Centralia: Homecoming

Transparency: I was involved in the development of this game, as the english voice actor for the main character. That said, it's not a great game, but it's alright. 1) It's a pretty generic story, daughter missing, spooky town, progression through finding keys, etc. 2) It has some fun moments. My original playthrough was the initial release, so ammo was scarce, and the weapon upgrades were not added yet. The updates made it a lot easier to progress by finding ammo and money in cabinets, and more power lets you rip through enemies. 3) Bosses are just bullet sponges, with no mechanics aside from point and click. The final boss is kinda nice though as you use the entire town as the battlefield. If it's on sale I'd recommend it, but also the developer had never paid me anything for the work I did and had not responded to any of my emails asking about payment, so take that as you will.

Wow. this is a first for me, after 20 minutes I had to finally stop giving the game the benefit of the doubt. 1st red flag: Lack of a settings option on the main menu. You want to force the player to get right into the game without messing about? I'm down, but just have a "push any key to start" menu screen that, if no saves are found, launches right into the game. Any game i play for the first time, I like to check settings, controls, and resolution just to double-check. Only in the last few years do games start off exactly where they should, settings-wise. 2nd red flag: The opening voice acting is poorly done as far as audio quality, no one likes to wince when someone's sharp speech blows out the recording. I use a $6 headset mic that could've delivered the same, if not better quality. The acting by itself was good though, to be fair. 3rd red flag: Not every game needs a tutorial, some games need nothing at all. But a game with a map,inventory, and journal could, at the very least, have a message when the game starts "To access everything you'll need press tab to get to the menu". The "tutorial" is on the journal tab for some reason, with a super brief rundown of the controls. It's 2019, its pretty standard, as far as I've noticed (even for small studios) to AT LEAST have a picture of a keyboard and mouse with controls labeled accurately, not just some lines of text on a journal tab. And since we're speaking of tab... 4th red flag: The Esc button does nothing. Tab is the only way to access the menu (which is where that pesky settings menu was hiding). This seems like something trivial, but it's this kinda stuff that puts "invisible polish" on a game. Once again, it's 2019, stuff like this is pretty standard. 5th red flag: First building I enter, small set of stairs straight ahead, before moving I instantly notice a monsters head clipping through the door at the top. Like a fool i walk up and open it, I got a flash of zombie and a bit taken out of me, when it fades the zombie is gone. I re-open the door, and get bit again. Cool w/e But then i noticed in the next building that the zombies target and follow you through walls......which basically kills any fun to be had from the suspense of exploring, and gets switched to impending action. 6th red flag: There's more but this one is short enough to summarize. I've been gaming for a looong time at this point, and I have made a realization over the years. Games that start off with a flag selection (for the games language) are almost always not good. Either lacking in substance or hastily thrown together assets. There are certainly things in this game that were given a loving, caring touch in their design , but these things are vastly outweighed by its other shortcomings Hopefully this game continues to be updated and polished but I for one wont' be waiting around for it.

Whoa. Do not recommend. I should have listened to all the bad reviews. First startup, my computer sounds like a jet engine taking off. I limit the frames and knock the graphics down to medium. After 5 minutes of wandering a hospital, the game crashes to desktop. Not good. Second startup, my computer hard locks and my monitor loses signal. I need to power down my rig and reboot to get my computer back. JFC. Not going to bother playing a game that does not want to be played. I'm glad that there were other people who were able to actually complete it, although I'm not sure how. Maybe they are wizards or something. :P From what I was able to play, there was a really strong Silent Hill vibe. The story, the atmosphere, the music. Seemed like a friendly nod to one of my favorite series so I was interested. Collision was dreadful. I kept getting stuck on or in stationery objects. I bumped into a corpse that was on a table and it fell on the floor. Then I could no longer explore the room because the body kept tripping my character up. Ugh. Not long after that, the game crashed to the desktop when I tried to pick up a med kit. Ok... I picked this up on a 45% off sale and I feel ripped off. If you must buy this, wait until it is patched or 90% off. Sorry friends </3

Refunded. After 45 minutes gave up. This game has so much motion blur you will go blind. Did you say you wan't to turn it off? Well no can do, since this game has 0% options for customization. No hotkey controls, no graphics options. Absolutely nothing. Did you get stuck in one of the security cams and can't back out of it.. well good luck. Did you accidentally hit a key while going through the non-skippable cut scene in the beginning and now you are in free cam mode. Cool right? Except good luck getting back to the 1st person cam to play the game. This dev is lazy. Honestly lazy. No options, relies on UE's super hardcore awful post process effects. He took some games he loved as a kid, tried to mimic them and did a less than sub-par version. Should be ashamed of himself but has probably made enough money from people who won't refund to squeak by.

[i] My Experience [/i] I've seen a number of games by "indie_games_studio" when digging through the Steam catalog looking at new releases. However, the reviews for most of these games tended towards the negative. When Centralia came out and seemed to be getting mostly positive reviews, I decided to finally give the developer a shot. It didn't hurt that I'd always found Centralia to be fascinating. My wife is from Pennsylvania, and I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I'd been tempted to try and visit the town. When you start the game, you're struck by the ash in the air. It's pervasive and foreboding. I first walked up some stairs, and I saw a zombie glitching through a door. So, I turned around to go and find a weapon. It made sense to me that I'd find one in a police station, so I went there next. No luck on a weapon, but I found a prisoner. I found a set of keys in the police station as well, but when I double-clicked them in my inventory, they disappeared. How about that? I next went to a store, and then to what seemed like a hospital. At this point, I'd run into a couple zombies in the streets. Although they weren't following me into buildings, I had a nice conga line going whenever I was outside. I couldn't punch the zombies, and there were no guns at any of these locations. Although I knew that it was possible to find a gun (from watching the preview videos on the store page), I was getting a little tired of what felt like aimless wandering. I didn't find any of the locations particularly interesting, or the intel that I found at each. Perhaps if Henry suspected danger in Centralia, he should've snagged a gun en route.

Some points to work on. I'll try to make it short. Since this is early access and I bought some other titles from these dev(s). - Not enough save-points, I would strongly advise to at least add an auto-save when entering/exiting a building. I cleared one building, took me 20 minutes to go trough all the drawers and doors, only to die by some zombie that was outside standing at the door. - Zombies are TOO fast, and you face them in enclosed spaces. Narrow hallways and small rooms, it will just get you killed, they run at you and you die before you can even shoot them. On the street level I had the same issues btw.. - Enemies don't die in 3 headshots, forget it. As fast as I can be I cannot shoot and run at the same time. - Rebinding keys should be in a normal modern game, so should a fast map access and inventory key. Not to mention controller support. - It is very unclear what to do or where to go next, there is not really a tutorial either, just a message about the controls. The only positive so far is that the game has the Silent Hill feeling and pretty good visuals, but as it stands either this gets alot of work(points mentioned above) or I won't be tempted to even play this game again. For now, don't buy .

Nice small horror game but it need some rework : + Nice atmosphere. It remind of silent hill a bit. Gameplay is OK. Not too linear. Game is not too easy (it's even pretty hard). Voice acting is not awesome but ambient sound and music is very good and stresfull. - We need to be able to change settings BEFORE you start a new game. We need to be able to change keyboard settings too. In inventory, the game should tell you that clicking on the ammo or the lock-picking tools make them usable, because it look like you are selling it. Zombies can attack you from behind a locked doors. Slow door opening is ok, but slow drawer opening is annoying when you have several drawer every room of the game. Overall : it's a nice small horror game i recommend (even if it would be better if the issues above are fixed.

[code] [h1]Добротный аналог «Silent Hill».[/h1] [/code] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2108627181 [i][b]Centralia: Homecoming[/b][/i] - психологический инди-хоррор с видом от первого лица, позаимствовавший концепт знаменитого классического хоррора «Silent Hill». Сюжет игры разворачивается вокруг Генри Нельсона - главного героя, жена которого бесследно исчезла в результате масштабного, охватившего целый город (и возникшего по мистическим причинам) пожара, оставив на его попечение их единственную дочь Ширли. Спустя несколько лет после произошедших горестных событий главный герой обнаруживает таинственное исчезновение дочери, что напоследок оставила отцу послание о том, что отправилась в некогда родной город, дабы найти бесследно исчезнувшую мать. В ответ на это отчаявшийся Генри принимает решение возвратиться в Сентралию, дабы отыскать и спасти единственного близкого человека от ужасов мёртвого города. Геймплей игры строится на последовательном исследовании города и содержит в себе элементы шутера, где вам предстоит отбиваться от местных врагов, коими выступают зомби, голодные псы и мутированные адские существа. Имеется несколько видов оружия: [i]- пистолет; - дробовик; - автомат; - винтовка. [/i] Предусмотрена возможность улучшения оружия (урона, скорости перезарядки, боезапаса и скорострельности) за счёт найденных драгоценных камней. Разнообразие уровней сложности отсутствует. Имеется бонусный хеллоуинский режим, в котором вам предстоит исполнить роль оторванной кисти руки и отыскать оставшиеся части своего тела. [h1]Преимущества: [/h1] [b]1) графика; [/b] В игре приятная и достойная для инди-проекта графическая составляющая. Пост-апокалиптические улицы заброшенного города и детализированные разрушенные помещения имеют место быть. [b]2) музыкальное сопровождение; [/b] Знакомым с вышеупомянутой классикой местное музыкальное сопровождение тут же покажется идентичным с тем, что имело место в «Silent Hill». И тем не менее, игре стоит отдать должное, ибо с гнетущими саундтреками она справилась достойно. [b]3) атмосфера. [/b] Благодаря качественной графической составляющей, тёмным локациям и пронизывающему звуковому сопровождению в игре достаточно добротная атмосфера хоррора, что достойно выдержана даже не взирая на возможность главного героя обеспечить свою защиту. [h1]Преимущества или недостатки? [/h1] [b]1) геймплей; [/b] Как уже было изложено выше, геймплей игры не отличается динамикой и наличием экшена, как то имело место и в SH. Однако спустя 1-2 часов игры плутание по однообразным комнатам с повторяющимся интерьером и потраченное на открытие огромного количества ящиков/тумбочек время в попытках найти что-либо полезное - крайне утомляет. [b]2) озвучка. [/b] Наличие озвучки - хороший признак, но не тогда, когда она исполнена на уровне озвучивания детского мультфильма, что нередко проскальзывает в C:H. Что касается главного героя, то в данном случае дела обстоят куда печальнее. Флегматичный тон Генри по большей части вызывает ассоциации с ленивым детективом, формально проявляющим интерес к расследованию скучного, не достойного его внимания дела, нежели чем с заботливым отцом, что мучаясь чувством переживания рьяно ищет свою дочь. [h1]Недостатки: [/h1] [b]1) техническая составляющая. [/b] Продолжительные прогрузки при переходе с улицы в помещение и обратно, витающие в текстурах объекты, извечное судорожное перемещение главного героя по объектам/сквозь, ну и конечно же, баг с перезарядкой оружия. Подробнее о последнем: анимация перезарядки совершенно любого оружия при нажатии соответствующей клавиши осуществляется всегда, даже независимо от того, что оружие может быть полностью перезаряжено. Данный фактор нередко вызывает проблемы при прохождении: так, используя дробовик против голодных псов, при случайном нажатии вы рискуете лицезреть довольно продолжительную перезарядку, в то время как и без того скоростные животные будут пожирать единицы вашего здоровья, пользуясь вашим беспомощным состоянием («сбросить» анимацию перезарядки не представляется возможным). [h1]Итог: [/h1] [table] [tr] [th]Критерии[/th] [th]Оценка[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]геймплей[/td] [td]4/5[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]техническая составляющая[/td] [td]1/5[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]графика[/td] [td]4/5[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]сюжет[/td] [td]3/5[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]звуковое сопровождение[/td] [td]5/5[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]атмосфера[/td] [td]4/5[/td] [/tr] [/table] Резюмируя, Centralia: Homecoming - недоработанный с технической точки зрения, но добротный с точки зрения визуала и атмосферы инди-проект, который, по сути своей, выступает одной из возможных вариаций аналога «Silent Hill», нежели чем-то исключительным или новым. Любителям жанра - рекомендуется. [i][b]P.S. 6 поломанных отмычек из 10. [/b][/i]

Centralia: Homecoming is an asset flip from the asset flippers at indie_games_studio. While not as heinous as those who just dump unaltered asset packs on Steam, they're not far off. This is a bit more like the kind of half-built shovelware that Digital Homicide was trying to scam people into buying. As a game, this is bad, real bad. Unreal engine can't even save it. It's an adventure/FPS with a horror/thriller theme as you plug around an Unreal Engine asset flipped city and marvel at how someone managed to make Unreal look bad (ugly, fuzzy filters, all kinds of problems). It's apparent some attempt at making a game was done here, just by nobody competent enough to do so. In fact, they even hired someone to do the voice acting... then didn't bother paying them the agreed price. So if these guys are willing to scam their own contractors, how do you think they feel about scamming gamers? This is just poor quality, bundle stuffing shovelware and should be avoided. The $13 USD price tag is an insulting joke.

Janky indie survival horror in the style of Silent Hill. Definitly not a great game, but if you can bear some jank, and you are a big fan of survival horror, you can get it in a sale and have fun with it for about 4 hours. Honestly my biggest complains with the game are that enemies respawn when either loading a save or leaving/entering a building which also triggers a loading screen and that most buildings are big but are mostly copy and paste from each other. You are just looking for items in each room of each floor of each building which definitly gets a bit tedious.