33 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 3.8 hrs on record
Posted: Mar 28, 2016 @ 8:47am

Early Access Review
https://youtu.be/_n1NVRADsgo
Game: Shadows Peak
Genre: Open Ended Survival Horror
Developer: Andrii Vintsevych
Publisher: Andrii Vintsevych
Copy supplied by developer

Shadows Peak is an open ended first person survival horror game developed and published by Andrii Vintsevych. The game is heavily inspired from the original version of Alan Wake, which was supposed to be an open world mystery game.

STORY
A writer goes with his wife to Shadows Peak, an isolated place where he can finally start writing again. But when they get there, his wife mysteriously disappears and it's up to you to find her. In its current state, only the first part of the story is available, and while it isn't all that amazing, it manages to catch your attention from the get-go. I'm really curious to know what happens next.

GRAPHICS
Made with the Unity engine, the game surprisingly looks pretty solid: I haven't found a bad texture, an out of place model or anything like that. It is however pretty easy to exploit some things like jumping to get to otherwise unreachable places, making you feel like one of Skyrim's horses.

GAMEPLAY
The game is open ended: when you boot the game you can freely explore the map without many walls (both visible and invisible). You only have a cellphone that keeps receiving cryptic messages. As some who dislike having his hand held for the entirety of the game, this was a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed exploring Shadows Peak, finding hidden clues to the story and new items to proceed. The combat is very light and simplistic, but there is a stealth mechanic to avoid the Black Shadows, who will chase you no matter what. I hope that more variety and a little bit of puzzles will be added in later builds.

CHALLENGE
The main threat, the Black Shadows, can be avoided by crouching and not using a flashlight. But if they start following you, they will not let go: you can run for four minutes straight, if you turn around they will be right behind your ass ready to scare you and to cut your health in half. Other than that, some of the "puzzles" might be frustrating to some players, mainly if you didn't pick up an object that is on the other end of the map.

SOUND
The sound design is solid, and the voice acting isn't half bad either. I especially loved the sound of the Shadow people: that's the stuff of nightmares.

REPLAYABILITY
Not much at this point: until more is added, you can replay the first part to try and change the order of how you do everything.

Overall, this is a promising start to what might be one of the better horror games on Steam: no hand-holding, good scares, open ended levels are something that we need more of in gaming nowadays. Worth buying at full price.

Story: 7
Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 8
Challenge: 7.5
Sound: 8
Replayability: 5

ENJOYMENT: 7.5
FRUSTRATION: 4.5

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2 Comments
Schumsibumsi Mar 28, 2016 @ 9:01am 
Great review there!
Madhukori Mar 28, 2016 @ 8:59am 
Noice review mate.