Lone Survivor: The Director’s Cut Review

Curve Studios have started porting and making games for the Wii U Eshop, when this started Wii U indie fans rejoiced, their highly rated games have received acclaim on whatever platform they have been on. Lone Survivor is their first game, a port of a PC game, first made by Jasper Byrne in 2012. It is the Halloween season, there is no better time to settle in with a spooky experience, the question is, is this different and good enough to warrant your time and money this all hallows eve? Or are you better sitting watching a movie or going out dressed to party instead?

There have been some absolutely epic survival horror games in the history of games, Resident Evil 4 and Eternal Darkness being the best that comes to my mind. The atmosphere, action, everything together in these games makes them head and shoulders above the competition as far as I’m concerned. Lone Survivor: Directors Cut is a different creature to these games, having said that, does it give the same scary, intimidating experience; this is what I’m after in this review.

The whole affair is interesting from the get go, the first impressions you get from the game are instructions, play with the lights off, play with head phones on, do this for the best experience, indeed, this is a game that wants you to immerse yourself into it. The graphics are highly stylised, highly pixilated, but at the same time, everything is clear, you can see the things you interact with plainly enough, at the same time, everything is dark. The sound at the same time, is great, melodic dirges of music, monstrous grumbles and creaks play with your mind, building a complete picture of the situation you find yourself in.

As the game suggests, you are a survivor in an apocalypse, fighting mutants, rationing bullets and food, everything is a balancing act. The game plays like a 2d side on game, but the action is much slower, you are exploring everything as you go, hiding from creatures, shooting them if needed, meeting other survivors  and like said previously, making sure you don’t run too low on anything. As the game progresses, events occur, you start to lose your mind at points, changing the game play and such, I don’t want to talk too much about these elements and they should be kept as a surprise for any potential players. Let’s just say, if you play it as asked, yes, prepare yourself for quite the ride! Sleep is something to be looked at within the game, these periods being other mind bending experiences, to feed in to this, you find pills in the game, if you take them different dreams occur, some give cryptic clues, some maybe other things, each mind stretching again.

The game plays all in for about fours hours, I have heard there is multiple endings, I haven’t  looked too far into that, will soon though, if there is as many as said, there is a lot of gameplay to find. I believe it’s every decision that’s made that adds up to different endings, different strands of story, this mechanic is very good overall. This may be no use to someone who doesn’t enjoy the game in the first place, which I could also understand. For me the shooting mechanic is a bit off, clunky, the game can play out slow, puzzles can be awkward and off putting at points, and the idea you need to play it over again to get a different ending doesn’t bother me too much, the game is just the same gameplay anyway.

However, in my final judgment of Lone Survivor: The Director’s Cut, the good outweighs the bad overall. Is it worth the price, yes, if this is up your alley, you want a surreal, spooky Halloween experience, by all means yes. If you want an action packed, slick game, this isn’t it right enough! I’d still give it a buy; it was worth playing for me for the genuinely different experience I have received, completely different to anything I have played on the Wii U yet, that makes up for any gameplay flaws!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Wii U code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.