Brigand: Oaxaca is an old school/retro FPS adventure game with RPG elements similar in nature to the first Deus Ex game and other ambitious RPG's from decades ago. It's very much a labour of love and a homage to the retro games in the past. I had this game in my library for a long time, quietly waiting in the queue for the random chance of being the next game I review and that time has finally come. I know it's been in my library for a long time because every single week I'm seeing this game getting updated by the developer with even more content.

And content is king, it's true, this game has a huge amount of content and it's still growing... but unfortunately, you know, even more of a bad thing doesn't make the bad thing better. And there's no shortage of problems here, unfortunately.

The game itself plays a little like Deus Ex (not quite as good... also this costs more than Deus Ex and that's a problem), but it eschews the cool X-Files meets Cyberpunk theme of Deus Ex for a kind of weird south of the border paramilitary theme. I don't think that Deus Ex would have gone as well with the same thing, but that's also not the biggest problems here.

One important note is that even though this is an amateur project, it does seem to be sincerely and genuinely made. I couldn't find any flipped assets, plagiarism or any other kind of insincere actions from the developer, but unfortunately genuine intentions alone are not enough to produce a brilliant PC gaming experience.

On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers.

The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the mid 2000s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.

The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers.

The game combat is very imbalanced and unsatisfying... and sure, combat in Deus Ex could have been better, too, but this is worse than that game despite being released in 2017. Your weapons are very inaccurate, a problem enemies don't have. This problem is an order of magnitude bigger than it should be when coupled with the game was apparently designed to be at a "Dark Souls" level of difficulty, so you'll often find you just die outright. I tend to avoid saying games "aren't fair", because almost always it's just a matter of skill, but here, the game really is just horribly badly balanced and that makes this very unfun to play.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

Brigand: Oaxaca didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for getting three characters on your team, trivial to get, but less than 26 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game (just over 20 players all playing at the same time). But this only happened once, around the same time that trading cards were applied to the game... so this is just card idlers getting their cards and moving on. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

Ultimately while this is a labour of love and an homage to old games from the late 1990's/early 2000's, it's also a for-profit effort, so it needs to be judged and contrasted with other games available at the same price point.

Brigand: Oaxaca has the farcical price of around $8 USD (and if you add in the DLC, it's ludicrously AAA priced), it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam. For comparison, the $8 asking price for this game could get you games like "The Witcher 2", "Batman: Arkham City" or "Fallout: New Vegas". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

Unfortunately Steam reviewers aren't presented with a "Maybe" option... if they did, that's what I'd choose. This isn't a completely bad game, but it's also not one of the best. As always, if you read my review and you can overlook the negatives I've called out, or they just aren't important to you, then by all means go ahead and buy this.

Brigand: Oaxaca is an old school/retro FPS adventure game with RPG elements similar in nature to the first Deus Ex game and other ambitious RPG's from decades ago. It's very much a labour of love and a homage to the retro games in the past. I had this game in my library for a long time, quietly waiting in the queue for the random chance of being the next game I review and that time has finally come. I know it's been in my library for a long time because every single week I'm seeing this game getting updated by the developer with even more content. And content is king, it's true, this game has a huge amount of content and it's still growing... but unfortunately, you know, even more of a bad thing doesn't make the bad thing better. And there's no shortage of problems here, unfortunately. The game itself plays a little like Deus Ex (not quite as good... also this costs more than Deus Ex and that's a problem), but it eschews the cool X-Files meets Cyberpunk theme of Deus Ex for a kind of weird south of the border paramilitary theme. I don't think that Deus Ex would have gone as well with the same thing, but that's also not the biggest problems here. One important note is that even though this is an amateur project, it does seem to be sincerely and genuinely made. I couldn't find any flipped assets, plagiarism or any other kind of insincere actions from the developer, but unfortunately genuine intentions alone are not enough to produce a brilliant PC gaming experience. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the mid 2000s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. The game combat is very imbalanced and unsatisfying... and sure, combat in Deus Ex could have been better, too, but this is worse than that game despite being released in 2017. Your weapons are very inaccurate, a problem enemies don't have. This problem is an order of magnitude bigger than it should be when coupled with the game was apparently designed to be at a "Dark Souls" level of difficulty, so you'll often find you just die outright. I tend to avoid saying games "aren't fair", because almost always it's just a matter of skill, but here, the game really is just horribly badly balanced and that makes this very unfun to play. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Brigand: Oaxaca didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for getting three characters on your team, trivial to get, but less than 26 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game. Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game (just over 20 players all playing at the same time). But this only happened once, around the same time that trading cards were applied to the game... so this is just card idlers getting their cards and moving on. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Ultimately while this is a labour of love and an homage to old games from the late 1990's/early 2000's, it's also a for-profit effort, so it needs to be judged and contrasted with other games available at the same price point. Brigand: Oaxaca has the farcical price of around $8 USD (and if you add in the DLC, it's ludicrously AAA priced), it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam. For comparison, the $8 asking price for this game could get you games like "The Witcher 2", "Batman: Arkham City" or "Fallout: New Vegas". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. Unfortunately Steam reviewers aren't presented with a "Maybe" option... if they did, that's what I'd choose. This isn't a completely bad game, but it's also not one of the best. As always, if you read my review and you can overlook the negatives I've called out, or they just aren't important to you, then by all means go ahead and buy this.