Hell is Us

ничего не понятно, ты шерлок без смартфона, твой ватсон бабка, очень плохой бектрекинг, он очень интересно.

Great game!

The game is interesting. But if you are the type of person who gets easily frustrated cause you don't know where to go or to do. Then it's not the game for you. The game will not guide you or help you do what's next. You are on your own.

Great atmosphere, interesting setting and story, looks excellent, music is awesome, feels good in the hands and really enjoyed how it makes you pay attention with minimal handholding and no quest markers etc. Combat gets repetitive, but this is something a bit different and really enjoyed the 20 or so hours I spent with it.

Very complex and difficult game. Especially if you don't like reading and figuring things out. But well made and after 16 hours i'm still interested in continuing so that's good. Made it to Lake Cynon, the fourth area in the game. I must admit that without maps (there are non in game) and guides/walkthroughs, i would've given up before. Know that before going in. Some complain about the enemy variation but that doesn't bother me. I'm playing on easy and they're fairly easy to finish offand the drone attacks are fun so i can further my exploring of the world, which is what makes this game worthwhile for me.

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.

Whilst I recommend this game because I actually enjoyed it, I am actually divided and I am not entirely sure why I liked it at all. All in all its attractive, gritty and generally plays well. The puzzles are very clever so if you aren't used to something like Divinity Original Sin where you are given no help at all then don't go in for this. The answer to a puzzle may not come for another hour, or at all because you missed a random item or didn't realise the answer was buried in a note or newspaper etc... The combat is ok, once you get the hang of it, especially the recovery mechanism, you can trivialise it if you're experienced with stuff like Elden Ring and expect something like that here. Now for my criticism. Stability. Damned thing kept crashing randomly due to GPU timeout. Not sure why, but capping FPS seemed to work. Backtracking. Whilst I don't mind at all, the running speed is obnoxious and the layout of maps were, rather than feeling good, often felt exactly like the sort of ad hoc crap youd expect from someone wanting to stretch something out as long as possible rather than actually fill the game with more. This next part contains spoilers. Be warned. The story eventually pissed me off massively because the ending was ♥♥♥♥♥. Essentially, they do well in creating mystery and do well in terms of setting the war torn location etc... but that's it, you get bugger all in the end and as such you only realise how shallow it all is once you hit the end, meaning that, if you took the time to read the "lore" you come away from it that despite the pretence of depth this was no deeper a treatise into human nature than Greta Thunbergs understanding of anything. The whole thing reads like a teenagers perception of the themes. It had so much potential. But essentially.... war bad, religion bad, division bad and beyond the rudimentary world building that serves this message with lore that tries to give illusion of depth and time and historicity there is literally nothing inside this egg. So I guess I like it because of what it promised. I hate it because it delivered nothing of substance at all in the final analysis.