Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Deluxe Edition

EDEN Started gloriously. Gamma World-esque, stealth heavy, turn-based, delicious graphics, compelling characters, novel gameplay. Teary eyed perfection. The party could split up, hide separately and synchronize their actions. When I found that some scenarios required me to avoid combat and just sneak around its dangerous denizens to accomplish objectives, I was not only pleased but wonderfully impressed. Then I found Hammon. About there, the mutations began. THE ROT SETS IN All I thought I'd seen in the game, I hadn't. Herding the party is over-clicky. If they're hiding, they can't be regrouped using the regroup button, they must be unhid first, individually. Moving them to higher ground is not just clicking a spot, you must change altitudes first with the mouse wheel. There's no choosing when to sneak past danger and when to engage it. If you don't kill, you don't level up and you won't beat the HP-laden enemies guarding progress. In tight situations, all this fiddling costs dearly. Thinning mobs quietly soon became moot because stragglers need more hits to die than silent damage available. So the hordes all rush in. For a game encouraging stealth, it sorely lacks silent tools to deal with its challenges When I returned to a zone uncleared, the game spawned me in the MIDDLE of every enemy. Once combat starts, there is no leaving the area. Reload and try different? The game saves on entry to a zone, so... Groundhog's Day of grounded down mutants. XP income turns leaner than a mutant dog. Levelling all my 6 Stalkers was the worst decision I made. I ran out of XPs to earn with only high-level enemies to face. The creative varied gameplay I THOUGHT I saw was just regular gameplay, much less free and with a very narrow room for evolution. ZERO I still played for a very long time past disillusionment, but the love that started as an X-Men mutant, ended up as a twisted, tumescent blob, poisoned with radiation, slithering on the floor while all its organs slowly failed.

This game has most of the elements of XCom yet falls short on all of them. Out of the five mutants (six with the SOE expansion), most of their ability trees are the same skills in differing order. And most abilities are meh, so you'll find yourself using the same two mutants (in a three-man team) with unique crowd control skills throughout the entire game. The story is basic almost to the point where you forget about it, but to be fair the Seed of Evil expansion fleshes it out a bit better. The Ark (your home base for buying and upgrading gear) is bare bones to the point of wondering why they bothered. Combat is turn based with a very similar feel to XCom, with a more simplistic (and fair) RNG hit chance. Overall the game has a very grindy feel as you have to make your way from point A on the world map to Point B, clearing hostiles as you go. Buy this on sale and keep your expectations down and you'll probably have a good time.

The combat is diferrent enough from xcom that it doesn't feel repeatative. I enjoy stratagy stealth games this qualifies. like everyone else gameplay, graphics and ambiance are great.

This is in fact a good game, but it falls short of what it could have been. The setting is rather intriguing, but the main plot never really takes off. The characters are lovable, but don't really get any development or back story. You interact with the world like in an RPG but there's no player's choice. By far the most fun part is the combat. The varied scenarios and situations keep it interesting - despite the fact that the game changing skills are unlocked too early. Just make sure to choose the hardest difficulty. All in all, this game lacks the depth of an RPG and the thrill of tactical masterpieces like XCOM. Still, it's perfect if you just want to spend a few evenings with a nice game without too much weight.

I played this game a while ago, so this is not a fresh review. That said, even after so much time I still remember this game well. It doesn't happen too often with those smaller titles. I think that is a recommendation in and of itself. It took me by surprise just how fun I had playing this game. The awesome looking duck and boar draw me in. The weird story and simple, but very fun gameplay kept me engaged to the end.