Meat Saw

"Meat Saw" is a low key asset flip, a bunch of other people's assets assembled badly to make a basic game. Typically this kind of thing is done by amateur developers without sufficient budget, talent and/or staff to do the job of game development professionally. It's then quickly rushed into Steam Direct. And, unsurprisingly, this never results in a product with any quality, interest, or value for gamers. Perhaps a genuine attempt to turn other people's assets into a real game, this suffers from the same problems that other asset flips do... The thing is, when developers don't budget properly and hire real artists, and lack the skill to do the rest of the job of a game developer and the result is deplorably bad quality junkware. "Meat Saw" proves this point perfectly. Much like a bunch of assets got ripped off, the developer also gleefully stole the theme of Texas Chainsaw Massacre to make a first person jumpscare kitbash. It's very badly assembled, with a crap AI for the enemy, and hidously, hamfistedly done "retro" screen filters that make the flipped assets look even worse. This is a non-starter and didn't really have much success as a game in terms of public reception. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. This is "free" enough (not every "free" game in the "free" section is truly free, there's usually some hidden price tag), at least you won't be expected to spend any more money after you download this, but just because something is free doesn't mean it's good, and the cost of a game is more than just financial, your time is valuable too. Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB shows this peaked at just a dozen or so concurrent players, and now there's basically nobody playing it. Even though it's free, that was a dismal public reception. But if you take into account the problems I bring up in this review, it's easy to see why gamers rejected it. Since free games don't contribute to your game collector badge and other profile stuff, is this a worthwhile addition to your Steam library? This is a hard pass. There's no immediate financial commitment, but there are thousands of more compelling games on the platform that will give you a lot more enjoyment for your time.