izigame.me

Upon seeing the trailer, I didn't know whether to laugh or be disturbed. It does a great job highlighting the idea of the game, but once you play, that all disappears quick. The game starts out with a painfully slow intro to the action. My early days of game development taught me to use lights and colors to lead players through your level, this game follows that pretty painfully well. If you can't figure out where to go next (which you won't) follow the lanterns or blinking lights. Combat is insanely frustrating, it takes about 2-5 seconds (or more) from mouse click to actually seeing a baseball bat swing animation so trying to time your attacks is out the window and impossible. I couldn't even get past the first alien. I understand stealth is part of the game (Alien Isolation hiding in a cabinet) however the option to fight is still present and proved to be useless. Struggling against getting grabbed is a gamble so good luck if you make it further into the game against more than one of those greys.
Graphics and cinematics do a great job setting the mood and it had everything going for it except the mechanics make the game impossible to play without infinite frustration. I loved everything about how the stage was set and even organized a premier streaming night with friends just to embarass myself in front of them trying to figure out how to get to fighting my first alien. And even that ended in several abduction game over screens.
The game has old school horror game puzzle mechanics that seem out of place in this game because of the way that it's made out to be. Going into this thinking it's going to be an action-packed thriller is a mistake because the pacing of the game is thrown off when you need to examine objects where most of them have nothing to do with progression and about 99.8% to do with steam achievements. It would have succeeded more if it was focused on the act of surviving against the alien invasion rather than a Blair Witch (2019) x Signs scenario.
I want to see this game tightened up because this was a great premise and concept, if only they could update the combat would it be playable even with the hilariously lame dialogue. I had to request a refund because I spent $25 on a game that did a good job of playing off a well-done trailer when in virtual reality it felt like everyone on the team held up their part except the programmer and script writer.
Really good sources of inspiration, great setting and environment design. Excellent animations and effects, however poor character movement and script.
This game almost had a spot in the top games of the year for me but fell short with how insanely awkward the character moves. I love stealth games but this premise was too good to ignore the opportunity to smack around some aliens with a bat.