Subterrain

I really had a blast with this game especially considering that you can pick it up very cheap on sale. After a quick tutorial level you learn that you need do several things pretty much all at once. 1) Don't die, Eat, Sleep, Drink, Piss, ♥♥♥♥, and Keep your infection rates down. Keep the global infection rates down, keep the individual sector infection rates down. Don't run out of power (ammo and flashlight), oxygen or let yourself freeze to death. 2) Manage the reactor cores, if the reactor goes down, its over and yes there will be invasions. 3) Find upgrades for your base, which includes 4 sectors and the reactor cores and more. 4) Loot everything with your tiny backpack so you can keep upgrading your equipment, which includes armor, guns, grenades, drugs, and medicine... and more. 5) Manage your time effectively so you don't fall behind on anything from numbers 1 through 4. The main thing you'll need are the data chips for the 4 sectors, problem is you don't know where they are... and neither does the game (for most of them) because its randomized... If this sounds like a lot, its because it is, and the game does not do a very good job teaching you any strategy for how to h…

Score: 3/5 An interesting set-up/setting for survival-horror ruined by very poor balance/execution/polish in too many areas, especially regarding tedious inventory management and survival mechanics, and the distinct lack of post-launch support from the dev(s) who went on to make a sequel. [b]The Good[/b] 1. Writing and Setting 2. Atmosphere. Heavy, dreadful survival-horror. 3. Audio/SFX, Music/Soundtrack. a. Good variation on footsteps depending on the material you are walking/running on. Audible enemy reactions to being hit. b. Beeps from powered equipment to keep track of remaining charge. 4. Solid UI/UX. A lot of readouts/information from your equipment about your state, the state of the environment, location, time and date, etc. Pop-ups on many items/pieces of gear. Good “scan nearby area” feature to see what parts of the environment are interactable. 5. Responsive controls. 6. Saves, load times between levels, and when opening menus are all very quick. Also, smooth menu navigation (there’s a lot of it). 7. Stamina values are solid, including penalties, action costs and temporary action cost reductions, and regeneration rates. [b]The Bad[/b] 1. Combat balance is rough. a. …

I can't manage to finish this game, the atmosphere just keeps dragging on you and there's no levity anywhere. It just moves me into disinterest every time I set up shop at the main hub.

Compelling survival horror game that takes the survival part of it seriously. Interlocking systems of personal and map infection rates, hunger, thirst, sleep, slow heal times, stamina, semi-automated resource generation, map-scouring resource grubbing, research and crafting, and power management all combine in a pressure cooker where the clock is always ticking and you are always strategizing how best to use that time. It's criminal that this game isn't better known.

Initial setting is really interesting, but sadly its not developed that much further or at least it takes ages to get to anywhere thats not the same. Quite grindy, though I'm not sure thats even the problem in itself. The game should just help the grind to be little more tolerable. Like machines taking resources from train and every container having more slots to put more stuff in. Or how weapons work; Weapons use energy which is essential to operate. You will need lots of energy cubes to carry. Weapons also overheat and deteriorate. So you cannot shoot than maybe 2-3 enemies at once before switching to different weapon and you cannot fullclear a location without needing to repair your weapon at base. And weapons also feel very weak. Why all of these bad qualities at once? Shouldn't it rather be that different weapons have different setbacks? Overall, while interesting setting and some interesting ideas, the game is eventually not fun. I will also add that maps are randomly generated. Meaning that there pretty much cannot be anything interesting there, including but not limited to location specified enemies. As you realise that, the exploring just becomes a task of finding few spe…

https://youtu.be/9d-Cu6SFXnU Long empty hallways slow down the pacing while collecting items from drawers does nothing to make up for it.