Escape: Sierra Leone

An intense game. This one will not be for everyone. Of my friends, and no cut on them, I can safely say it wont be a large number of them enjoying this. It is an EA I noticed sometime ago. Like most of us these days I try and watch a bit before I grab one. That doesnt always work out still, but every now and then.. yeah, it does. This is one I am glad at this point I grabbed. Even in the worse case scenario, its got enough going to make it worth the while now. But on that, the Dev is active ( yeah, also normal during the early days.. ) But! This Dev is not only acknowledging and commenting on bugs, and suggestions, he is working them. The record so far is " That is a great idea.. I am adding it " and it happens. " Wow, thats a bug I totally didnt think of.. " and its fixed. Plus he has been brutally honest. Its a one man show. He is working on this project. He does not have $$$$$ to use at once. But what he is doing, is using it wisely so far. So.. Far.. I stress that because looking over the information, the guy wants to make this game. He is making this game. He has not been distracted so far. Now onto the game. It is indeed a survival type game. But unlike that term thrown out so much of late, it really is getting about as close to the RL type of survival that has occured before. Sure, it is still a game, but it's one that hits close to being life like. To start. Our hero has no uber special talents. No magically acquired skills at building a full blown base / house / fortress. He doesnt know how to craft machineguns out of a pile of rocks and bubblegum. He is not a wonder ninja. He is just a guy who worked at trying to get by day to day, and was aware of the bad events going on in the RL Sierra at the time frame.. and was hoping to not see the storm of trouble come his way. But it did. The guy is just trying to walk home to fix his boat, and finds the war has come. Now here is where the RL intense stuff starts.. he has nothing. Zip. Nada. The only things he finds at first are what you might indeed find in RL. An ignored handgun, a few dropped magazines, some small food items.. etc. You get the idea. No one man army start. No map, no compass, no GPS etc. The only ' unusual ' skill our guy has... he can fly a heli. He only can do that because he was a very basic pilot for a tour company before. Doesnt help in the slightest tho' at first... since he has no access to a heli just sitting around. Now, survival. He has to eat, drink, rest, heal and watch his mental state. None of it is magical. If its not food he finds, he has to create it. He doesnt heal instantly from a bandage to a gunshot.. and getting shot hurts.. he staggers, falls.. fails to aim correctly. But so do the bad guys. On the badguys.. they are not some ' how the hell ' ones. They have a reason to be there, they are not uber soldiers, not amazing at what they do.. but if you approach a conflict like a normal game, you die. Simple. Run in like a guns blazing FPS hero... hope your save was not long ago. Because you are dead. Better figure a way to get by, or kill more of them before they gang up on you.. and they dont appear from thin air.. you get the jump on 4 and kill them. They are dead. You get the jump on 4 and forgot to find the guy on gaurd by the trees.. oops. Gameplay.. is hard. I looked in on Easy, and played on Normal. No way am I trying out the Hardcore yet. There is a pacifist mode.. which is geared to explore, survive. But honestly, I dont see that holding many peoples attention long. Sure it is all about living minus the rebels.. but there is not that much to craft yet.. and even then, its not a base building survival game. Its a build to survive to get the hell away game. But that mode is great for learning some of the trickier things.. like INVENTORY. Inventory. Its tricky at first. Its ' kind of ' realistic in limits. You can only carry so much, which is handled in management vs bulk. You can add to that amount and transport things for storage etc with extra things like an ammo can... but you have to sacrifice a hand.. The inventory is a bit tricky to learn to use also tho'. For example, to use the ammo can you have to hold it. then press fire. Not really complex.. but no documents about it yet. Crafting. Its pretty basic. But so far only in the scope of realistic on what you can make. You can make your common mans items. Molotov / food / clean weapons / break things apart. No uber bases or auto cannons... He can hunt, find fruit and food left, make a rain catcher ( he cant boil water yet, tho' he can cook. Boiling is coming ) Graphics are not bad at all.. the jungle is thick.. and while a great way to try and sneak around, the enemy cant see you. But you cant see them either. Step out of the dense bush, and dont be shocked to surprise a group standing around. Unreal 4 is the engine at work BTW Now on the gameplay. Totally open. As in really and truly open. Do what you want. No maps. No quest target arrows. You are simply trying to either escape the conflict and no one is guiding you on how to do it. Or you are simply trying to get by and live as long as you can .. Also with no help from the game, quest etc. Your HUD is not there. Yep. No HUD. Which is good. You have to know how many rounds are in your weapon. You have to know what direction you were facing. You dont know how to read a map? Better figure it out. Plus you better find one. You dont start with that. How many of us walk around with a map and a compass of our state in our purse / pocket? So yes. I am loving this concept. Even at this state of EA, missing things, and not being complete. Its worth it to me. Will this be a much loved game? Doubtful. But not because of the game being bad. Simply because this game is saying.. I am not a game of FPS. I am a sadistic journey into how much life can suck if you decide to buck the RL type situation and play one man hero. I will kill you. Often. I am liking it. ( Saves can only be done in found safe houses / shacks at this time. Death does go back to last save. So its not perma death.. )

This game needs serious work. 5 hours in I've seen one enemy very early in game, who I killed with a knife. It's says this is realistic, it has never stopped raining, I died of dehydration. Lots of empty bottles available you can't fill them with rainwater, a cooking pot does not fill up.? You pick certain things up, you drop your weapon and can't pick it up again. The whole inventory system is just hard work. when you do pick something up you then need to go into the inventory to find out what you've got. I have one item, I still don't know what it is. If you're expecting crafting forget it. I'll keep this in the hopes it will improve but knowing what I know now I wouldn't have bought this for the price.

It's like they said in the game info, this place is hugen very huge, trying to take out enemies you find on your path is not so easy, the AI is smart and knows when to take a step back and hide till u arrive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cygpGHWRLM

One of the best games I have played in years... Escape: Sierra Leone is a tough game in its own way, the AI is accurate and deadly, Balistics are well simulated, food and water are scarce, the protagonist is Joe Average with no special skills or a gift of divine destiny. What makes this special is that it puts you the player into a mess of trouble where you and your actions really make the success or break it. Stealth is the order of business and a gung ho frontal assault is not going to get you much but a bullet in your gizzard, however in the right moment with luck and surprise on your side it might be just the thing needed to move forward. Be warned, realism is a pain in the rear. You can carry about a dozen items and will have to make some hard choices about what to take and what to leave behind as you travel. I guess the best I can do is list some pros and cons and let you decide for yourself whether this game is your flavor. PROS: Smooth graphics immersive environment simple controls (though see below in cons for some comments) interesting crafting as well as hunting and fishing challenging but attainable goals Developer is VERY active and interactive, take constructive criticism well and CARES about the game and players. Open world / sandbox that does not hold your hand or give you beacon style goals. CONS: Inventory system: The inventory can be frustrating in that unless you follow a very precise sequence of action you will constantly be tossing items on the floor as you attempt to switch items. While most games have an 'auto rotation' that automatically puts away one item when switched for another, this game does not really work that way. Sometimes small items will rotate into the pack sometime not (and the when or why is not very clear). The inventory has slots for roughly a dozen small items (backpack) and then a single large slot (hands) that is your ONLY hot slot. What I mean is that it represents what you are carrying in your hands and while you have two items available in this large slot (one holstered and one active / in hand) they may be a combo of large items like rifles and a small item like a pistol. If you have in your hot slot two 'large weapons' (rifles, ammo boxes for extra items, shotguns, fishing rod, sleepingbag etc) and you pick up an item or rotate something out of your pack that is classed as a weapon you will toss the in hand item on the ground. many times I had my pistol in hand (fits in my back pack) and my rifle holstered yet when I picked up an item it did not put my pistol in my pack, it tossed it on the floor. I could then pick up the pistol from the floor and it went directly into my backpack.... there is a key to drop items but no key I could find to put something from your hands back into your packnor can you drag and drop from the hand slot to a pack slot. Lets say I have a pistol in my backpack, a rifle in my hands and no second item in my hot slot / hands. If I decide I want to use the pistol I must open my inventory, then 'holster' my rifle, select the pistol in my backpack and thenchoose 'use'. This moves the pistol into my hand. No problem, now I can use my mouse wheel while in play to switch between the rifle and pistol. However when I open the inventory, the item that shows in my 'hand slot' is the holstered item, not the active item. This is counterintuitive and can lead to confusion. Furthermore it is not uncommon to pick up a weapon only to have the weapon in your hands thrown on the floor even though it would fit in your back pack (proven by the fact that one can immediately pick the item up and have it go directly into one's pack). Frankly after 8 hours of play this confusing pack - floor - hands system had me frustrated as heck. The interface needs two hot slots / hand slots, one that is highlighted as the active item and one for the holstered item, in addition it needs to allow a drag and drop movement between slots. This said, I would still concider this one of the greatest games I have ever played.

Wasn't a fan at first, just because it looked like your typical janky survival game. I planned on refunding it due to the price point being a bit steep with where its at (version0.5.10). But actually taking some time with it, im starting to really enjoy this game. Reminds me of a more hardcore Far Cry 3. For now the survival aspect seems a bit too easy with safe houses containing everything you need, atleast on the normal difficulty. With that said you can always play on hardcore which I dont dare to play yet, due to the firefights being pretty intense with even just one enemy. You have to be aware of your surroundings at all times, one screw up and thats it, you go back to your last saved location. My favorite feature of this game so far has to be the gun play mixed with the true first person camera, it feels great. Overall a pretty intense/stressful survival game with realistic aspects, definitely keep your eye on this one.

[h1]Escape: Sierra Leone[/h1] [i]Abysmal performance , sluggish controls , poor animations , bad AI ...( in short it tries to be a poor man's Far Cry 2 clone with no success )...refund ![/i]

This game has a long way to go BUT it is not bad in its current form. Little things like the picking up mechanic are wonky as well as some others. Somethings I found great about the game are . . . - Movement as decent. Did not feel clunky - Scenery in game is beautiful - Combat isnt horrible Now for the things I found bad/annoying - Picking up feature isnt great. Takes a few taps to get things to pick up - When changing key bindings, my game stopped working and I could not start a game. Had to quit out and restart. - When the character is tired (which is always) he breathes heavy which is annoying. All you can hear is him breathing. - Picking up things while things are equipped is awful. You cant really switch things out - Couldn't figure out how to unequip my gun. Just little things like that are annoying but can easily be worked out. Again, I only played for about 30 minutes so I could just of not spent enough time with the controls. If you're interested in seeing the first half hour of the game here is some gameplay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuPPxd04SVM

Well I played the game for a short period of time and I am requesting a refund. Graphics are just ok. Frames are low under 30. Far to much thick vegatation. I have people shooting me that I can even see!!! Sounded like a great concept but I can justify payment $15 for it.

The game is not finished and the developer say that probably won't be finished. Fair enough: the game is raw, with a terrible combat mechanic and essentially a HUGE void (with plenty of grass) and... ok, it's simply unfinished. Don't waste your money, this is a straight 3 on 10...

not happy with this game i play alot of survival games and this is just not made the way i figured it would. i play stranded deep, rust, 7 days. its just nothing like them its a direct game that i just dont like. but thats me others really love this game so maybe give it a try and you might.