CONSCRIPT: Director’s Cut

JOYA

Conscript is a fantastic hidden gem of a survival horror game. Rather than typical sci-fi or supernatural fare, its horror comes from the claustrophobia, bleakness, and brutality of historically authentic trench warfare in the longest battle of World War I, the Battle of Verdun. Despite this setting, The story is also surprisingly emotional and personal, but told in a non-intrusive way that does not detract from the gameplay. Speaking of gameplay, Conscript also finds a sweet-spot between responsive combat/controls, while balancing ammo scarcity and classic survival horror inventory management. There is also a REmake Crimson Head-esque mechanic, where you are incentivized to burn bodies, lest they attract groups of rats, which can easily poison you if bitten, necessitating that you use valuable healing items for lack of care. However, my favorite aspect of Conscript are the masterful classic survival horror maps. Each map is a puzzle with several doors and different paths to unlock, dangerous enemies to navigate, and resources/secrets/lore to be found. Even better, its not just a single classic survival horror map, but several full-blown and varied survival horror maps that ar…

Another difficult rating. At the end of the day, what it boils down to a solo developer putting a tremendous effort to build an interesting (yet flawed) action adventure game. So all in all, I recommend it + Good WW1 trench warfare atmosphere + Good pixed graphics + Good combat mechanics + Good delivery of the horrors of WW1 BUT... - Bad UI, really difficult to use menus which look very, very bland - Huge amount of backtracking with only certain map points for saving the game - Very bizzare choice of limited inventory and consequentially inventory management. A lot of exploration (and backtracking) is done because you put the quest item in the big infinite box but didn't have space to carry it with you. So you have to go back to the infinite box then walk again, use the item rinse repeat. - RATS!! I read that in the current version of the game, the rats are considerably nerfed but the fact that they can infect you which HALVES your max HP unless you get a first aid kit (which is a rare item) with possibly 1 hit is huge. Considering the fact that you are backtracking a lot in the game and rats are "re-spawning". You can limit the re-spawning but that is als…

Saving private Pierre

A lovingly crafted game that pays homage to classic survival horror. Unforgettable atmosphere. Concise storytelling. High replay value.

A very competent, and occasionally scary survival horror game. The experience is immersive, the writing is simple but well executed, and the puzzles are easy to figure out but require a little bit of thinking. It strikes that difficult balance between "puzzle for babies" and "mind numbingly difficult". Which is great, especially compared to the puzzles in some of the older resident evils that defined the genre.