Hell is Us

Without a doubt, "Hell Is Us" is one of the most unique games I have played this year - maybe one of the most unique games I have played in a few years. From the onset, it makes a bold statement: "We're not going to give you any guidance. There's no quest log (though, there is a tracker), there's no objective markers, and there's no map (though, it really could've used one)." That's not just a "Hardcore" difficulty choice, either - that's a core concept of the game. In fact, items in the game require the player to either "Archive" or "Favorite" them with no indication if the item is no longer useful or not (it is a bit inconsistent with that; keys will automatically vanish when they are used). To the team's credit, by making that claim at the start, they make it clear that I needed to pay attention and, for the first 20 or so hours, I was. But this game is longer than I think it needs to be... and it wears its message on its sleeve (and gets to be a bit too preachy about it). The game itself is a strange combination of Souls-style combat, point-and-click adventure, exploration, and (mostly understandable) puzzles. It is a game that demands your full attention. I played it exclusively until I was done. The idea that I might play something else meant that I would, ultimately, forget what I was supposed to be doing. And even then, I still did. The levels are labyrinthine and connect on themselves which can make exploration fun (though, you'll spend so much time wishing you could jump). Ultimately, I enjoyed the game. I thought the story was really interesting, I enjoyed the combat (even if the enemy types are very limited and repetitive), and I rather enjoyed the scale of the game. I would like to see a "Hell Is Us 2". I would want them to keep some facets of the "You are on your own, figuring this out," but give me tools - in-game - to manage the mysteries on their own. And a map.

Смешанные впечатления, но все-же скорее да, чем нет. Главное достоинство игры - глубокий и продуманный лор, в котором реально интересно копаться. Он же и чуть ли не главный минус - никакой кинематографичности, драммы, личного конфликта и интриги - лишь сухие факты и обрывочные записки, которые, конечно, если собрать их все сложатся в крайне интересную журналистскую статью вашего ассистента, но покуда обычный игрок до них доберется... Что в итоге отсеет первую половину игроков, а вторая отвалится по геймплейным причинам. Боевая система имеет неплохую задумку, но раскрыта очень слабо. На высоком уровне сложности противники достаточно быстро перестают представлять какой-либо челендж. Боссов игре реально не хватает, ибо, к сожалению, механически 5 видов болванчиков очень быстро приедаются, интересных комбинаций и ситуаций с ними мало, а так хоть какие-то боссы или мини-боссы пошли бы разнообразию на пользу. Загадки - соу-соу. Есть прикольные, есть тупые. Бэктрекинг. Я вцелом не против него, но конкретно в этой игре... Мудохать назад по опустевшим локациям прийдется заведомо часто и долго. Утомительно. Вобщем, неплохая игрушка. Со своими плюсами и минусами. не громкий трипл-А, претендующий на игру года, но крепкий середняк.

The overall mood and story is I think quite original and interesting. From the reviews I have read (here, at Steam) the most often mentioned negative comments seem to be with the lack of variation of the ghost monsters/spirits. I am baffled why the lack of "variety" is such a negative point. Though the overall types might not be numerous, the way they are used (often in various group sizes, and dispersions) was (is) fine, for me. Most of all I am just so happy to be able to play this game on my old (but still fine) big screen iMac. Thanks to GeForce NOW and decent internet service, the game runs great and looks good, too. If anyone is hesitant to buy based on the (not so many, I think) negative reviews, usually connected with the lack of "variety" in monster types, I suggest buying it on sale. A good deal, a very good one imo.

24 Hours and 100% Achievements — A Solid 7/10 Hell Is Us is an amazing game. The game has an amazing story and excellent world-building that dives deep into some of the darkest and cruelest parts of human nature. Hadea is a fascinating and believable place that really comes together as you explore it. The world constantly made me curious about what was around the next corner, and I genuinely wanted to dig deeper and uncover everything. Even though the main character often feels more like an observer to the events happening around him, the story does a good job of explaining why the ongoing war doesn't directly interact with you. However, this also feels like a limitation of the game's design. People will often just stand around for interaction purposes and only "move" when you're no longer looking, when you're in another region, or when you're somewhere else on the map. It creates the illusion that the world is changing, and there are some nice touches because of it. Seeing people you've helped later on, safely hiding somewhere and offering new dialogue, is genuinely satisfying. At the same time, there were plenty of moments where I felt like I should have been able to interact with the world more directly. For example, why does the game prioritize having you deliver sheet music to a musician over saving a priest who is being tortured? The priest is eventually saved more or less through sheer luck, because he's the only survivor later in the game when you encounter him again and rescue him from the monsters. It's not necessarily bad, but it felt strange. Story and Character One of the things the game does extremely well is show, don't tell. It uses the player's actions and observations to give you a deeper understanding of the main character and his mentality. Very early on, you are saved from a monster by another person. Instead of checking whether she's alive, talking to her, or doing anything particularly human, your character strips her of her clothes and equipment, loots her, and leaves her behind. Maybe she was already dead. The game doesn't tell you. At first, this scene is simply bizarre. But as you learn more about the main character and his background, it starts to make much more sense. He's essentially a sociopath who has an extremely difficult time feeling anything at all. That context completely changes how you perceive his actions and gives you a much better understanding of why he behaves the way he does. The story continues to build on this as the stakes become larger and the events become more personal, but I won't go into spoilers. Exploration and Puzzle Solving At its core, Hell Is Us is an exploration and puzzle-solving game. You piece together a massive amount of clues, hints, locations, characters, and information to figure out where to go and what to do next. The game really doesn't hold your hand. You have a PDA that stores all the information you've discovered, but figuring out how everything connects is entirely up to you. Where you need to go, what you need to look for, and even where certain items—like the Snake Token figurine—belong are things you have to figure out yourself. Some of the puzzles were downright inspiring. They genuinely forced me to keep multiple pieces of information in my head and connect them together. I won't deny that I eventually had to look up a hint for a few of them, but that's on me rather than the game. Overall, I think the puzzle design is one of the game's strongest aspects. Exploration is also excellent. You're given a lot of freedom to travel around, and the different locations are visually distinct and memorable. Towards the later parts of the game, some areas are downright inspiring. There were moments where I had to stop and simply look around, taking in how dark, twisted, and disturbing the environment was and trying to understand what had happened there. Unfortunately, exploration also has one of my biggest frustrations with the game: artificial restrictions. You'll sometimes see an item sitting somewhere that you very obviously should be able to reach, only to find yourself blocked by a knee-high wooden fence. Instead, you have to travel up a ridge, enter a cave, find a key, open a door, walk out onto a cliff, drop down, and finally reach the item from the other side. This works fine when the environment is deliberately designed around it, but there are plenty of moments where it makes you question the game's logic. You can slice through monsters, but apparently a small rock, cliff, or knee-high fence is an insurmountable obstacle. It never became bad enough to discourage me from exploring, but it definitely raised a few eyebrows. Combat The final major part of the game is combat. It has a very Souls-like feel, with traditional lock-on, third-person hack-and-slash combat. You can attack, perform charged attacks, dodge, block, parry, and execute enemies after stunning or parrying them. There are four different weapon types, and each weapon can be reforged with one of four emotions: Hatred, Terror, Ecstasy, and Grief. These essentially function as elemental upgrades, with each emotion providing its own type of damage. I really like how the emotions are incorporated into the game's story and themes rather than simply being treated as generic elements. Unfortunately, combat is also where the game falls short. There are only five basic enemy types, which are reused extensively throughout the game. You encounter Tier 1–3 versions, with higher tiers gaining more health and additional attacks. Enemies can also be connected by an umbilical cord to an emotion-based spirit associated with one of the four emotions. These spirits also have different tiers and behaviors, which technically creates more enemy variations. However, the game never really gives you a reason to adapt your combat strategy. Very early on, I discovered that I could simply max out one weapon with Hatred and unlock the corresponding elite abilities. After that, almost everything in the game—apart from the elite enemies in the final boss area—could be killed in just a few swings. And that's a shame, because there is clearly a good foundation here. There are artifacts, both active and passive, as well as equipment with bonuses such as health regeneration or increased defense. These systems add some additional depth, but ultimately it still feels fairly shallow. The game even gives you options to enable enemy respawns and essentially turn the experience into more of a Souls-like game. Unfortunately, because the combat itself isn't deep enough to support that kind of experience, it mostly adds frustration rather than enjoyment. 100% Achievements I also completed 100% of the achievements, because I really wanted to see and experience everything the game had to offer. That came with its own set of frustrations. For example, I don't understand why you sometimes have to hunt down every single spawned enemy in an area, even after killing the Guardians and closing a time loop. From a gameplay perspective, it would have been much more satisfying if closing a time loop simply cleared the remaining enemies. However, I understand that doing so might create lore implications that conflict with things you see later in the game. The bigger frustration was clearing an entire area, reaching a time loop, and discovering that you don't have the correct item to close that particular version of it. You then have to leave, find the required item somewhere else, come back, and potentially kill all the enemies again. The tracking system doesn't help much either. The item you're given to track things only provides a general direction rather than telling you exactly where the objective is. That means a lot of these situations become exercises in remembering where you've already been. Again, none of this is game-breaking, but it can be frustrating when you're trying to 100% everything.

fuego

9.8 пустотелых на каждом метре из 10

игра с огромным количеством болячек но они все меркнут перед божественной историей и миром игры

Playing this game was a fantastic experience. The graphics, the soundtrack, the story, the combat system, and the upgrade mechanics—combined with the fact that there is no map or quest markers, requiring you to speak with every NPC to learn more about the world of Hadia—meant I enjoyed it right to the very end. I only wish it had been longer.

Most astounding part of the game is its storytelling in the place of known and foreign. Rich lore is unraveling in familiar rural or urban streets and woods devastated by human tragedies, which are communicated with rather complex approach then by some simplified moral outputs known from mainstream games. Gains from good deeds are not transcribed in credit or experience scales, but are working in bigger sense of understanding horrible conditions of civil war and empathy. You are mostly observer, just like UN soldiers and you cant bring justice based on your moral codex. Your participation begins in uncovering mystery which runs besides all of these situations. All of these secrets and cultural themes are prepared for you to research on your own, without direct help. Searching for answers moves on nonlinear route and is not stressed by resources management or other survival mechanics. Game respects your time and taste for exploring Hadea country.