Shattered Haven

Full disclosure: I only played this game for about an hour before uninstalling it. After clearing a section, accidentally pushing the D-pad to go back to that section, and not finding an option to leave the section without replaying it, I had had enough. Maybe it picks up later, but in that first hour, there wasn't much that made me want to keep playing. Gameplay is pretty basic - run around, pick up items, use them to attack zombies or lay traps that zombies will run into or open new areas in which to kill more zombies, repeat. Different areas give you different items but they're mostly superficial variations of the same idea. Had high hopes for this after generally enjoying Bionic Dues, another quirky offering from Arcen, but Shattered Haven didn't work for me.

I just had to try this game and I don't really know about it. I appreciate the concept och combining quality music with quality art and oldschool matrix sprites, but I just couldn't stand those 32x32 blocks. Or was it 16x16? Maybe the game would have been nicer with 64x64, but now everything just felt so small and annoying. And the characters were moving way to fast. It was better than I expected though, but I rather spend my time on another game since there are loads of games I want to play/re-play.

I think many people on here are a little too spoilt by flashy graphics. Yes, it does look like it's a game from the days of 8bit computing, and perhaps it is a little overpriced for what it is (perhaps a $4.99 0r even a $2.99 pricetag would be better). But it's the gameplay that matters, and even though that is retro in itself, it's still well thought out.

I might adjust this rating later on, but unlike many other games, this one does not run on Slackware-current out of the box. Menu shows up, but crashes on loading a new game.

Considering the screenshot quality... Minimum system requirements: 1.8 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9.0c, 2GB HDD... 'nuf said.