Surroundead – Spotlight

As reviews go, this one isn’t easy. Why? Although the seed of a fun game is present, the game as it stands at the time of this writing has some serious flaws. While I have no doubt that these issues will be addressed in due time, prospective buyers should be aware of the current state of affairs.

Favorable + endearing low-poly graphics and art style. This is one of my favourite art styles, and it’s executed beautifully here. The game also features a solid tutorial for the game’s fundamental mechanics, a large map to explore, customizable firearms (including sights, suppressors, etc.), vehicles to transport you around the map, and the ability to construct your own base.

Disadvantages: – Keeping track of inventory is a massive hassle. Managing your limited storage space is a nightmare because nothing stacks automatically. Also, you’ll probably get attacked while you’re scrambling to make room in your bag for the new and exciting thing you found.

Failing miserably, melee combat is a bad idea. The hit boxes for the crawling zombies are particularly dispersed. For this reason, you must always take damage from the shambling zombies before you can kill them. In addition, you take significant damage from melee attacks when you’re only equipped with the bare minimum.

– Nonsensical gameplay elements. Irradiated areas are just one feature of the map that stands out. A respirator mask will provide some protection. As a result, you enter a radioactive area. That’s awesome; 95% protection is provided by your respirator! Perfect, I’m not taking any hits. I’ve opened a few boxes and begun sorting through the contents to see what I can bring with me. After about 3 minutes, you take a lot of damage and die. What is the logic behind this?

If you save your game and then return to it later, the zombies in the area will have reappeared.

Yes, you can establish your own outpost. In order to build palisades and other similar structures, you will require a large quantity of wood. I was wondering if you were able to log trees. No. It must be discovered, and discovery itself appears to be completely dependent on random chance.

Insanely wacky settings. You are armed with something close to your body. One might assume that initiating a melee attack is as easy as left-clicking. Nope. To initiate a melee attack, you must first hold down a different key in order to “enter melee mode,” and then use your left mouse button. Why? This serves no purpose; if a melee weapon is equipped, pressing the attack key should trigger an attack. What fool came up with this crazy idea?

I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. There’s potential here for something really great, but there are currently too many annoyances and poorly designed features to make this game enjoyable. In the meantime, I’ll be requesting a refund and keeping an eye on this one to see if I decide to return at a later date. Although I hope the best for the developer, I cannot devote any more of my precious gaming time to this.