Shattered Haven Reviews

I have not written many reviews on steam but this game is getting alot more hate then it deservers. The game is more of a top down puzzle game then a action or a survival type game. The story is decent not ground breaking by any means and I would probably only give it a 7/10 overall but the game play is there and it is worth the asking price. A shame to see so much hate on a good game.

This game caught my attention being on weeklong sale. Never heard of it before, and it looked quite interesting to me. But when I noticed it's 75 % off not even 1 month after the game was released?! That got me really interested. The game combines different genres, mixing puzzle, rpg and survival-horror elements in 8-bit style. Now after playing it for more than 2 hours, I have to say I really love this game! The puzzles are great, I like the art-style and the music is just awesome. The story isn't that intense but definitely okay for a game like this.

[h1] DISCLAIMER: This is a first impressions review, and NOT a full review [/h1] Shattered Haven is a game developed and published by Arcen Games, LLC The game offers some pleasant graphics and graphical style, although some ugly glitches here and there, it is pleasant all the same However, the story is a little generic, but better than nothing, as well as the gameplay is a sort of top-down shooter-ish type of game but also a bit generic, as well as quests are more or less generic. The game has some really sub-par voice acting, nothing stellar. This game is almost all generic... Shattered Haven is a generic game but fun nonetheless [h1] RECOMMENDED :) [/h1] [b] REVIEW SOURCES: [/b] [list] [*] None

0/10 Badly written, characters not worth caring about, awful control setup, just bad in every way.

I quite liked this one. It reminds me of arcade games like Boulder Dash, but with a story. Basically in each level you are set down in a maze and told to kill all the zombies. They bill it is as a puzzle game, but the emphasis is much more on avoiding the zombies, the puzzle comes into it in that usually you must kill the zombies and pick things up in a proper order. It did get a bit repetitive eventually, but I could see myself coming back to it and playing a few levels here and there. The hub on which all of the little levels are built off of is quite unique, and is also where the story progresses. About the only thing I don't like is the same thing I've experienced with all of the Arcen games I've tried and that's that there's always a lot of filler. Rather than a few lovely levels there are tons and tons of samey levels. I'm sure the lovely levels are in here, but it's why I've gotten tired of it before the end.

A zombie survival/puzzle game. I love a lot of Arcen's games conceptually but they tend to be hit or miss gameplay wise, and this one was a miss for me. I can't make heads or tails of it. Go around, collect items, and try to solve levels but I found the controls and the puzzles to be inscrutable.

A really fun game that mixes Zelda like overworld-gameplay (and I am speaking of Zelda I III here, folks!) with up to 100 levels filled to the brim with environmental puzzles accessed from there. The goal of each level is either to kill all zombies (called Grays here which are quite a different breed from your regular zombies) using the environment and what tools, traps and weapons you can forage from it or to escape from maze-like structures filled with switches, secret passages and more. What makes this game really stand out is it's story and musical score, again composed or remastered by the intrepid Pablo Vega. All the overworld areas are bound together by the tale of Darrel and Mary and their quest to recover their four-year-old daughter Lela, whom they raised in the midst of the Gray Apocalypse, along with the boy Pierce, whom they took in after he lost his family in the wilds, while being caught up in the struggle of two eldritch horrors. The game features a branching story arc with multiple distinctive endings along with a "New Game Plus" feature to continue your quest and visit those areas you missed before (along with being able to find some treats not available before). The soundtrack might well be one of the best yet produced by Pablo Vega and does an awesome job on creating an engaging atmosphere and setting the scene for the story, which is told through a big number of comic panel based cutscenes, some of which feature brilliant voice acting by Prince Taylor (it is ridiculous how much atmosphere is created alone by his impersonation of Darrel) and loads of in-engine cutscenes. The art of he game has been created by Heavy Cat Studios, this being their second joint venture with Arcen after Valley 2, and does a great job creating a polished but still retro look & feel for the game (think SNES with a higher resolution here). Throw in some really nice weather and particle effects to complete the package and what you get is a fitting presentation. Finally the game can be controlled using keyboard & mouse or a gamepad controls, both of which are working flawlessly (I recommend using a gamepad, though).

To understand this game, first imagine a 9.5-rated action puzzler on Armor Games. (Alternatively, it could be on Newgrounds, but this is more an Armor Games sort of game.) Now imagine it expanded into a full-length game, with more levels, more weapons, more enemies, and the same base mechanics and production values. You're not getting anything here that you couldn't get in a basic form for free on the Internet, but you're getting it thoroughly explored in far more combinations and permutations than you'd ever otherwise see. ("How about a level where you start with no weapons, but have a camouflage blanket to hide under?" "How about a level where you have eighteen water traps, unlimited time to set them before releasing the zombies, and sixteen zombies that normally take two water traps to kill?") If your interest is at all piqued by a hundred levels of luring zombies to their many possible dooms, lurch--don't shamble--to buy this game!

I liked AVWW. I wanted to like this game. But AVWW started you off with fire punches and kept the cheesy dialogue to a minimum. SH does neither of those things. In this game, you start by playing as some children who use Home Alone traps to fight zombies. Later on, you play as adults who do the same thing. Basically, the adults are as effective as children in this game. The dialogue sounds like it was written by a ten year old who doesn't read much. "(Laughs darkly)" is actually part of an actual line meant to be taken seriously. The cutscenes aren't much better. "Kids are funny. It sure is dark. I'm going home" is basically what I got out of the first poorly voice-acted specimen. The story is ridiculously rushed. Wake up, open a gate, zombies speedwalk in, silly adventure begins. At one point, a survivor simply guesses by looking at it that a portal will empty his inventory because they didn't feel like taking the time to let us find that out ourselves. Never mind the fact that he only saw the portal five seconds ago and shouldn't be accepting the fact that it exists yet. And finally, the gameplay itself is boring when it isn't buggy. When you're not just ambling about and clicking the "next" button, you're trying to get your AI ally to get out of the canoe so you can advance. Basically, if the worst of game-maker and rpg-maker got stitched together and stole the cute menu from AVWW, it'd be Shattered Haven.

From the developers of AI: Fleet Command and A Valley Without Wind comes Shattered Haven. Shattered Haven is a zombie survival game where the player is presented a variety of scenarios to overcome. The story follows Mary and Darrel as they flee from their once safe haven in search for their lost children. Shattered Haven can be played as a single player game or cooperatively. The player is put in an 'overworld' where the player must locate various portals that lead to individual challenges. The player must complete all challenges in a given region before proceeding to the next. The overworld provides a loose framework for these individual challenges and drives the overall progression of the game. Arcen, the developers, a small five man shop have developed several games since 2009; much more than the average indie developer in my opinion. Shattered Haven, like many games by Arcen, lacks polish. I have played a number of Arcen's games and they all have Arcen's signature mark of lacking polish. Shattered Haven is plagued disjointed and often conflicting artstyle, poor sound effects, bad UI design, and minor but persistent bugs. I am beginning to wonder if Arcen actually knows how to bring a game to completion or if they simply get bored of developing it and release it to market before it's truly finished. The premise of Shattered Haven is good, and I actually did enjoy many of the challenges it presented me and I was somewhat compelled to keep playing but the game's lack of polish caused it to miss the mark in my book. If Arcen had spent a little more time refining this game it could have been so much better. Shattered Haven does support USB controllers although I noticed there are some bugs. Overall I won't recommend this, although if you enjoy action puzzle games you might enjoy this. Score: 5.5/10