Ghost Watchers Review (Nuzzgard)
There are many passionate Developers, and good, well thought out games in this genre. Ghost Watchers is NOT one of those. The blind praise this game is getting is concerning - and judging from many reviews, people are clearly desperate for another "Phasmophobia". A large portion of said reviews speaks volumes about the maturity of this game's audience.
For reference, the Developers have claimed this game has been worked on for about a year with 10 people working on the game. Let's go over the main aspects.
- Repetitive gameplay - there is no originality or depth, with a very simple gameplay loop that does not take long to learn. It feels very similar to the launch of Ghost Exorcism Inc - you can stand at the front door and collect all of the evidence, eliminating the need to even engage with the intended gameplay mechanics.
- Questionable gameplay decisions - for example the dragging mechanic is poorly thought out; what was thought process behind this? What does it add gameplay-wise? (Spoiler: Nothing) It gets very repetitive having player control removed several times per mission and quickly becomes an annoyance.
- There was no gameplay shown before launch (and I can certainly see why now). A Steam broadcast with looped footage is now ongoing since launch - and has been for a week post-launch, maintaining a constant viewership of approximately 4,000 "viewers". Very suspicious, eh?
- Lacklustre sound design with a very limited selection of sounds, cheap jumpscare noises, and random ambient noises that distract from the experience, and ruin any build up of immersion.
- Lack of polish in every aspect. Example: They have NO lights working and have just plopped in random light sources, even where light bulbs do not exist... there is a complete lack of attention to detail here. Yikes.
- The 3 maps are a lazy asset flip - for 10 people working on the game, this seems incredibly low effort. I've seen more effort from smaller Developer teams. All 3 of the maps in-game are untouched from the Unity Demo maps. This would be acceptable if other elements of the game were exceptional... but they are not.
- Bad track record of previous games which still have game breaking bugs present - just go and check out the Steam reviews for Occult & Sign of Silence. There are MAJOR connectivity issues plaguing those games, which I've also seen here in Ghost Watchers. Major bugs do not seem to be fixed across all of their games.
- Over-sexualised female characters for both the player models used and the implemented breast physics. Many of the Steam reviews and posts here should make that clear, and what a horrific and perverted audience they have attracted.
And the Developers know what they're doing, they did the same with their previous game, Occult, which attracted similar kinds of attention. These Developers are despicable to allow this to happen and should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging this kind of behaviour.
Honestly, this game is quite clearly a cash grab, and the launch hype will soon decline. I am genuinely struggling to find any positives aspects to this game. The Developers themselves have also stated the Early Access phase is planned for only 3 months after launch.
Do yourself a favour and skip this one. I would recommend supporting Developers that actually CARE about their games, and are passionate about what they do. Because Ghost Watchers does not tick either of those boxes, and this is setting a terrible standard for the future of this genre.