They clearly put "1998" in the title to suggest this was a very "old-school" survival horror game from roughly that period...but it's actually more like 2005 (Resident Evil 4). It's got the over-the-shoulder thing rather than fixed camera angles, slicker graphics than anything from the '00s never mind the '90s, a pointlessly convoluted "reload" system for your weapons, a spiffy-looking HUD/Inventory system (actually more Dead Space - 2008!), and so many wordy tutorial pop-ups and loooooong notes to read early on that I almost felt like throwing in the towel before I'd even started. Nonetheless, the early atmosphere was mildly promising, so I wasn't going to give up...just yet...even if the game had absolutely no sense of pacing whatsoever...

Before I confronted so much as a single enemy, I had to solve a somewhat long-winded "puzzle" - well, more like trying to guess at how to execute a few lengthy "instructions"! - and then, sure enough, I had my first zombie. After I finished it off with a few shots to the head, I did what I always do in these games - tapped "R" for reload - which is simple enough any other time, but in this game merely tapping means you do a "quick reload" in which you DROP your existing magazine and have to pick it up again, lest you accidentally leave it behind! (If you want a fuller reload that doesn't drop anything, you have to well-and-truly hold the damn button down.) And this is before I even attempted to load bullets into a magazine and assign them to a "quickslot"...surely not anyone's definition of "intuitive gameplay"...and the usually simple task of combining items in the Inventory also profoundly confounded me until I looked up a video guide; something I really shouldn't have to do in the earliest minutes of an action-oriented game...

Honestly, the shooting doesn't even "feel" good once you start doing it, the "gore" is utterly underwhelming, and the zombies are about as scary as your distant relatives approaching you at a family barbeque to give you unsolicited career advice. So I did, indeed, give up before long...sigh...because people (e.g. Capcom) have been making these kinds of games for decades, and they were never a fraction as hard to learn the basics in as this one. Less than a half-hour in it already felt like pulling teeth, so...well, maybe one day I'll be in the mood for that ultra-realistic gun-reloading game they clearly tried to make here, but on this occasion...I just wanted to shoot some bloody zombies, gosh-darn it all to Hell!

I do appreciate the attempt, and at least the devs tried to bring a bit of, er, "freshness" to the table. But whatever else this is, it isn't "old-school survival horror" by any stretch; and no, starting proceedings with a "This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore" doesn't qualify, either! I remember the early Resident Evil games being FUN...something these ambitious devs sadly forgot to factor into their project (I don't play silly zombie-shooting games to be meticulously taught how real-life weapons work, sorry; and the healing system has an "innovation" in which you can apparently become negatively "addicted" to items if you use too many in a short period of time - oh, joy! - but I luckily didn't stick around long enough to wallow in that particular pleasure).

Verdict: 4/10.

(PS Apparently if I'd chosen the "Modern" mode rather than the "Classic 90s" one, I'd be finding the mechanics a bit easier. That said: I still don't understand why they think such complex reloading is "classic"...and the scare factor of the game seemed so low once the zomboids started popping up that my patience is, for now, sadly spent. And for those people zealously arguing that all of this slow, involved Inventory stuff "adds to the tension", I can only say...WHAT TENSION?!)

(PPS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/
http://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210
Cheers!)

They clearly put "1998" in the title to suggest this was a very "old-school" survival horror game from roughly that period...but it's actually more like 2005 (Resident Evil 4). It's got the over-the-shoulder thing rather than fixed camera angles, slicker graphics than anything from the '00s never mind the '90s, a pointlessly convoluted "reload" system for your weapons, a spiffy-looking HUD/Inventory system (actually more Dead Space - 2008!), and so many wordy tutorial pop-ups and loooooong notes to read early on that I almost felt like throwing in the towel before I'd even started. Nonetheless, the early atmosphere was mildly promising, so I wasn't going to give up...[i]just[/i] yet...even if the game had absolutely no sense of pacing whatsoever... Before I confronted so much as a single enemy, I had to solve a somewhat long-winded "puzzle" - well, more like trying to guess at how to execute a few lengthy "instructions"! - and then, sure enough, I had my first zombie. After I finished it off with a few shots to the head, I did what I always do in these games - tapped "R" for reload - which is simple enough any other time, but in this game merely tapping means you do a "quick reload" in which you DROP your existing magazine and have to pick it up again, lest you accidentally leave it behind! (If you want a fuller reload that doesn't drop anything, you have to well-and-truly [i]hold the damn button down[/i].) And this is before I even attempted to load bullets into a magazine and assign them to a "quickslot"...surely not anyone's definition of "intuitive gameplay"...and the usually simple task of combining items in the Inventory also profoundly confounded me until I looked up a video guide; something I really shouldn't have to do in the earliest minutes of an action-oriented game... Honestly, the shooting doesn't even "feel" good once you start doing it, the "gore" is utterly underwhelming, and the zombies are about as scary as your distant relatives approaching you at a family barbeque to give you unsolicited career advice. So I did, indeed, give up before long...sigh...because people (e.g. Capcom) have been making these kinds of games for decades, and they were never a fraction as hard to learn the basics in as this one. Less than a half-hour in it already felt like pulling teeth, so...well, maybe one day I'll be in the mood for that ultra-realistic gun-reloading game they clearly tried to make here, but on this occasion...I just wanted to shoot some bloody zombies, gosh-darn it all to Hell! I do appreciate the attempt, and at least the devs tried to bring a bit of, er, "freshness" to the table. But whatever else this is, it isn't "old-school survival horror" by any stretch; and no, starting proceedings with a "This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore" doesn't qualify, either! I remember the early Resident Evil games being FUN...something these ambitious devs sadly forgot to factor into their project (I don't play silly zombie-shooting games to be meticulously taught how real-life weapons work, sorry; and the healing system has an "innovation" in which you can apparently become negatively "addicted" to items if you use too many in a short period of time - oh, joy! - but I luckily didn't stick around long enough to wallow in [i]that[/i] particular pleasure). Verdict: 4/10. (PS Apparently if I'd chosen the "Modern" mode rather than the "Classic 90s" one, I'd be finding the mechanics a bit easier. That said: I still don't understand why they think such complex reloading is "classic"...and the scare factor of the game seemed so low once the zomboids started popping up that my patience is, for now, sadly spent. And for those people zealously arguing that all of this slow, involved Inventory stuff "adds to the tension", I can only say...WHAT TENSION?!) (PPS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/ http://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210 Cheers!)