https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bzt6SWqgIE

EDIT: I would recommend checking out my developer interview for the game too, as it confirms many of the reasons for the problems in this game. It's also an insightful look into the development process.

Cypress Inheritance: The Beginning is a first person exploration game brought to you by the confusingly named Cypress Inheritance, which involves elements of stealth and an open world, or at least it would be if it actually worked.

My full review is the video review above. Don't waste your money.

UPDATE 12/03/14: The developer has in fact updated the game with some graphics options, as well as "a few changes with the A I". Patch notes can be found in the usual place, although I can't comment on these changes at the current time, as I reviewed the game on release when it should have been complete, and I simply can't re-review games whenever they are patched due to the amount of other titles coming out.

I've played quite a few broken games before, but this is pretty high on that list. There are so many problems in just the first half-hour of this game, that I doubt I will even try to brute-force my way through the sludge. First, they seem to have ignored optimization completely. Frequent and long loading screens, poor frame-rate, choppy camera control. Secondly, there is really no stealth. Enemies can spot you regardless of your position, visibility or speed of movement; most of the time, seemingly at random. Other times they will completely ignore you. The stealth utilities they give you are difficult to use when harried and when the frames are dropping (you know, the moment you need them). I found that the medkits were totally useless as well. Most of the time you can only take a single hit, and when you got lucky, two. There was never a point where I could stop and heal that graze.

The fact that they are trying to work on a Chapter 2 before dealing with all this seems to be a marketing ploy. The developers need to stop what they are doing and work on the game engine + A.I. before they waste their efforts on this shell of a game. I sincerely hope they do; I still think the premise is good. Will be hopeful for any large patches to come.

Cypress Inheritance promises an interesting experience, but is sadly marred by the worst optimisation in a game I've ever encountered. The game is hardly on the bleeding edge of graphical fidelity, looking like a title from over 5 years ago, yet demands absurdly high computer specifications to show off this low-res mess. If you have a very high end gaming machine you could consider this title, though it would scarcely do your investment any justice. Anyone else would do well to stay away until the developers can be bothered to optimise. Buyer beware.

Check out my first impressions (such as they are) here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=239820264

http://www.cublikefoot.com/cypress-inheritance-the-beginning-first-impressions/

Cypress Inheritance: The Beginning looked interesting going into it, but I ended up very disappointed with the experience.

The game’s first issue is its terrible optimization. The game looks like it came out in 2005, but manages to run poorly even on a high-end system like mine. 15fps is simply unacceptable, especially for a game with such low-res textures. I simply gave up on the game about ten minutes into it due to the issues it had running on my system. There was an update for the game with some extra graphics settings, but they did nothing to help the performance.

I’d advise staying away from this game.

It's crash prone (four in the very tiny amout of play time I bothered with), has limited customizing options (including a tiny range of resolutions and no way to alter graphical quality), and the voice acting makes me wish I'd been born deaf. It isn't just that I don't recommend it, I actively recommend against it.

This was not a good game, sorry. It is boring, pedantic and predictable with poor graphics, controls that can't be reconfigured, almost no gameplay instructions that make sense...I could go on. Combine that with the inability to jump or manuver past up/down/right/left, and you have a huge yawner. On top of that, for some reason if you don't skip the beginning part of the game...the story, there is a better than fifty fifty chance you will see the island blown up and get the credits rolling through the screen. Credits mind you, you must CNTRL, ALT, DEL to skip as ESC won't get you out. Got to get those accolades in folks. I know this is a rather harsh critique and I don't usually post them but with all the hype about this game, you would have thought it was something special, something worth paying for. It wasn't until I bought and paid for it...money I can't get back for this piece of cr*p, that I found out just how bad it really is. The reason for the criticism is to hopefully keep someone else from making the same mistake. Buy Styx with your money, buy Thief, Dishonored if you want stealth, heck, buy Dark Messiah of Might and Magic...a fairly challenging D and D for a challenge with about the same level of graphics but some interesting gameplay, but please, don't invest your hard earned dollars in Cypress Inheritance. This beginning should also be it's end.

It's difficult to make a game but it's more difficult that the game attracts the attention of players.

The game is some sort of stealth and open world where you are trying to escape from an island where your grandpas left you a manor.

The idea of escape of an island is not new, but if you have 72 hours to do it, this fact gives an extra point to the game. I think Prince of Persia was the first game to use time in this way.

Technically the game is built on the unreal engine (it doesn't run quite smooth) but although the world is big, it is also very empty

Maybe this is the great mistake of the game, its emptiness. I've played the first mission where I've walked inside a cave after I've escape from my cell and I have found only two guards (some sort of robotical armored knights) easily avoided because you have some sort of cloak device that makes you invisible. Nothing else. No map and no idea what I should do.

Maybe this is the first chapter, the beginning, but it is the end for me.

I've try it but there is no emotional link to anything and there haven't found any reason to return to the island.

I can not recommend it, however you can try it and enjoy where I couldn't.

Ps: thanks to shade00

I am deal chaser and I like to play games that go off the beaten path. When I saw this game at sale, it caught my eye and seemed to have the elements I was looking for: nice graphics, exploration, a mysterious island, interesting gameplay (cause&effect).

The game delivered on what I was expecting on the graphics part and exploration. Also, the island sure is mysterious and a deserted place only populated by those knights robots. For me, the game began on a high note with the briefing at the mansion and the scene at the port. Only enough information to get to the next place. I was intrigued.

I arrived at the island and it was very nice, but then some execution problems started to pop up. I was faced with a bug that prevented me from continuing the game or even start a new game. Every time I tried to get to the island, I was kicked out of it and the game ended. I managed to get around it, but it was a frustrating introduction.

Some other problems happened and also other good surprises that I try to summarize below.

Pros:
- Nice graphics
- Nice atmosphere
- Nice voice acting
- Ok CGI
- This game has some thing very nice and kind of rare that I always look for in games in: persistency, especially in Chapter I. If you drop an item, it will stay there. Forever. The ATVs have their position, fuel, flat tire persistent. If you leave an ATV in the back of beyond in the island, it will stay there. Your health, stamina is persistent. They only regenerate when you sleep/drink/eat. If you get a stun gun from a dispenser, it will never respawn. If you use it, then for this play through is gone. In this time that, for many games, even the health auto regenerates and every enemy you kill disappears within seconds, this is a welcome change.
- Nice change of pace in the VR Desert (if you overcome the frustrating beginning).
- Nice change of pace for chapters II and III. Almost different games.
- Some vistas in chapter II and III are beautiful.
- In chapter I, some times I saw one of those parked ships flying. Nice touch!
- In chapter II, the room with all the old movies/cartoons. Wow! Another nice touch!

Cons:
- You know the persistency I mentioned above? Well, this can be a problem when encountering bugs. On Chapter II, I was stuck in terrain. Could not by any means get out. So I exited the game and entered again. I respawned at the exactly same stuck spot...
- The map in Chapter I cannot be scrolled.
- No transitions. If you get caught, got shot, fall from somewhere, the screen blinks and you go back to the respawn point. There is no animation, no sound.
- The beginning of the VR desert, if you stay put and allow the knights to come at you, is very frustrating since the respawn point is very near where the nights already are. You enter an unnerving cycle of dying/respawning.
- Many bugs that I got stuck in terrain. Especially if you try to find every game item...
- Could not use only the controller. To start a new game or continue, I could only do that via mouse.
- Found some bugs trying to collect all chapter I assets. After getting 4 of them and knowing which vault the fifth was supposed to be, I kept getting the same assets I already had.

Overall, I had an enjoyable experience, but ultimately I was expecting a bit more of it. Some bugs almost ruined the experience for me so I feel more polish would greatly help this game.

Seriously, no-one seems to know what the developer is up to except the developer. They seem to operate in their own fantasy world and forget there are customers out in the real world wondering what they paid for. The promises seem empty, based upon the piss-poor effort in communication.

Steer clear as this is as dead as a Dodo and to be honest you are more likely to see a live Dodo then this game properly finished. You have been warned.

Avoid. Bad textures, confusing and horrible gameplay, and extremely bad performance