You Are EMPTY

(first jourmal ^-^)

       You Are EMPTY Review by Ilya Miller

OK, I haven't posted much lately to DA (actually I have posted a few photographs and digital art), Because my comp was getting fixed. Now that We have an iMAc latest laptop and Windows XP Pro set up on my original computer, I can go back to working on more, probably in a few weeks time.

Anyway, I got a new game: You Are Empty today. I have to say: I am not too impressed, but not too dissapointed. The atmosphere is brilliant, the music suits it well, for the most part. Physics are suburb, and the monster design is rather interesting, not perfect, but acceptable. Some of the bad things include glitches, technical visual bugs, elementary Ai, unclear sound for some sequences, such as the motolov - it explodes like a grenade instead of bursting in flames. But in other cases the sound was brilliant. I really enjoyed the weapons in the game, not their sound fx. The main concept was fair, the story wasn't that great, but did well enough for a first person shooter. Now with the precisions - The reason why this game got seriously bad reviews is because the game just doesn't feel too right. Some enemies you will see far-far awway, and don't think you are just going to sneek out and shoot at it, until you noticethat they will reach you in seconds; if you see an enemy, do not hesitate to shoot. Also when an enemy is about to hit you, you can be a metre away, and still get hit. The artificial intelligence is horrible. The monsters cannot walk around, say if a box is blocking their way, they will most likely just be going around in circles until you get close enough. Hell, they can't even climb onto a ledge to get you! That is what I mean.

Graphics were artistic. Atmosphere is beautiful, and ugly at the same time since its an Anti-Soviet sort of apocalyptic game. But things like water reflections, gritty walls, foggy environments, teared walls cracks on the floor tiles and detailed objects caught my appeal pretty well.

The physics are sophisticated, balanced and realistic. For example if you will see a wooden box hanging on a rope, and if you shoot it, it will wabble accordingly to the amount of impact you have damaged it, and possibly destroy it. There are many distructable things, not too many though.

However, You Are Empty will not offer you more than facinating environments, few distructable items, loads of shooting and glitches.

Overall this game seems to be in a state of not complete, but quite decent, and worth buying. I rather enjoyed walking in the old Soviet Union, and using a variety of weapons and conflicting some ugly-as mutants.

Overall Review Score:  6.3/10 (Fair)

Graphics------:6
Gameplay------:4
Re-Play value-:5
Sound---------:8