I expected literally nothing, but actually there is something to that combat system, it feels like a combination of GTA and Syphon Filter with some lite stealth elements. The perspective from third person allows you to do various melee moves, crouching for better aim, rolling, sliding, cover gameplay, headshots, stealth grabs, and things of that nature, so actually a nice flexible system, there are similar games, but usually not with all of these together. It's very snappy, like you kill everyone very fast, and they kill you fast as well, almost a bit arcade-like.
If you had just the Casino stage as a stand alone demo, honestly I would be like great, easy recommendation, but with the whole city hub navigation in the car, I felt like maybe it did more bad than good, just because those parts are not as polished or useful. I didn't mind the narrative too much, it's nice that you have a few different endings, it's a little funny, and I assume you did custom models for the game? It's a shame because I think watching the trailer or looking at the game icon you might assume it's just a junk game, but honestly, with a better presentation and polish, maybe not that bad.
In retrospect, you probably should not have made the city hub and just went with the arcade format to select levels, granted I assume you are too deep now to remove it because of the ending and such. Aside from optimization, maybe you could try adding a few fun features for the map such as maybe a character skin store, car skin store, arena mode, car radio for the soundtrack, and also maybe having some people hanging around, just so it does not feel like empty city asset. You could even have some funny side quests with some characters, maybe buy a pizza for a homeless person, just have something so that hub is not useless.
On a side note, I am a bit confused by "Yes. The price will be lower during Early Access to reward early supporters". So is everyone playing now getting a free version, or did you mess up something publishing a game because I never see people go Free to Play into the game that will cost something. Is this a demo? Or are you actually getting a full game later by playing it now which is what it sounds like.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) Strangely enough the combat system is very neat, and has a lot of potential, although I do think it could be improved further.
(+) Has a few endings, I mildly enjoyed the retro models and character dialogue.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u] Some ideas on improving the hub area / car riding [/u] - add a visible radio button for game's soundtrack maybe? With a way to switch music :). I think you have 2 different buttons for entering the car, which makes it unclear how to exit. You could try adding some friendly pedestrians just chilling around so the place looks a bit alive, maybe even a few simple side quests. You could add a few stores to spend money on, maybe a character or a car skin store, perhaps even with some bonuses to stats, such as running speed or something.
Now, you could also completely scrap the city part, and just do like "level select" arcade style, which honestly is not a terrible idea, but it feels like you already kinda deep into coding it, so not sure if it would be worth it. So either that, or make the city better.
[u] Combat [/u] - the hitbox on the flying kick seems really bad, it's too easy to miss even in close range, also maybe give it a nice ragdoll effect with insta kill, send the enemy flying :). Using melee is a bit weird because if you running you will get a kick, but it would be nice to be able to use both.
It would be very cool if you could aim/shoot while sliding.
One thing I didn't like is that it's too easy to kill a group of enemies from the distance without triggering the aggro of the enemies in their proximity. I think like if 3 enemies are close together and one of them dies, the other 2 should try to close the distance, so like having a 10 meter aggro range from the kill, just so they don't stand like targets.
[u] A few random things [/u] - maybe replace your game/store icon with one of those retro characters from the game, I think it would look better. I assume it's not AI but honestly it looks like it could be so it could deter players from trying the game, even though the game has some nice aspects to it. You could maybe improve the UI elements a bit so they not just plain grey boxes.
The Casino was a nice level but the surfaces were too dark, can you make them more neon with higher contrast, the purple parts and such.
It seems the game does not need the GPU that you listed for minimum, but there seems to be some optimization issues that don't actually affect the game, like the game seems to use more GPU than it needs, not sure if that is helpful, the city part specifically.
[b] Overall Thoughts: EA 9/22/2025 [/b]
The combat levels by themselves would have made a nice little game, but with the whole city hub the game maybe feels worse than it should be. So I would say maybe try to improve that aspect of the game a little visually, add a car radio, add some random people chilling around, maybe a few stores for character skins or something, perhaps less aggressive car collisions. Either that or add arcade mode in addition to the campaign mode so people don't have to play it perhaps, just a level select area. The game gives off a bad impression, but the combat specifically could be made into something interesting.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
