Kona

There are definite signs of very early access in the game - you can't map your keyboard so you have to use the wasd keys, there are pauses when you enter new areas, there isn't much in the way of letting you know what the heck you're supposed to do, and there's no real Menu to save, load, or quit. The inventory system is a work in progress. I just picked up everything. Empty bottle? Sure. Chopped wood. Yep. Well, since you're in a blizzard in Canada, you probably know what you're going to do with the wood. But no real rhyme or reason. There seems to be an engaging story in here somewhere. I know it's a mystery of some sort. Everybody has left hastily. You even pass one truck on the road that honks at you as it races by. I don't know if you could hit it purposely or not as the game sort of forces you to stay on the road. There are invisible barriers to keep you from off-roading, which basically told me, ok I guess I'm going to need this truck. Driving mechanics otherwise are pretty good. There is a nice feel to the old pickup you drive. Among the nice add ons are windshield wipers, which give that squeegee sound. The Narrator sounds like he hasn't practiced his lines all that much. They sound like he just read them off a cue card, but they're not too distracting. Sometimes, they're rather humorous. When I first saw this game, I related it to The Long Dark, which I love. There are some similarities most notably the brutal Canadian north winter. But not much else, now that I've put some time into it. I see lots of potential here, so I'm looking forward to what the developers end up doing. There's a mystery that you will need to solve, and I think there's a little something supernatural going on too. At one point, you see ghosts of the past reenacting their last moments. It looks like it could be good. At GOG's sale price going out the gate, it's not a bad way to spend some time driving around and searching abandoned houses.

Playing this immediately after release with the finished game and I can tell you this is an astounding game as far as immersion and storytelling. Pros: Lots of ways to tweak the interface, graphics and sound. Very realistic graphics, the trees howl with the wind, ice crackles, snow obscures your vision, the truck used for driving is spot on. All this adds a level of immersion to the game that I havent seen since The Vanishing of Ethan or Last of Us. Add in a music score that lends a sense of foreboding to the environment plus perfectly tinny radio 'songs' for that era to enhance the feeling of being there. Movement is also intuitive, you can toggle on effects such as head bob or blending to your liking. FOV can be tweaked to limit nausea which ruins many first person game for me. The story is unfolded thru found evidence, letters, notes while a voice over narrates the background. Its very much an adventure story with some survival, you will die of cold and need heat, which adds a frantic feeling at times when you are lost in the woods. Heat sources are where you can save the game, the only place and this can be restricting. Cons: lack of tutorial, I died several times before I got the hang of action prompts, which leads to the next problem, saving. If you die before you can access a heat source you will have to redo that stretch from last save, its check point saves. I had to spend quite some time to tweak my graphics to match the opening scene. for some reason once in game they became highly washed out and hyper bright. The Radial UI is pure port nonsense but is not that awkward to adapt to. By far the worst bit of the game is the narrator, I dont know why they insisted on it to be voiced, he only rips you away from immersion.. The voice actor tho decent, is not a good match, no Geralt of Witcher quality here. Its annoying but they do allow you to mute him somewhat overall a beautiful, haunting game and well worth the price

I really enjoyed this game on many different angles including: story, investigating, exploring, a few puzzle solving, and a little FPS/slashing. The Good: The main focus on the game is the story and exploring element of it. The narration is very well done, very detailed and in some cases helpful to your progress. Both graphics and sounds is pretty good. The length of the game is reasonable, it took me about 10-12 hours to complete. The Not So Good: The replay value it has to offer is a bit questionable. Now that I know the story and how it ends, and have for the most part explored pretty much the entire map as far as I know, I have little reason to go and play it again. There are some action elements to the game as I mentioned earlier, but they are rare to come by and is by no means an FPS, just has FPS element included in the game. The Bad: The control aren't very good and is evident that this is because it is also on release for PS4/Xbox and not just PC. Even after completing the game, I still didn't quite get used to the controls. You can rebind them, but doesn't solve the issue that you can't take out your gun or axe to defend yourself then quickly go back to eat some needed pain killers etc. You need to keep going back to the main menu and then go to your inventory and switching the items you need. Also, the menus are the infamous circular menu and when you have a significant amount of documents that you are trying to go through, this gets very frustrating trying to click on the right column. Overall: I liked this game. I wish it was perhaps a bit longer, and had something to give it more of a reason to reply the game, but overall, a very solid and memorable game.

After a hour or two of playing here is a short review of mine. First of all, it's a promising game, but still needs some work on it. I had to run this game on low and windowed to have some sort of smooth gameplay (still, during arrival to new locations the game almost froze everytime). The movement and use of inventory is sometimes painfully slow (especially outside, but I presume that's because of the particle effect and all that). It's a nice adventure game with some puzzle solving. The tutorial is short: as you pick up your belongings you have a short introduction of the basic tools. The use of various items gathered is automatic, and the game will show you if you have enough resources to do a crafting action. However, since you don't have a schematics' system (like in The Last of Us), you just don't know what is the purpose of most of the items and resources. So it's just hoarding junk in hope you will use them at one point (even ammo, although you don't have a gun). The puzzles are logical and clues for solving everything are always around, so you don't have to travel all around the map or do something bizarre. The game rewards you for being logical: searching the right places, following tracks, reading notes etc. The game doesn't hold you by your hand, and you can explore the area freely, which can be a disadvantage, since you have no idea where to go next, so you have to travel to various places to check them. The narration (an internal narrator, similar to Stanley's Parable) sometimes broke the continuum, by knowing something, you should not know, for example: names of residents of various houses, just by looking at their photos, without getting that kind of knowledge before looking at them. But maybe that's just an error on my part for not paying attention.