PARKSIDE: DECAYED SOUL MANIPULATION

This game just released and its underrated. This should be in every fan of Cruelty Squad and the like's library. The game runs great, the story is engaging, the combat has so much going for it, and it's a solid challenge. I love an immersive sim that gives you ACTUAL AGENCY in how you complete a level! Heaps of content for the price. If you like ImSims or think this looks interesting to you (and don't mind a challenge), this is an easy recommend.

Despite how much clear love and passion went into this game, I think there are two conflicting issues which ultimately make it so that I can't convince myself to spend any more time playing this game (right now). 1. Parkside offers such a breadth of options in how to engage your objectives and that is exactly what you want from an im-sim like this. Unfortunately, though im-sims thrive on interconnected systems, they can easily be broken by them. The Police AI always treacherously leads back to the player, it seems. Crimes will occur and if you are nearby, good luck buddy. You can be assaulted by crackheads, jumping at you from an alley and the cops will go on alert and shoot YOU. This seems to be a casualty of interconnected systems which functionally render a large portion of the aformentioned 'breadth of options' moot because you cannot be consistently stealthy with the police ai. You can execute your plans flawlessly, but one alleyside crackhead and your cover is completely blown for the rest of the level. This would not be such a deal breaker, if you did not have only one save per level. 2. You get one save per level and this save is actually an extra life. This is crucial because, looking back at point one, if you have already alerted the police, your extra life does not rectify this. The game design and story genuinely benefit from the current save system. HOWEVER, the nature of the current police AI makes it so the current save system invalidates stealthy play... unless you are fine playing the same 60-90 hour level over and over again, variably failing around 30-50 minutes mark and restarting. It seems to me that the incredible game design and current technical state of the game are incongruous. For the current save system to be rewarding, the game needs to be in a better technical state. However, this project in of itself is a single man endeavor and a true achievement at that. Expecting perfection of the developer in that regard is unrealistic of players, so then maybe expecting players to abide by the current save system in lack of that perfection is unrealistic as well of the developer. I think the simple solution is to allow for an option for quicksaves, a single slot would even do. Maybe it makes it so you don't get the true ending, or the achievement for the true ending. I will gladly change my review when the technical state or save situation changes because I truly want to play this game, I just can't waste more of my day off.

[b]Message to the dev:[/b] I'm sure you've heard peoples complaints about the save system and rolled your eyes. But these complaints are completely understandable, even if they aren't the intended way to play the game. So here is a middle ground. Instead of adding unrestricted saving by default, I think an optional approach would work better. I understand why you went with the drink system. After playing for a bit, it actually makes sense. From the outside though, when I first saw people mentioning it, I thought it sounded like a dumb idea. But once I experienced how it's implemented, it's actually a pretty clever mechanic and how it is incorporated with the story. My suggestion would be to do what Gloomwood (another great immersive sim) did and add an optional quicksave or manual save setting that players can enable if they want the ability to save whenever they like. That way, players who enjoy the current system can keep it, while those who prefer unrestricted saving have the option without changing the intended experience for everyone.

Can already tell by the physics-based interactive system + the general open-ended nature of the world that this is gunna be a banger, keep doing what you're doing dev.

It's like Deus Ex mixed with Cruelty Squad and a dash of goldeneye with the perfect amount of jank. Actually a very impressive game.

If Deus Ex and Cruetly Squad had a baby Really all this game needs is a Stock Market and/or a sort of "Freeplay" where you replay missions to get more cash and items you diddnt find - can be wrapped up in the lore as a "Side Mission" - no divine elixir just - "Head into a previous area and find a randomly put there target with no deeper lore relevance"

Wow, a new game on Steam that isn't an incremental, roguelike, gooner, work-simulator? It's and imsim that isn't in early access? Surely it's asset flipped AI filled trash. Nope. All of the things you hate about the indie gaming scene aren't here. This is a classic imsim in the Deus Ex tradition, with a little bit of Cruelty Squad esque hyper-dystopia thrown in for good measure. I realized this game was really something special when the game let me lock pick a car...then I was in the driver seat. There is no reason to drive a car whatsoever, the levels are not made for it, but you can just do it because it's fun and awesome. Crashing into people in this game is IMMENSELY fun, glass goes flying everywhere, NPCs ragdoll and shoot gibs all over the place. As far as I can tell the game works completely as intended and I would consider this a 1.0 release. I've heard some other people having some graphical issues but I haven't experienced any of these myself. That being said I'll use this to transition into the couple of little issues that I'd love to see addressed in the future. There's no real advanced graphical settings, you can turn off bloom, and vsync, and that's about it. I mean the game should be able to run on a potato with a CPU duct taped to it, so you shouldn't NEED to tweak the settings that much. It's always nice to have that option though, I typically don't like any kind of filter settings that make games looked washed out or grainy, and it looks like there might be a very minor grain filter or something along those lines that I would prefer if I could turn off. Continuing with graphical things, swimming is awful visually. There is a pretty major "strobe" type effect when you're in water that isn't pleasant whatsoever, and I'm sure would make playing the game with epilepsy pretty difficult. There is a warning for this at the beginning of the game, so clearly the dev is aware that it's pretty intense. In terms of actual gameplay glitches what I've seen so far is pretty mild. I used an EMP grenade on the camera in the back of the electronics store in the second level, and it didn't seem like it did anything. Maybe I overestimated the range on it, but, I definitely feel like EMPs should have a more forgiving range if that was the case. Probably the biggest "issue" I've seen is the leaning in game. First of all by default it's bound to CTRL and ALT, which is weird but I could get used it. The problem however is not the bindings, it's the fact that it's completely bugged and broken. I can't tell if when you "lean" your character is actually tilting their head or if they're just stepping over to the side. It feels like your whole character model is shifted in the direction you pressed. If your whole character is being shifted it kinda completely destroys the point of leaning- where the point is to stick as little of your body out of cover as possible as to either stay hidden or keep in cover from gunfire. You could still use this for stealth, if your whole body shifted to one direction, then you unpressed the button-and your body would go back to it's initial position. None of this happens, in fact it gets so screwy sometimes right lean will make you "lean" left and then when you unpress the button your body doesn't move back to it's initial position, you pressed left lean and all you did was take a step to the right. It seems like sometimes it works as intended, but the more you press the lean buttons the more screwed up it gets. I know all of that was probably very confusing to read, I ensure you It was very confusing to write. It actually makes sense to make the bindings CTRL and ALT, that way they're far away and you won't bother touching them haha. If you're a fan of Deus Ex or immersive sims in general you'd be doing yourself a great disservice for not pay the $15 for this game. It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome, throw an exploding robot dog at some crackheads and then run the cops over with a car when they get pissed.