NMRIH 2 - Кошмар под землёй

The game is in a solid state now. It's finally hitting it's stride that it SHOULD have started with during it's initial release. Almost all complaints from 2 years ago have been properly addressed and have been ironed out legitimately. The shining elements that it did show back then, can finally truly shine brightly now. The game understands and completely nails what makes zombie games fun. The zombies. If you're a romero fan, you'll find a lot to love here with the zombies in this game. They actually improved alot of visual feedback on visceral gore and feedback on zombies. Depending on where and what you hit, it will be reflected. You can bash and crack parts of the skull wide open. Straight up unhinge and rip off jaws. This applies to shooting as well. Depending on the caliber of your firearm, it will reflect the type of damage you do. 22 punches holes in heads, 9mm cracks open skulls, 45 punches through skulls, and 357 blast holes behind skulls. Shotguns shreds and tears apart faces and chests, etc. The core gameplay of its combat is the best part of the game, as it should be. The maps are expansive and large but still maintain an incredible level of detail and environmental story telling. The visuals, sound design, and overall presentation are fantastic and very immersive. Speaking of sound, I'm very happy to hear ThOughTs OST finally getting the proper mixing it deserves. The new tracks are great and I can finally actually hear it now, as the music even when maxed out on volume was way too quiet in the past. The overhaul to the loadout system is a good change aswell. No more being able to eventually just be able to have the best weapons in the game at the very start, or straight up bring a literal cure to virus just on their person at the start of the match. The newest map Raven Rock is quickly becoming one of my favorite maps, right next to powerplant. Matchmaking is working as intended finally and I'm able to find matches quickly, though probably due to the renewed playercount and addition of crossplay. The game is solid, but I still do have some criticisms of it. The first thing that sticks out of my mind is the lack luster cosmetics that was promised to be expanded. It isn't. it's 3 upper and lower garments, with 5 new gloves and 2 new voicepacks. Most of the garments you can earn and spend credits to get, where already in the game previously and now have to earn again. There are also DLC outfits, which is just dirt in my face honestly. Could have just been 4 more cosmetics to actually grind and earn. Despite praising the presentation of the maps, mechanically and from a gameplay design stand point, not all maps are made equal. And half of the objective maps vary from being decent to kind of unfun and repetitive. Lewiston in particular is probably my least favorite map and ironically enough the fastest map to finish. Speaking of repetitive, I do believe that's another thing i will levy against the game. I don't believe even in its current state, there are enough alternating main and sub objectives that will keep the playerbase coming back to keep playing them. Some of the objectives can be pretty drab, boring to do, and sometimes only require one player to actually do it, rather than encouraging a team effort on everyone's part. Another criticism is the skill system. This is a personal grievance and distaste but I do not care for it. The whole risk of permadeath and losing the character and the skills gained is lost on me. The tension from the moment to moment gameplay is plenty enough. I'm not saying the skills aren't useful, but this whole system is just shallow and carries no weight in decision making or character building in any way. Could've been development time spent on more cosmetics if you ask me. This isn't my personal critique but I do see and have heard in game from other players that they are not running the game all that well despite the claim of optimizing the game in this update. I, myself am feeling the optimization improvements significantly. The game is running a lot more smoother for me since initial launch and the 0.9.0 update. So this could be an GPU/CPU specific issue. Also the new voicepacks are just cringey. And not in the fun, cheesy way. More like annoying. Trying way too hard to be quirky and relatable. I could compare apples to oranges and complain about the differences between the first game and this one. Really dive into small and niche things about what the sequel got rid off in removing minor game mechanics. The entirety of not having mod support, which just hurts the replayability that the first game had. However I'll judge this game on its own merits. The game is good. But it needs to continue it's momentum and add more. More of..well everything. Some weapons are still missing from the first game, like the fan favorite AK, SKS and the glock. All of which I fully assume will be added down the road. More unique infected can help add more variety to gameplay