Dread X Collection 4: The Hunt

This one is a very mixed bag. Some of the games are good, some are ok but rough. Uktena 64 is a fun time, and I enjoyed Black Relic and The Fruit. The others are fairly meh, save for Seraphixial, which just feels like a badly made asset flip type of game. The 'hub' world game is the worst of the bunch up to this point, not counting the first game, which barely had a hub world. The protagonist is obnoxious, constantly making marvel style quips and jokes, the traversal and navigation is slow as molasses, and the story uninteresting. For an example of how obnoxious the protag is, she has a literal hissy fit tantrum on her self recorder after listening to a recording she finds of her 'mother' or someone accidently 'dead names' her, in a setting with a literal mass infection pushing the human race to the edge. Yeah, very fitting and appropriate stuff. I can't remember the last time a game's dialogue made me roll my eyes, but this one managed it.

I’ve bought the bundle with all Dread X Collection Games in a sale for 90% off (or some value like that). So far, the collections have had pretty good games mixed with some bad ones, but 2 and 3 were overall pretty good experiences. 3 had Disparity of the Dead, a game I think everyone should try. So, what about this one? Just like the others, let’s give a score to each one of them, so they all can be reviewed (in the order I played): >The Fruit< 9/10 - This is the best game in this collection. I started with the best means that the collection will decline after this, but oh well. This game is very good, it has a good realistic art style that goes well with the story. The story is really good. The shooter elements of the gameplay are very nice with how you load the gun and the word puzzle like book thing is neat too. Voice acting was also really good, so was the soundtrack. This feels like a completed indie game project that I strongly recommend if you are interested in this collection. >The House of Unrest< 5/10 - This game is pretty weak to be honest. Combat is weak, the puzzles are fetch quests, the art style and graphics are nothing incredible, overall is just a mid game. The ending is a banger tho, really vibed with it. If it was less than a walking simulator with pointing and clicking to kill the enemies, it may be better. >Black Relic< 6/10 - This feels like a better version of House of Unrest, it has similar art style despite very different graphics, but it has a much better combat and story. This time the challenge is supposed to come from positioning yourself correctly and knowing how to navigate yourself with the tank controls to kill the enemies. It may be annoying if you can’t take older games (bad taste if this is the case tho, sorry not sorry) but I kinda liked it. I vibed with it. >Seraphixial< 4/10 - Very disappointed with this one. The art style and art design were very cool. I really liked the vibe of the scenery and enemies. The gameplay was pretty simple, nothing special. The story was generic, I saw the “plot twist” coming from miles away. But the horror was very bad, cheap jumpscare and basic creep vibes you find in tiktoks and instagram reels. I’m giving it 3 points purely from the art style, this is a 1/10 at best with worse art direction. >Uktena 64< 8/10 - I really liked this one. The 64 vibes were captured perfectly, the idea is very clever, the slow burn horror is effective. I think this matched more of the vibe of Dread X 3, but here is still a welcomed addition to the collection. I strongly recommend this one if you get the game, is a fun and creepy experience with a banger visual identity and solid gameplay. >Axis Mundi< 5/10 - This game would be a 6 if not for the unnecessary loud noise of the camera. Like, it’s really loud, holy hell. The combat is also okay, like not bad not good, I like the taking pictures to kill idea but that’s it. The puzzles were okay, the story was actually pretty good and touching despite being as simple as it can get. Overall not a bad game, if the sound was turned down, and more was improved, this could be a solid banger. >Rose of Meat< ???/10 - This is a surrealist game. I can’t comprehend these. I can’t understand surrealist media like ENA. I can’t give an opinion because I don’t know if this is good surrealism or not. If you don’t vibe with surrealism, you will not like this one. That being said, if you don’t like surrealism, you may not enjoy this one. Gameplay is very simple, I was able to beat it in 40 minutes or something. As for the horror… I don’t know if this is good surrealist horror, but as regular horror is not that scary. >Dread X: The Hunt Hub World (Abandoned Frozen Lab)< 6/10 - This time around, there are only 7 games in the collection, but the hub world acts like the 7th game. You don’t really have to finish any of the games to beat it, as they all give you codes for just opening them once. The hub world storyline is actually kinda good and so it’s the atmosphere for most of it. The ending tho is kinda where it all falls apart, seeing the monster take away all the horror as it was very weakly used and the design was also weak. Better than 3, worse than 2, I would rather have it than not like 1. >>>Final review<<< This one was a mixed bag. It was much shorter, 4 games less than usual. The lows were not as bad as previous bad games, but the highs don’t get near as high as the highs of 2 and 3 (besides Uktena and The Fruit, they deserved to be in a better collection. The fruit would be right at home at 2 and Uktena at 3). I don’t know, I think this may be the weakest this far (between 2 and 3, 1 can go die alone for all I care). Do I recommend this? Eh… If it’s on sale, a very big discount may be justified for Uktena and The Fruit. If you got with all the other in a bundle, just play Uktena and The Fruit.

Pretty good. The quality of games vary greatly in gameplay, visuals, and dialogue. Collection of 7 games set within a launcher(which is also a game with it's own story). You finish the games in the launcher in order to solve the mystery thereof. The ark 2 launcher game is a well written story, sometimes the voice acting feels like it lacks the emotional depth of the scene, but it's well written nonetheless. Gameplay revolves around inputting codes and retrieving samples. The ending sequence is pretty well done, and can be intense. I would rank the 'sub' games as follows. 1. Fruit (8/10) Genuinely a good game. The rifle is kinda worthless other than opening locks, but it gives room for some skill expression in the axe fighting department. Solve the mystery of Ravenholm and find your lover. 2. House of Unrest (7.5/10) Also good. You play a pistol wielding priest who needs to do an exorcism. 3. Seraphixial (7/10) Not sure how to describe this game, but it was fun. You get many guns, and kill many things. 4. Axis Mundi (7/10) Hunting ghosts with a camera is pretty fun. Also decently written lore behind each ghost that you hunt. 5. Uktena 64 (6/10) Cryptid hunting in a nutshell. The "CDC"(centre disease center) tasks you with killing and photographing infected animals. 6. Black Relic (5/10) This game made my eyes sore, but the gameplay was decent. [spoiler]Really bad ending imo[/spoiler]. Combat monk for the win. 7. Rose of Meat (1/10) Is this what an acid trip feels like? Nothing makes sense in this game.

It's better than Call of Duty: Ghosts.

гавно из жопы

This game is carried very hard by the top two games as they are the only ones who did something creative AND made sure the gameplay was still fun (looking at you rose of meat). i dont understand why 3 of these games all cover something to do with priests/witchcraft when there is a much wider range of topic that can be addressed within indie shooters. thats why uktena 64 and axis mundi are good. good games: uktena 64 axis mundi mid games: the fruit black relic house of unrest atrocious games: rose of meat Seraphixial Uktenta is extremely creative and similar in a way to games like chipwrecked 64 with their style while mixing in squirrel stapler esque gameplay. Axis mundi is a game where you take photos of ghosts to beat them while unravelling a nice little story about a musuem in sweden. These two games do make the game worth it in my opinion just barely edging out the bad from seraphixial and meat of rose. I can not begin to undestand the though process behind those games as they are just aboherantly terrible. meat of rose is especially disapointing as it starts of pretty cool but jesus it derails so hard due to the developer clearly not knowing how to map a cohesive level as random houses pop up and there is no distinct markers on the map leading you to just stumble around for 10 minutes. Seraphixial unironcially looks and plays like a game made as a project for a computer science class with a story just as bland to go with it. the Entire world is created in this ugly white and ugly pinkish tone with the layout being created out of basic unity shapes. how this game took the same time to make as uktena is a mystery that cannot be solved. the mid games are just really forgetable but overall get on a sale purely for the top 2 games, almost forgot about the hub world which is just really poorley executed based on its setting. the least scared i have ever been and the fetch quest asepect where you just walk for 5 minutes in between games is boring. overall 6/10

Hands up, I must admit I came for "Uktena 64" and I'm really sad to say that this collection was, for the most part, a swing and a miss. The only other game I can say I enjoyed was "Rose of Meat", its weird, psychedelic imagery is really appealing to me!... I can't say the same for the others, however, "Seraphixial" being the biggest offender in how shockingly weak/bad it was, especially when compared to "Uktena", or even the simply "okay" titles (like "Axis Mundi"), it just made me feel bad.