AREA MAN LIVES Reviews

In concept this game is great. It's strange, it's a mystery, it's a bit jarring, and there seems to be a good narrative brewing. That said it has some major issues to fix before this game can be enjoyable from my setup. I've got a 3070 RTX, wired fiber internal network (& high speed fiber internet) with 5GHz wireless and am using my Meta Quest 2 to Airlink to my base station to play this (no problem with other games running at high res). Problems: 1) pulling me out of VR. every time the game wants to use my voice, is glitches, freezes and my view flickers between the Steam VR holding screen and the game.. then after about 3 seconds it comes back and I can use my voice. For some of the conversations you have in the game this could happen 3 to 5 times in a row.. Super disruptive to immersion and made me want to stop there, but I pressed on. 2) rendering. there is a lot to read in the office.. there is a lot of information to take in, but outside of the stuff immediately around the desk, everything else was super pixelated and soft.. some text impossible to read.. even when I picked it up and brought it in close, it did not re-render and stayed unreadable. 3) the controllers. The movement, and object handling controls are super awkward and not intuitive. It's a mechanic that is supposed to work like Alyx's gravity gloves, but unlike the gravity gloves, it doesn't "just work" rather it sometimes works and forces you to use a laser pointer to identify the object (not all objects are handelable) and then pull it towards you. So sometimes your laser pointer slips off the object as you try to yank it towards you and then you get either nothing, or some other object you didn't want. 4) the reset. I'll try to not add any spoilers but there is a scene where you have to help a driver make a decision from the tools you have available in your office. There are a number of dialogues you have to go through that ultimately end up with the driver being in the middle of a lot of dogs. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to "do the raptor" in that scene but I couldn't because the instructions were unreadable and over pixelated.. but besides that, when I missed the opportunity and got reset, I got sent back to the conversation path 10 to 15 minutes before the raptor mishap. That's when I quit the game. It should have at most brought me back to the conversation I had right before the raptor mishap, or at best brought me back right after the conversation.. or at super best, let me choose on a time line where I wanted to go back to. I really like the feel of this game, in concept, but in execution I don't think it's quite there yet. I'll happily revise my review when my concerns are addressed and it feels more like a finished product.

A strange but fun game, can get fairly confusing at times. Area Man will die A LOT!! Parts can be confusing on what to do. Voice acting is super pro and very funny story. Not enough DJ and voice use. Gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWmWYv-078s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFkLgeptYUM [Table][tr][th][h1] ALL MY CURATED VR REVIEWS: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4494603/]US420 Gamers[/url] [/h1][/th][/tr][/table]

So I gave this game a fair shot and well. . . its just not fun. 90% of the time you just stand there doing nothing but listening, and waiting. then listening some more. Then you might push a button or put a certain record on and then you spend the next 10 minutes standing there listening to people talk. Not fun at all in my opinion.

Buggy mess, item handling is a mess, sometimes you get teleported out of playing area. No options what so ever. Volume levels are all over the place. No way to skip scenes already watched, if you get stuck on a ark choice with limited time, you need to do the opening scene over and over again. When a critical action is needed, sometimes it gives like 5 seconds to react sometimes a minute on the same ark. Even had a bug that stopped the progression at all by just not going to next scene. Story wise not sure about all that voice recognition thing, it seems its used only in few places and with no difference on what you are actually saying. Most of the gameplay seems to be find a right object and use it. Would wait on for polishing updates, and skip scene option, as it gets frustrating listening to same lines over and over very fast

I Refunded this game so i obviously didn't play much of the game. But the game docent feel like a game the majority feels like a weird podcast in strange environments and the game leaves way to much for you to "find out" and it just inst that much fun. The part that i got to where i had enough it had you having to pick something up, and when i tried anything it just gave me weird dialog and then had me sit through the same dumb dialog over and over with no hints or anything so you had to guess and check and this made up most of my game play but its a cool concept just not great execution and i m looking forward to what the developers have to improve the game until then i cannot recommend.

Good story game, but not my cup of tea for being VR. It's like the VR equivalent of an interactive Visual Novel. Would love to finish it, but every chapter just feels more tedious than the last.

I wish there was a thumb in the middle option because this game is actually fun. But it is extremely confusing and difficult to play because of that. The concept of this game is amazing! But i wish it was a little more casual.. like job sim for example. I was expecting to play a relaxing game where i manage a small radio station while i sip on coffee you know? aside from it being confusing it is fun!

Really wish I could give this a thumbs sideways. The idea is fun and there's a few really great little moments, but the game feels like it's primarily random guessing to figure out what object will solve which problem. That's fine since the outcomes are amusing, but the bigger issue is the what feels like 3 minute wait between attempts where you have to wait for the event to fail, then wait for the "game over" screen to finish, then wait for the game to fast forward back to the point you were at. The amount of downtime is ridiculous, and even when starting over from a game over you have to replay events you've already done which just drags out the the playtime. There's also a bit of heavy-handed clue-giving, which is a bit much at times (but kind of appreciated given the extreme downtime between attempts). There's also the inclusion of the microphone voice recognition thing which the game says you can complete the game without using, but you can't even start the game without it being active. It's also bizarrely absent from the majority of the game and is only very sparingly used, which makes me think it was supposed to be the core of the game before but it got mostly culled for accessibility reasons. Anyway, it's a fun little experience, but the game has serious issues with the extreme amount of punishingly long downtime. If you're down for an experience with a LOT of voice acted content, this is your game. And I mean a lot of voice, possibly too much voice.

DON'T SEE THIS AND THINK ITS A BAD GAME. the concept is awesome and its definitely something i haven't seen before but it comes with flaws. the game is very confusing being very vague with its decriptions leaving you sometimes in the dark on what to do. also the game bugged out on me not allowing me to use my right hand thus making a part of the mission unplayable. these are issues that make me not recommend this game but if they patch the game and make it easier i will definitely change my no to a yes because the story is great so far but in the current state of the game i cannot recomend it. but if you can push through thoes things it is definitely a cool game to check out. Edit: Ive played this game a lot it is very good the comidy is good and the mechanics are very cool. im switching from no to yes because it is worth playing even with the vaugeness of the hints on what you are suppoed to do. so if you buy this listen to everything they say carefully. other than this issue very good game.

The "story mechanics" in this game are amazing. Love the theme, it really makes you feel like a DJ in a tiny radio station in the pacific northwest. The amount of things you can interact with is surprising, and you quickly get caught up in the story.