Curse of the Deadwood

Bottom Line: Curse of the Deadwood is a decent game that I ultimately recommend picking up on a sale; if you plan to play co-op, the value goes up a bit since playing with friends always makes horde games better. Curse of the Deadwood is a twin-stick/zombie horde shooter with some unique elements which unfortunately get bogged down in poor level design and some performance issues. I played the game solo throughout, though there is couch co-op capability. I kickstarted this game many (many) years ago and received a Steam Key upon release. Time to complete: approximately 10-15 hours Story (no spoilers): The story is decent, with a twist on the zombie horde game by using woodlings instead of the typical zombie humanoids. You play as Lathe, a Woodling fighting back against the eponymous curse, and Roguard, a rock golem who has forgotten his past. The game has a few twists, though they can feel unearned due to little time with the characters. That said, the story moves the game forward and gives you good enough reason to progress. Performance: 100% of my time was on Steam Deck. Good performance on Low settings. I experienced some stuttering going up to Medium and very low FPS on High. A few crashes soured my experience, though a few patches seem to have mitigated the issues. Art Design: Fantastic with lush environments and colorful cutscenes. The cutscenes use a storyboard style which works fine, but the vibrancy and good VA beg to be animated. My guess is the team ran out of time or money (or perhaps both). Level Design: While the environments look fantastic, the level design is disappointing. Most levels are wide open spaces used for little more than shooting at wood-zombies. On top of that, many of the areas within a zone look the same. As noted above, it all looks great but gets tiring after so many similar areas. There is some exploration to be had and collectibles to find, but given the sameiness it is easy to get lost. However, the number of collectibles is manageable if that's your thing, and almost always lead to power-ups for the character. Gameplay: Standard twin-stick shooter gameplay with multiple special attacks, weapons, and upgrades. Re-specs are always free so the player is encouraged to try different combinations of abilities. The biggest issue with gameplay is the auto-aim on controller. The threat detection for the auto-aim can be terribly frustrating. One certain enemy rushes the player and explodes, necessitating quick reflexes to dispatch them. But when the auto-aim doesn't register that specific enemy until too late, it can feel unfair. This is exacerbated by the late-game enemies which are very spongy. All in all, Curse of the Deadwood is fun if you can look past the issues indicated above, especially on sale.