HEVN

A single-dev sci-fi immersive sim with a competently written plot pushed forward by a time limit, dozens of different tools, an integrated tactical slow mo, radiation, toxicity and oxygen management, two big open areas and a full voiceover. Why so few people played it and why are their thoughts so mixed? Well, it’s because despite clearly being a passion project and an homage to good old [i]System Shocks[/i], [i]HEVN[/i] is one of those games where everything works but nothing works as intended. Here are just a few examples: there are big open areas… but you have to rush to get to your goal before the antagonist tracks down your assistant. In fact, you have plenty of time to explore, but it is not communicated properly, so you just run to find the goal with your only guidance being a tiny poorly readable map that at first gives very little idea on where to actually go. It is in fact a pretty regular map, but at first glance you don’t even understand what this tiny thing is. Oxygen, toxicity and radiation management are also poorly communicated: unless I read in the booklet that raw soviten (wonder-mineral) is radioactive, I wouldn’t know why my radiation went up so much. There are…

Jesus, guys, its 21st century! And yet you design menu that is unusable (why can't I just click trough the options?) and no possibility of setting up REAL mouse sensitivity (slow, medium and fast are not proper options - even on slow my view races around like a bunny on cocaine!) Tried playing, no go.

I'm very proud of the work done on this game. It's engaging and has some great visuals.

Games must have an accessible control, regardless of their difficulty. HEVN has such a bad, confusing and cryptic inventory system that it takes all the fun out of the game. For me, the worst inventory system I have ever seen.

HEVN was basically some attempt to create a ripoff of System Shock only this is so bad even Temu wouldn't touch it. It's a first person adventure where you're a mining engineer stuck on a planet, the ship/station/whatever is all busted up and everyone is dead, you need to fight/hack/explore your way out. An okay premise, but like I said, the implementation here, while genuine (and even has tolerable voice acting) is a dog's breakfast. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. The game UI and mouse handling are pure jank. The UI is a horrible mess... unpolished and as far from following conventions as you could get. Heck, the game UI isn't even consistent with itself in the game. The graphics aren't great. Low quality, low poly mismatched assets that provide genuinely poor visuals and make the game look amateurish and sloppy. That will understandably a turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game…

Way too janky and once I heard the text to speech voices and the awful time limit race, I am done.