SCP: Fragmented Minds

Recommended, with reservations. I like this game a lot so far, and it's come a LONG way since the first early release. That said, to any game developer: Checkpoints or any lack of ability to save the game when I want is a showstopper for me. If I have to go back and replay the last 10, 15, 30 minutes because of some BS game mechanic, you can go to hell. I just quit the game and will likely not come back to it because of this checkpoint BS. "Save stations" are infuriating. If you can implement those, you can trigger the same behavior with a keybind. F5 and F9 are the standard quick save/load combination, and a save option in the pause menu is standard. Please implement it before 1.0 release. TL;DR: Voluntary game saves don't exist. Wait to buy if that's an issue for you.

I... genuinely do not know what to think of this game. The production values are somewhere firmly between Black Mesa and Hunt Down the Freeman. Voice acting is amateurish and character voices more clearly put-on in some cases than others, but it generally suffices. It's then dragged down much farther than it otherwise would be by [i]extremely[/i] oddly-timed animations that were clearly done by a different person/team with minimal coordination. One of the first things you encounter is a touchscreen with a small series of touristy backstory beats about the facility, followed by a button that opens up a nice scenic view... and begins playing an audio recording of all the text you just finished reading. One of the first tutorials you get is on using fire extinguishers; they can be thrown, dropped, or primed to explode. You then immediately get a fire-based puzzle that has nothing to do with fire extinguishers. While you're still looking around for something to test drive an extinguisher on, you'll get a new tool that briefly opens doors if you zap specialized control panels, and most likely drop the fire extinguisher in the process. (There's nothing to use it on anyway). Turns out, if you DO manage to lug an extinguisher into a combat encounter, enemies won't react to it and it does nothing. I rigged one to explode right in one's face as my opening gambit and it didn't even react to the noise, much less blow my cover. Oh, and you can also largely forget about that zappy tool after using it to open all of two doors. It can allegedly be used to stun stuff but if you do manage to zap an enemy with it, literally all it does is trigger an audio clip. It can (sometimes, if the planets align) ignite conspicuously placed small explosive canisters (you will never be told this) but the canister explosions also appear to have no effect on enemies. The first (and only) enemies you will encounter for the first few hours of the game are generic brand Temu Velociraptors, which is kind of an underwhelming first foot forward for an SCP game. There's also a goop that whispers at you but insofar it's done nothing else. Your PDA comes with a function to scan SCP's for lorebook entries that are only available to read on your PDA in realtime as you're actively creeping around scanning those SCP's. (You will also never be told it has this function.) You will be collecting untold mountains of crafting materials for literal hours before you find your first crafting station, a fair ways from the last save point and immediately prior to an enemy encounter. It will only allow you to craft 3 of [Item A] and 3 of [Item B] into 1 of [Item C], all of which you likely already have a substantive supply. You then get a blueprint for your first melee weapon seconds after a scripted sequence wherein you acquire said melee weapon without needing to craft it, and it does not appear to have a durability limitation. There are literal [i]dozens[/i] of skill tree nodes, and a skill tree in general, that have not yet been brought up and at present given some of the other oddities I've been dealing with I'm almost inclined to think the entire system is simply an elaborate joke menu. Graphics and set design could almost pass for a more upscale production, though there are weird issues with shadows blinking in and out of existence in places even on higher qualities, and performance has regular, very irritating hitches. Mousewheel and 1-9 do nothing; everything you can equip has to be done via the radial that displays with MMB. The one unconditional praise I will offer this game is that it has genuinely remarkable ambient sound design. Otherworldly, creepy, seems to call upon sonal qualities I've never heard before; it sets the vibe ten times better than the environment or creatures have so far, and I genuinely hope to see whoever workred on that flourish with future projects. Given enough time treading through the drudgery of the opening hours, perhaps I'll find enough to like to flip my review, but insofar it's overall simply been an extremely plodding, semi-functional, generic horror game which has yet to creep me out with anything besides its sound design. I respect what is likely a disproportionately high-production-value effort for a tiny team, but frankly I found Containment Breach more engaging back in the day when that was a singleplayer game with all of three SCP's to interact with and no ending implemented.