Recent reviews by Papa Sans

unique, can't really be properly compared with other games. Core Keeper is Core Keeper.
NEVER had a situation where i felt that I needed a guide / wiki / youtube video to show me this "one neat trick" that was really just an oversight on the developer's part, or just needed to be better explained.
World API infrastructure is amazing, simply put. Besides minor input lag spikes, specifically in cross-platform scenarios, due to large chunks being rendered by players when entering new areas quickly, no other major technical issues with this game.

CONSTANT UPDATES. CONSTANT UPDATES EVERY MONTH. FOR THREE YEARS STRAIGHT.
If that doesn't speak volumes for this game, idk what to tell you man.
The world is your triangle.
It's a 10. Free weekend before full launch is also genius, make it an 11.

someone made Unturned in higher graphics

11/10, needs pink bandages
UPDATE: people still meme around and KOS lol

"4 friends want this game"
trust me bro you don't wanna give that man his bail money back

Because of this game, instead of letting them go back to a shelter, I am making the 64-hour round trip to pick up my brother's two cats from across the country.

Waukegan, IL to San Diego, CA or bust. I am heading off August 5, or whenever I finish the game; whichever is faster.

update soon!

update 8/5/2022 - game not finished, but for safety, i have gotten help for this trip. so much help in fact that this is going to be a flight, no longer a road trip. big bro marine will be coming home alongside his kitties. cleaning and moving furniture to get new and old cats to know each other but safely.

update 8/16/2022 last night in San Diego, kitties are okay! going home tomorrow 5PM sharp!!!

update 8/20/2022 cats are introduced, check pfp. 11/10 great game

3rd shock army but those homies will always be 1st on my mind <3

good times

Best free Source based zombie game IMO. Positive reviews are correct: really well crafted zombie game, lots of wacky moments, and really great gameplay. 155 hours on record at the time of writing, and while there are quite a couple things to fix, most things are getting patched up on NMRiH 2 (hopefully)

Pros:
-Free game
-Very PC friendly since it runs on the source engine, even most budget laptops can play it
-Gunplay is very crisp (with low latency and if you have ammo), and reloads are satisfying
-Great cheeky references for zombie horror enthusiasts
-Skill ceiling is very high, becomes exponentially higher with a group of decent players with good communication
-Workshop means unlimited content to play with
-Realistic in a good way (normal reload speeds, ammo has specific calibers, healing isn't instant, both firearms and melee are equally useful, carrying too many items means you are slower and get tired faster)
-Great mix of wacky and spooky moments
-All maps have some form of RNG in them (objective based maps change in layout, objective and survival based maps change in weapon drops)
-Since any zombie can damage any objective and can infect, all zombies are equally dangerous
-Teamwork is not always required, but helps quite a bit

Cons:
-Game has lots of graphical errors since source engine
-if not on "Realism" mode, some small arms like 9mms and .22LR cannot 1-tap all zombies
-melee is kinda broken sometimes, some hits don't register on occasion, and smaller melee weapons like the knife, bat, pipe, etc are useless since it just takes way too many hits to down a single zombie for the amount of times the zombie can hit you back. most people just end up going for 1-tap melee weapons, like axe, shovel, pickaxe or sledge. Humans have been beating the crap out of each other for generations. A sword, shield, or even a long stick with a pointy end can come in very handy when it comes to the undead, but they are not included. Makeshift weapons are also an issue. I cannot break off table leg and whack zombies. I cannot pick up a piece of re-bar off of a construction site and become a walking OSHA violation. I cannot throw bricks nor rocks. I cannot use my hammer, endless supply of nails, and 2x4s to make a wicked wooden bat of destruction.
-Gunplay can be problematic due to latency, weapon mechanics, and rarity of weapons and ammo types in general. You may hoard .45ACP all game but never find a gun that takes that. You always have arrows and gas around, but bows are rare, and chainsaws can sometimes even just be map specific. Weapons that take the same ammo type (glock/m9/mp5 for 9mm, 1911/mac10 for 45ACP, double-barrel/remington for 12 gauge, luger/plinker for 22LR, revolver/winchester for 357) all do the same damage, but since smaller weapons means more inventory space for ammo and have quicker reload times, bigger guns get thrown out. In the case of 45ACP and 357, this is even more egregious, as since the mac10 is full auto only and is hard to single tap, the m1911 becomes the better gun simply due to the much better ammo economy. In the revolver's case, although the lever-action holds twice the ammo, the revolver can spam shots much faster via hip-firing, you reload with a speed-loader every time, and you can hold much more spare ammo with the reduced inventory space, and it simply overshadows the lever-action by quite a bit. The .308 ammo is by far the worst of the bunch. You have an iron sights bolt-action with a slow reload, slow bolt time, and an even slower dry reload. The scoped version is also just as bad, but now you add a scope into the mix. The green sniper, on the other hand, is what a bolt action rifle should be, and is a straight upgrade to its wooden counterparts: more ammo, faster bolt, and much faster reload.
-Throwables/Grenades are a joke. Frags don't do nearly enough damage, Molotovs just create runners that can end up biting and infecting you, and C4 is actually great, but it is far too easy to hurt yourself using it if you don't have enough space to throw it or to run away. They also take up quite a bit of inventory space, so between a grenade or 20-ish extra rounds of ammo, it is much better to take the extra ammo. They are easier to use, and you can have guaranteed kills with them instead of just slightly damaging all zombies in an area.
-Inventory is a pain. You can throw items to deal damage, but cannot carry two of the same type of weapon. Rifles take up way too much space, making pistols the META. Strong melee weapons take up too much space, but the weak ones aren't even worth considering, so sledge/pistol becomes the META. 5.56 and gas take up way too much inventory space, making it impossible to have a backup weapon unless it is next to you or always having your main weapon topped off since you won't have room for much spare ammo. I know the inventory system was designed in a way to keep players from hoarding items, but I would rather have a system were I become overencumbered and move much slower rather than just not being able to hold more items at all. It would be nice to have an option to switch from the default inventory system and a system where you can carry many more items, but your movement is hindered exponentially as more weight is added. IRL, every single bit of weight matters, but not being able to pick up 1-2 more bullets off of the ground because "my pockets are full" is a bit much.
-Weapons never malfunction. This may seem a bit nit-picky, but hear me out. Battlefield pick-ups never jam. All ammo works 100% of the time. Melee weapons never break. The most egregious of this is the M4, which can magically be picked up from sitting around on the floor, shoot hundreds of rounds without a jam and have its bolt carrier be released without much force but always feed a round. It would be nice if weapons wore down, jammed, or even broke after significant use. Same with magazines and ammo: failure to feed, duds, double-feeds due to new mag in gun with bolt closed, extended magazines failing to feed more frequently, etc. Also, in a high-stress situation, sometimes a survivor can forget to ride the bolt all the way back and not feed. Sometimes they can mess up a mag change. Maybe they drop a shell trying to load a shotgun. Maybe they underestimate the sheer power needed to pull back the slide on an old M1911 and can't get it first time. Maybe the shell ejecting mechanism on grandpa's old over-under gets stuck. Maybe it's too strong and a shell hits you in the face at Mach 5. Attention to detail takes many, many, MANY hours to fine tune for what is basically a non-essential aspect of the game, but it would also help with the monotony of the game at times, and would make this game stand out much more as a realistic-ish zombie shooter. Even if it was a 1/1000 chance to get a misfeed/dud/jam/melee weapon slips/misses, it would be nice to see things NOT going according to plan. It is the apocalypse, after all.

Despite all of this, this is a phenomenal game. I still remember back in 2019 when me and my university friends would all party and play this game until the early hours of the morning on our makeshift gaming setups and school laptops. Killing zombies to old alternative rock and young Justin Bieber songs with the homies really hit different. Now everything is changed, and the servers are empty, as is my heart. I hope NMRiH 2 rekindles this old flame and the devs come back to make another banger of a game. 11/10 better than Cyberpunk, and I paid $60 for that.

12/10 one of my high points in life that happened around 3am not involving alcohol lmao

Before I upgraded my PC, I kind of hated The Culling for its massive load times and how awful the combat was. After I upgraded my RAM, graphics card, and super beefed up my processor, I fell in love with it.

TL;DR bad until u git gud

Let me throw down some real shizzle right now, for both possible buyers, regulars, and trolls alike.

The game itself is unique in its own ways, but is not your typical "minecraft shooter" knockoff. This is what all of those knockoffs tried to be as successful as but failed to do. Despite the overwhelming majority of negative reviews, most of which being inflated, all i need is for you guys to HEAR ME OUT.

Some of the pros that come with the game is how it's easy for newcomers and casuals of the genre to play, with classes having a slight variation of weapons to chose from. Although there are not many weapons, they are simple key attributes to certain classes to suit to different play styles.

Another pro about this game that i would like to point out is how although it plays like your traditional FPS, one person won't always guarantee victory, but having a team isn't neccessary to win. There are an indefinant amount of ways to go about a game, and no two games will play out the same way, as the combination of all of these different people with their own thought process adds to the originality of a typical game.

One MAJOR con to the game, and one that haters tend to exaggerate from the moon and back is how Jagex "ruined the game" with the updates and left it to die. Unfortunantly, they have long since stopped work on the game to move forwards to work on different projects. I, for one, have played Ace of Spades before the "Battle Builder" aspect was implemented, and I can see what approach Jagex was attempting to make, which was to make the map of the game more interactive and and plenty of more levolution into the game. However, many have gone on to claim that they greatly preferred how the game was before the creative attribute was added and since then, have gone on to raid the Ace of Spades game review sections with miniscule and unexplained reasons to why they dislike the game, which is why it is in what people tend to call, the "Steam Trash Bin", despite the massive community change that has happened in the past few years.

Another major downside to AOS is how small the community is nowadays, after being completely riddled with negativity years ago. The player count at its highest daily, as of when this post was made, is about 50-ish people playing at the same time. This, in turn, also led Jagex to stray away from AOS development, as they have since stopped working on the game when the community for the game dropped below 10,000. Remember, this was back in late 2014. Two years later, and the many that were left have turned into the measley few that we are today.

I was fortunate enough to have bought this game on sale with the "Hurt+Heal" pack for around 10 USD. To my surprise, it was a relatively great game with a humble community, especially taking into account the fact that I hardly looked into the reviews. The game looked fun, the concept looked crafty, and I bought it. Even to this day, I still find myself playing it from time to time.

TL;DR: Good game, haters made community shrink, still good game