Posted on: October 25, 2023
nemesisx00
Games: 1177 Reviews: 1
Immersive Experience
I've played through this on Steam and I'm going to do so again on GOG. The #1 thing about this game: it puts immersion first. Even the simple act of traversing the world -feels- right, all the way down to the sound of the mud beneath the tires of Deacon's bike. Well, okay, there is one part about riding the bike that doesn't feel right: it will feel painfully slow at first. But don't fret! As you progress through the story you will have opportunities to upgrade the bike and eventually it will also feel right. The writing also stood out to me. Specifically, how characters talk and interact. Everyone seems to speak like real people speak. The only dialog that feels weird is Deacon's inner monologue which is used to inform the player of events or remind them of the current goals, as one would expect from this sort of title. You're not exactly going to like every character, including Deacon at times, and you're not supposed to. But they do all feel a lot more like real people than in many other games. But this is a game, afterall, so let's talk about the gameplay. At its core, this is a third-person stealth story-driven open world game. The game heavily incentivizes avoiding detection and using assassination-style takedowns to progress through areas which have a significant enemy presence. Going in guns blazing can work but the greater the disturbance you make, the more infected will come sniffing around, and you can easily find yourself overwhelmed. Of course, you will eventually discover equipment, upgrades, and strategies that can help deal with larger numbers of enemies but you rarely ever feel truly safe roaming the world. Finally, the story itself: this is Deacon St. John's story of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. I found his journey to be deeply affecting and well worth completing every storyline in order to witness it all. If nothing else, I own over 1000 games on GOG alone, and this is the first one for which I felt compelled to write a review.
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