The game's tech didn't really improve that much in 4 years.
If the test levels are anything to go by then they spent 99% of that time implementing one million guns that mostly feel the same to shoot and rat and cockroach horde simulation technology, both not really present in the game so far from what I played of it.
I don't think it is enough to say that the game is Deux Ex but with bigger levels, it's not really even in the same ballpark as Deus Ex. There are some elements clearly borrowed from there, the augmentations that give you these superpowers like slow-motion, or making you invisible, and all that jazz. But it's more of a hodge-podge of different ideas, the inventory and status screen leaning towards a Fallout 3 hybrid for example, having Marie as a sort of Vault Boy icon in the interface and the abundance of green. The game is Polish trooncore with hints of Prosper, probably right up Marat's rear alley.
I wouldn't recommend anyone, except P*lish people who are obliged to provide free entertainment for the rest of us, to buy this game. Knowing what dev progress looks like over four years and extrapolating it's not hard to tell that this will never a be a game that feels finished or really all that good to play. There's jank and then there's the autistic fever dreams of Polish guys shooting up estrogen and watching too much anime, you can only really see what they were going to if you squint real hard. It's interesting as a piece of outsider art though.
First some positives.
- The hacking minigame is the best one I've seen in a video game, usually they're pretty annoying but this one makes you mash your keyboard, the keys lighting up on the screen in yellow if you're close and once you find the right letter it's onto the next one. The stroke of genius is making the player take this performative action, acting out the ridiculous Hollywood fantasy idea of hacking IRL.
- You can and will get lost in levels.
- Inventory tetris is great at making your squeeze the most out of your limited grid, you can twist items in any way you want, flip them over, rotate them, all to make the odd shapes of weapons fit into your inventory setup.
- The levels are large and do at rare times give you a glimpse of what they set out to evoke.
See this staircase? You can climb it. Is there anything interesting on the bottom of it? Not really. Is it fun to navigate it down? Not at all.
I wonder what is at the bottom of this chasm.
Random murderhobo elites that kill me dead for no reason? Okay.
Combat is a clusterfuck, enemy AI is much more braindead than in Deus Ex and you can literally do laps around them if you want. When you kill them they stop in place and ragdoll, flopping over in a limp way.
Yeah, he's Polish, of course he's making it worse.
This is one big elevator, very Akira-esque. Only problem is that the button to start it does nothing and there is no message about me not having the right keycard or anything.
Selling ghost inventory items from another save that remained in my inventory, giving me infinite money.
One of few instances that did something for me, the scale of the much too tall ladder going up some massive ventilation shaft was pretty cool.
If they spent half as much time on the combat as they did on the gun assets they'd have a much better game on their hands.
Rats on skateboards.
The negatives are pretty straightforward.
- Navigation isn't inherently fun, despite the game having mantling and powers relating to movement it's often feels pointless.
- The levels feel more unfinished than large most of the time. It's like booting up a leaked unfinished build of a game (which it is), it doesn't give the exploration a sense of awe or anything, it makes it feel trivial.
- What content does populate the levels feels very cargo-culty. Like that one appartment where you could unplug the iron lung guy for no reason, it's like they wanted to do Lucius DeBeers but in Deus Ex is was there to showcase how ruthless the illuminati were, and where those games of powers could get you. Lenin portrait inside the flat made the decision for me, but the girl outside complaining about him doesn't even react to the guy dying.
- The lighting in this game looks awful, it has that "I have no idea how Unity works or rendering at large" aesthetic to it all. You also often have to rely on nightvision even in places and situations where it doesn't feel like it makes sense.
- The pacing is very stop and go, sometimes you are getting shot at, you probably don't know why, or who it is that is shooting at you, and after you've killed everyone it's back to traversing mostly empty space, without any vista, or far-off point that seems inviting and you want to get to either organically or because you're entirely sure that's where the game wants you to go.
- Game does a poor job communicating things to the player in general, both visually and in terms of story beats and goals. Half the time I have no idea who is shooting at me or why, or what I'm even supposed to be up to.
- Will probably never reach a state where it feels finished or that it has enough content, still feels like a prototype or early proof of concept alpha after four years. There's also no way they will be able to use all the weapon assets and different sorts of ammo they've implemented, every enemy having a different gun with different ammo is bad design and the game already has that problem to some extent.
- The texture work and models are Prosper tier most of the time.
- No single aspect of the game is all that great, the shooting is subpar, climbing about the place has been done better, dialogue isn't very well written. Nor is there some sum of the parts that makes it all gel into a cohesive experience, very stop and go.
- It's made by Polish "people" and there's Polish "people" in the game.
It's neat that I could get up here, but was there any point at all to it?
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