Daymare: 1998

[h1]Flawed But Scratches The Itch For Survival Horror[/h1] I cannot recommend this for the full price, but feel free to grab it from sale if you need a Survival Horror game to play. I didn't quite like the feel of this game when I played the demo, but after discovering the Modern-Take Mode, I found it tolerable. [u]PROS:[/u] ➕ [b]Survival Horror;[/b] You manage your inventory, conserve ammo, solve puzzles, and choose whether to kill the zombie in front of you or pistol-whip it and run past. ➕ [b]Atmosphere;[/b] The dark environments and sound effects keep up a sufficiently creepy atmosphere. ➕ [b]Modern-Take Mode;[/b] If you’ve played the demo, you probably know about the game mechanic where you have to manage magazines. While it does add a bit more realism and make you more vulnerable, it is horribly tedious work to keep reloading magazines after every fight. This game mode does away with that and just lets you load bullets directly into the gun. [u]NEUTRAL:[/u] ⚪ [b]Chapter 3 Difficulty Spike;[/b] If you played the Demo previously and then started a new game, you might notice that Chapter 1 is somewhat easy. But if you haven't learned how to avoid battles by Chapter 3, you better start learning fast. From that point forward, the game is less about exploring your surroundings and more about running through areas so that zombies don't catch up with you. ⚪ [b]Gunplay;[/b] Guns feel weird sometimes? I can't always hit the head as cleanly as I want to. But even weirder, bullets seem to have velocity? As in, I fire a gun, wait a second and then the bullet hits. Sure, the target was far away but I still think bullets are faster than that. I wasn't sniping something from half a kilometer away! ⚪ [b]Performance;[/b] My computer fans protest if I try to play the game on default settings. After I turned everything to low, it played fine. [u]CONS:[/u] ➖ [b]Environmental Mismatch;[/b] When looking at the streets of Keen Sights, it reminds you of Raccoon City from Resident Evil 2 or 3. This is a bad thing, because the nature of the disaster in these two games are radically different. The outbreak in Raccoon City escalated over the course of weeks, whereas the disaster in Keen Sights unfolded within a matter of minutes. Visually, the city should've looked like a Rapture had happened, whisked away its citizens and replaced them with zombies. Instead, it borrows elements that make it look like survivors were holding out and fighting against zombies, which doesn't fit what the game shows us. Which is a shame, because the opening act builds incredibly well on its own setting. ➖ [b]Completely Irrelevant Character;[/b] I'll just say this here: One of the characters, [spoiler]Samuel[/spoiler] doesn't matter at all to the story. His actions do not drive the story and his backstory has no impact on the events whatsoever. Which is a shame because I actually see potential in him. If the game had focused their narrative more on him, I think they could've created something special. Or if not him specifically, then at least focus on the other character more. Actually, the story might work better if he [spoiler]had Samuel's condition[/spoiler] ➖ [b]Puzzles;[/b] I don't know exactly what to think about these puzzles. There's a fair number of puzzles that aren't simple "Find the Key Item" things. That's all well and good, but damn. I have to stop surviving in a zombie outbreak to figure out greek alphabet, morse code, combination lock permutations, and that cardinal directions don't actually matter. If you ask me, puzzles in a Survival Horror game should help pace it, make your character feel resourceful and perhaps add a flair of mystery. But I don't think this game did any of those three. (NOTE: the game lets you skip the puzzle if you don't want to bash your head against it) ➖ [b]Very Tight Health Budget;[/b] This game is VERY stingy about giving you healing items. I’m guessing it’s supposed to balance out the possibility of running through areas and evading enemies? Regardless, I often find myself running with less than 20% HP and no healing items in sight. It's only towards the end that the game remembers we need healing items too and throws a bunch of them at you. In the meanwhile, the game constantly throws stamina and mind drugs at you that do nothing but take up space in your inventory. ➖ [b]Final Boss Sequence;[/b] I think I died a dozen times because of some silly technicality. This kind of thing doesn't play well to the "Horror" aspect of Survival Horror. ➖ [b]Saving[/b]; Saving in this game is weird. You don't get a save station until Chapter 2, and they remain scarce thorough the game. The game operates mostly on autosave. (Item Boxes are also tied to these locations!) [u]CONCLUSION:[/u] I can only choose thumbs up or down for a Steam review. While a number of aspects left something to be desired, I got an acceptable amount of fun from this game for $3. I can give it a thumbs up with that consideration.