Crying is not Enough: Remastered

Hey, alright.

Tagged as a survival horror because you have to survive the horror of nearly 30 minutes of poorly animated and badly scripted cut scenes, before the game truly begins. You can check out these nightmare scenes in my first impressions video. https://youtu.be/bbE1i17CIF0 Couple these unskippable cut scenes with numerous loading screens and you have one of the worst openings to a survival horror game I’ve ever experienced. The developers apparently spent five years working on this so there’s no excuse for this shoddy introduction. Did they not test this at all? When you finally get to the gameplay things don’t get any better, with a very uneven frame rate, stuttering and even freezing. The camera is also pretty terrible and can occasionally clip through the player character. This makes combat difficult especially when enemies get up close. When you add poor FOV, fast enemies, ♥♥♥♥ frame rate and floaty aim, the combat becomes a confusing chore. You aren’t given a map and there are no objective markers (or objectives) either, so you’ll have no idea where to go or what you’re meant to be doing. This game clearly wasn’t ready for release and whilst it evokes some nostalgia for classic survival horror games through its visuals, the gameplay and story actually take a huge step back. There are lots of third person survival horror games on Steam, many of them cheaper than this. I wouldn’t even recommend this if you’ve exhausted all the good titles because it’s just not fun to play. When the scariest thing about your horror game is the chore of actually having to play it, you’ve probably ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

Most horror enthusiasts probably remember the launch and subsequent utter disappointment of Crying is not Enough. Originally releasing in June of 2018, the game set itself up to look like a decent survival horror title, but instead, it fell short due to a massive plethora of bugs, glitches, and issues that completely broke it. Additionally, it didn't help that the developers decided to go completely silent from launch until April 2019, leaving the community to consider the game totally abandoned. Now Crying is not Enough is back under a "Remastered" version, and publisher/developer Storyline Team are hoping that gamers will give it another shot. You play as 35-year-old Jacob Helten, a man who is in search of wife Claire. After a series of bizarre dreams, Jacob is summoned to the hospital where his wife has ended up, only to be told that she's nowhere to be found. Queue the entrance of a creepy old woman who says that she's Claire's mother and that Claire has been kidnapped. Jacob finds himself being transported via helicopter, only for the helicopter to be rigged with explosives, and he lands on an island infested with monstrous entities. Turns out Claire is on this island too, and he needs to find her. One thing that can be said right off the bat is that Crying is not Enough has some serious issues with story pacing. If you don't have the patience for cutscenes and dialogue, you may want to go ahead and skip this release as the first half-hour of the game is just that. The graphics settings also default to making this title look as ugly as it possibly can, having motion blur, depth of field, and chromatic aberration all enabled by default. All three of these settings combined cause the cutscenes to constantly go in and out of focus, and overall the graphics look ridiculously fuzzy and awful. Turning the settings off does help quite a bit, but everything still looks quite dated; as dated as say, 2012's I Am Alive. If you take a look at the "Massive Update" from April 12th, 2019, you can clearly see the amount of work that the developers put into fixing their mess. There's some hard work and dedication that went into it, but sadly it's still not enough. I ended up running into a game stopping bug in a puzzle right after I'd finished doing some pretty major events in the game, and I was forced to exit and reload my previous save; which was a ton of work prior to where the game stalemated me. What caused the stalemate? I simply paused the game to go to the bathroom, and I came back, exited the pause screen, and couldn't do anything else. No game should lock up on a puzzle screen due to pausing. Needless to say, even I, a dedicated reviewer that finishes 98% of all games that I review, could not bring myself to go through the hassle of doing everything again to get back to the point that the game locked up at. As a survival horror game, Crying is not Enough: Remastered is just not scary or challenging; the two main factors that make survival horror games fun in the first place. It doesn't help that you can get a surplus of ammo by playing this really weird, out-of-place, random arcade game that also functions as a save station. The coins that you need to use the machine are scattered about in abundance, also. The atmosphere is okay, and there's definitely a heavy Silent Hill vibe going on, especially with the references to Mary, James, and Sylvia... but other than that, not much is going on. Sadly, even the "Massive Update" and supposed "Remaster" of Crying is not Enough is just not enough to save this game. It's appreciated that the developers actually attempted to redeem themselves by resolving a ton of this title's issues, but at this point, it's really one of those too little, too late scenarios. Perhaps if small updates were issued along and along and communication was held with the community, Storyline Team could've learned even more from what caused this title to fail other than the obvious gameplay and engine flaws. The story pacing is atrocious, the voice acting is bad even by indie standards, the character models are hard to look at, the default graphic settings make the game look hideous, none of the puzzles are fun, the arcade game is unnecessary, there are not enough survival elements, there's no scare factor, the enemy AI is just terrible, and the story is needlessly convoluted and quite honestly unappealing. Especially for the asking price, this one is worth a hard pass. [h1]Rating: [b]1.5/5.0[/b] - It's Bad.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore [b]The developer provided a free copy of this game for review, through The Horror Network's Curation page.[/b]

Don't take the mixed reviews as final verdict for this game. Apparently this game had problems that were fixed in a huge updates. I recently purchased the game and have played up to 7 hours at the time of writing this review. This game is amazing. Amazing atmosphere, chilling music and locations. This game actually scared me more than Dead Space 1 and 2 combined. No joke. This game has janky looking animations for both player and enemies but that's about it. Everything else is solid. Get this game you won't regret it. It's worth every penny.

The environments in this game are quite impressive. Unfortunately...not much else is. The story is batty, but bland. The writing and voice acting varies from mediocre to slightly substandard. The volume levels are all over the shop, with some sound FX compelling me to turn the volume down, and some semi-submerged voice parts compelling me to turn it back up again. The default controls are bizarre - "C" for flashlight, in a [i]horror[/i] game? - but can thankfully be remapped. The level design is needlessly convoluted at times (with no map you can bring up to make sense of it all). The puzzles are alright, but nothing we haven't seen a trillion times before. The resource management is competent, yet far from compelling. The save system is far from generous. The cutscenes, especially those near the beginning, are among the most stilted and tedious that I've ever endured (and seem to be unskippable, at least when playing with a keyboard and mouse). Last but not least, the human character models and animations - in stark contrast to the aforementioned environments - are among the ugliest I've ever seen. (Don't even ask me about the [i]gore[/i]! The monsters are alright, though, even if they and the scenery do get quite repetitive after a while.) Which brings us to the gameplay. Believe me when I say that I do appreciate a slow-burn build-up in a horror game, but the pacing in the early part of this product was like watching elderly sloths fornicate. And what was my reward, when I finally got to enjoy my first moment of danger, about thirty minutes in? My character witnesses a monster smashing its head repeatedly into a rock or...something...not quite sure [i]what[/i] he was doing, really...but as soon as the control reverted from the cutscene to my good self, I was pointed in the [i]wrong direction[/i]! Not a very auspicious start to the action. And it doesn't get a great deal better from there. In fact, the combat is so lackluster - you can even methodically [i]pistol-whip[/i] some enemies to death! - that I would've enjoyed this more if it was a walking simulator. Don't get me wrong: there's definitely some solid atmosphere, and some good moments here and there. But mere moments simply aren't enough in a game of this length (I gave up nearly four hours in, and didn't appear to be anywhere near the end). By all means, if you've played every Resident Evil game, every Silent Hill game, and every notable knock-off like the Evil Within games, Alan Wake games, Obscure games, etc...and you're somehow [i]still[/i] desperate for a vaguely comparable third-person survival horror game? Knock yourself out. But as a bona fide addict of that style of gaming, I simply wasn't motivated to see this through to its conclusion; not least of all because, for all its ambience, it's really not that "scary" (the suspense generated rarely resulting in a worthy pay-off). And the [i]price[/i] the devs are asking is plainly and simply misguided. There's certainly no faulting this game for ambition. Unfortunately, almost everything else about it [i]is[/i] kinda faulty (though the CB radio gimmick was a nice touch). Despite an apparently recent update of some magnitude, there's still far too much wrong with this game to safely recommend it. Do the devs show potential? Absolutely. Does this debut effort truly showcase that potential? The sad answer is no. Feel free to gift me your [i]next[/i] game, Storyline Team...but this one's gonna be a "no" from me, I'm afraid. Better luck next time. Verdict: 4/10. (PS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/​ http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210​ Cheers!)

After amazing Aris walkthrough, I couldn't resist buying this wonderful masterpiece. When The Run Stuck, Did You Press it Twice? https://youtu.be/m2gD47tUYB8

This game needs ALOT of work just to become passable. The assets need to be better placed, Most of the models are clipping or float, a pony tail isnt making contact with a head and trees grow through baracades. Graphics are hit and miss, some assets are fine but faces and hair are simply wrong or broken. hair needs a better alpha mapping or a better shader because it looks like the edges are all painted with white glue. back faced culling is required to make the opposite sides of the hair visable. I dont want to slam the game for its loading. it is a big issue but it can be overlooked Voice acting is at least passable but it leads into the animations and camera work that are simply not. guns in the hands of npcs jitter, clip and float, a monster smashing its head against a rock didn't show any understanding of motion or impact, assets pop in and out during story moments. NPCs don't emote at all. the camera pulls around and snaps to points making it clear it needs more simple and effective movements. a dirty trick they should impliment is just moving the camera to the least glitchy perspective and you can brush alot of the issues aside. Controller support isnt finished, aiming simply wont work for an Xbox1 pad in my case. moving and picking things up worked fine but aiming and shooting is a must. The monsters at the start are too silly. they have toy cranes for hands and rebreathers while sporting exsposed brains. Aiming and moving works only when not in combat. once a monster gets involved i found the ability simply failed to regester anymore untill it was dead. the in game camera won't pick a distance, sometimes it zooms way out then snaps to a set position at random. Monsters and the player can walk through some barrels, boxes and giant rocks. Oh also devs get on replacing that Iphone with something that won't get you sued by apple once someone picks up on it or you will have a big problem on the horizon.

One of the worst games, if not, the worst game, I've ever played.

Not worth your time and or money.