together would fare. Alas, I didn’t have a chance to try that for this review. The Forest is a sometimes horrifying, sometimes tedious, but mostly fun survival game held together by a compelling story. Its sometimes buggy nature and janky systems didn’t dampen my time with it, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to those who either aren’t sick of the open world survival genre, or just want a different spin on it. This article was originally published on May 14, 2018 at this location: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2018/05/14/game-review-the-forest/

There are so many things I wish GTFO was that it isn’t. Somehow, that might make it a better game: it’s sticking to its original vision. Which, apparently, is super bleak sci-fi horror with a huge difficulty curve. It’s also one of the first successful group stealth games I’ve ever played besides Payday 2–and that game allowed you to “go loud.” You can’t really do that in GTFO without lots of planning or lots of luck. I’ve played a lot of GTFO, just not recently. When GTFO went into early access, my group of friends and I played the hell out of it. We really loved sneaking around its vast underground facility, planning our next move, and watching it all go wrong as we scrambled to survive. Also, sneaking and bopping mutants as a group had never looked better or been more fun. But then, one day, we just stopped playing and never looked back. When GTFO was surprise released last week or so, I figured it was the perfect time for my group and I to get back into GTFO’s enigmatic and terrifying Complex—and while it definitely is, losing the novelty certainly made GTFO lose some of its luster—but its 1.0 release brought some interesting new reasons to keep going deeper. GTFO is a first person cooperative horror survival game. In it, you play as one of four hapless people, forced by the enigmatic warden to go deep into an underground complex to complete various tasks, sometimes retrieving an item to bring back. The only problem is, the complex is overrun with horrible mutants. Most of mutants are sleeping, but waking them up can cause a horrible day for you and your crew—so stealth is important. Also, resources are scarce, so those teams that go in guns blazing might find themselves out of ammo before long. While a lot of cooperative games offer various degrees of difficulty levels, GTFO is meant to be difficult—with things getting harder the deeper you go. Saying GTFO doesn’t have difficulty levels isn’t entirely correct. Instead, each level deeper you progress, the harder things get. Enemies become more abundant, and new, harder threats start to replace familiar enemies. Security doors you pass through start to become harder, too—with more potential waves of enemies coming to meet your team. And while I can appreciate a good challenge, I find GFTO’s form of difficulty to be incredibly tedious. If you die near the end of a level, that often means lots of gameplay that has to be retread. There have been checkpoints added for the full release—but even with checkpoints, going back over parts of the facility you’ve already cleared can be mind-numbing, and sometimes for our group that led to even more mistakes. While I appreciate the hardcore nature of the game, my group just doesn’t have the time required to dedicate to replaying long missions multiple times—no matter how fun they are. Besides its punishing difficulty, GTFO is a blast. I’ve never played a game quite like it. It’s simultaneously scary and exhilaratingly exciting. Seeing something new is always a treat—but that’s partially because so much of GTFO’s complex looks similar. While that sounds bad, that’s okay, because it lends to the labyrinthine feeling. Also, fighting enemies in GTFO feel great. Weapons feel fun to shoot, and bopping enemies on the head (or dispatching them with the new melee weapons) is one of the most satisfying stealth mechanics I’ve experienced. GTFO is just damn fun to play—and it also manages to be great to look at, too. GTFO does have a story, but it’s not told through cutscenes or long lines of exposition (outside of terminal audio logs, that is). Instead, lots of GTFO’s story is told through environmental clues, terminal logs, and witnessing the horror of the complex. Throughout the Early Access period, lore was drip-fed in an almost frustratingly slow fashion. The question always was, “why does this giant underground facility exist, and what the hell were they doing here?” But with the release of 1.0, the veil has been lifted in some spectacular and surprising ways. While GTFO doesn’t have procedurally generated levels, developer 10 Chambers have been releasing a new set of levels every few months called “Rundowns.” This type of release schedule should continue past release ensuring that there will be new content to dive into. While Rundowns do feel a little bit more handcrafted than other procedurally generated content, you will see chunks of levels you’ve seen before, making repeated excursions in the Complex feel repetitive. While 1.0 does release a few new visuals to make things interesting (I don’t want to spoiler them here) it’s not enough to make GTFO feel new again—so if you’ve been playing GTFO for a while, don’t expect the 1.0 release to be full of new things to see and do. But there are a few surprises in store. Different Rundowns also mean Rundown specific weapons. While GTFO does have a base set of weapons and gadgets to choose from, each Rundown tends to have a new set of weapons and even a few new gadgets to try out. While it can be a bummer to lose your favorite Rundown specific weapon, there’s also new things to try—and you might even find a new favorite. One of the biggest new additions for GTFO has been bots. While I definitely recommend playing GTFO with other human players, especially friends, playing with Bots primarily—or even as supplemental teammates—isn’t as impossible as it might have seemed a few months ago. Bots aren’t perfect when it comes to carrying items, or even pathfinding—but they’re great at fighting. Bots have crazy good aim, and a team with myself and three bots often feel more capable of handling harder threats than me and my friends do. While GTFO is one of the best stealth games I’ve played, and definitely one of the best stealth-based co-op experiences out there, its difficulty is oppressive. It’s definitely not for casual players—and if you’re older, with a job and other obligations, it’ll be harder to find the time for the hard and long lower floors. If you want to play solo, there are bots that are capable—but don’t expect them to carry you through the hardest challenges, though they are surprisingly good fighters. I’m glad GTFO has finally reach “1.0” and look forward to see what horrors my friends and I will uncover in our next expedition. GTFO is out now on Steam. This article was originally published on 12/18/2021 at this location: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2021/12/18/review-gtfo/