Reviewed: February 12, 2008
Reviewed by: John DeWeese
Publisher
1C Company
Atari
Developer
Digital Spray Studios
Released: October 16, 2007
Genre: FPS
Players: 1
4
6
3
4
4.5
System Requirements:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
I would completely understand how a game like You Are Empty got green lighted if the Soviet Union still existed. Even now, I imagine the Commissar of Video Game Entertainment addressing a room of nervous game developers. "Comrades," the commissar shouts, "Everyone say best computer games made in USA! You must show these bourgeois pigs that most fun and exciting games come from Mother Russia!"
Literally under the gun, the development team feverishly spends the next few months building a mediocre post-apocalyptic game that manages to borrow the worst horror movie clichés imaginable. The commissar is so pleased that he stages a "release party" where workers stand in line for two days to receive a game for a computer they don't even have.
Oh wait, the Soviet Union is long gone. Russian developers have been putting out some top shooter games recently, including the best-selling S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. So there is no excuse why Digital Spray Studios decided to make such a bland survival horror game as You Are Empty. On the plus side, the game does have an interesting graphical look. Also, the Cold War setting is a welcome break from hunting zombies at the local suburban mall. The bad news is You Are Empty brings little that's new, fun, or interesting to the survivor horror genre.
The game is set in some undisclosed Russian city of the 1950s. On the way to work at the local military base, your character is hit by a truck and lapses into a coma. When you wake up days later, the entire world has gone crazy with zombie madness! If you're thinking this is the exact plot of the movie 28 Days Later, you would be absolutely correct. But this will not be the last time You Are Empty shows a complete lack of originality. Zombies seem to pop out of nowhere, just like in the Doom series. The nightmarish industrial setting is reminiscent of '90s survival classics like Silent Hill. Even the whole "experiment to create utopia gone horribly wrong" plotline seems a little too close to Bioshock.
As far as controls go, You Are Empty is a no-frills shooter. You can jump, crouch, and cycle through a series of Cold War weapons, from the Mauser pistol to the PPSh sub-machine gun. In later levels, you'll get to pick up more exotic weapons like the nail shooter and the electric gun. I wasn't expecting fancy controls that would allow me to dive behind cover with a mouse-click as in Gears of War, or fly through the air guns blazing like in Stranglehold. I was expecting the ability to sometimes sprint instead of plodding along at the same pace, waiting for the next group of monsters to attack. It also doesn't help that some of the weapons are wildly inaccurate, especially the Molotov cocktails which are just as dangerous to you as they are your opponent.
I will give You Are Empty credit for interesting level design. The urban nightmare landscape of insane asylums, broken-down tenements, and abandoned factories is at times interesting to explore. Unfortunately, you're never given the chance to truly explore because the game forces you to follow a very set path. You'll often be teased with an apparent escape route, only to have it cut off by a collapsing wall or falling crates.
Enemies have a nasty habit of appearing out of nowhere, but this game is not technically a hack-and-slash feast. You'll fight a group of enemies, then pick off one or two stragglers, and finally face another zombie bum rush. The game certainly could have created some moments of sheer terror if the enemies you fight weren't unintentionally funny. I laughed out loud when I first saw the nurse zombies with rotting faces but perfect knockers, and absolutely doubled over after I encountered my first mutant chicken. Yes, you'll be killing quite a few mutant cluckers that look like angry Pokemon creatures.
The graphics may not offer the latest in realistic physics or shading, but You Are Empty does have a distinctly Cold War look. Post-apocalyptic Russia looks great, and there are plenty of little details that make the surroundings seem particularly oppressive. I had the same problem with You Are Empty's bleak surroundings as I did playing Hellgate London: even the coolest collection of demolished buildings get boring after awhile.
The cut-scenes are a bizarre mix of computer graphics and Soviet archival footage, and offer just enough edginess to keep your interest. The same cannot be said of the zombies and mutants you fight, which as I already mentioned look ridiculous.
You Are Empty's sound quality is just plain atrocious. Voice-overs cut out at the worst possible time, such as when an NPC was trying to tell me an important plot point. The sound effects are little better, with unrealistic gunfire or echoing footsteps. The only plus side is you'll occasionally hear an enemy several seconds before you see him, which does help build suspense.
Thanks to a generic plot, linear gameplay, and no multiplayer options, there's no reason to replay You Are Empty. Putting the game on hard does make combat much more deadly, but the game offers way too many health packs or ammo clips to truly be a challenge for hardcore fans. If You Are Empty was a $15 download, I could possibly recommend it for its old-school style and kitsch factor. But at $30, this game is far from a bargain title.
It's hard for me to completely hate You Are Empty, but then again I'm a sucker for those really bad horror movies the Sci Fi Channel churns out on a weekly basis. When compared to best in show shooters like Crysis or Bioshock or Assassin's Creed, You Are Empty comes up sorely lacking. The commissar may be pleased, but the gamers in the free world should take a pass.