Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 2.7

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/6/2023

This is an FPS Horde Shotter / Tower Defense hybrid we're comparing here relatively early in our process because it's listed in the Steam Bullet Heaven Fest sale. (In the long run I'd like to add more horde shooter and tower defense games in general, but we're still usually focusing on survivors-likes until we get those filled out.) I don't think it's a bullet heaven though. I don't think it's a rogue-lite either.

A lot of fans mention Sanctum in reviews as similar, but I haven't played that. It leans more on the FPS side, according to reviewers as well and I might agree. Early game it's best to just use barriers and kill them yourself. But the first person view makes making paths annoying especially since and instant refund costs you half for a mistake. The "You Must Leave A Path" limitation is janky and weirdly applied.

The main event is a "story" mode and honestly has quite a lot of text story. Pretty long winded but honestly I thought it was fairly well written for something like this. This one certainly tasks you to survive waves, but don't expect as simple an arcade gameplay loop since you need to pick them out and install them from a menu, run round prepping a bit in first person between fighting.

You pick from and unlock things through play, but there doesn't seem to be randomization or any sort of meta progression in the roguelite sense.

Controller navigation for building leaves a little to be desired, it says on screen "press E" to start instead of the controller button etc. Didn't realize I had to literally point at the RV etc. So much trouble trying to figure out where weapons are to equip after accidentally switching a slot during the tutorial. Incredibly time wasting and frustrating. Visually it feels like a less interesting Plants Vs Zombies (the 3D spin offs) with kind of similar gameplay too. Much more confined map, though, and the grid to construct on. Once into the match the gunplay is fine but the enemies aren't really visually or gameplay distinct for the first while at least.

You start with three guns already equipped which was nice, I don't love how some of these FPS zombie games make you hold a single one at a time. But then how to select them is totally crazy requiring in game walking. Overall the time I spent was mostly frustrated, often incredibly frustrated. It tells me to make a path of barricades and then tells me I have to leave a path while there are 4 openings and won't let me place more. It tells me to switch guns by finding them then doesn't tell me where my old guns went. Totally unclear and unexplained UI elements.

Much of this hidden or unavailable to use during the tutorial, which is a pet peeve for me, because when you have a long and unskippable tutorial and then some of the buttons don't work, you spend the early game simply confused as hell. Often the tutorial asks me to press a keyboard button while using controller. It made me go through the tutorial twice, again after selecting the second mission. And there's another tutorial in the menu. And tutorial bits during a plot segment. And it gives you a mini tutorial and shows you training dummies at your "house."

Devs enabling buttons and menus one at a time during a tuturial has got to stop imho. Stop changing the UX around at the start of the game when it's most confusing! Just let me jam the buttons and figure out what they do! Don't make a tutorial that takes place with limited access to game function through an entire full survival session and definitely don't spread it accross multiple long stages. These games should be hop in hop out imho. If valheim can be you can be.

I'm not really sure how it has so many positive reviews, the basics are just frustrating. It gets easier to find your guns and figure out the menus of course, maps open up a bit, but it still just felt very awkard and janky to me. In any case, it's not a survivors-like and there are better horde shooters out there too.