You Left Us Steam Charts & Stats

This one is about two steps away from true greatness. The vibes? Immaculate. Everything in this game, from the graphics to the slight distortion/static on the voice tracks, makes you feel slightly off-kilter and isolated while playing it. Where it falls short, IMO, is that it explains too much. It creates the perfect situation for an unknowable horror and then wants to explain everything about it to you. (Major story spoilers ahead.) [spoiler] The hook for this story is that feeling of isolation. It's when the lights on your radar board turn red and the broadcasts get weird and you have no earthly way of finding out [i]what the hell is happening[/i] that the game is at its peak.[/spoiler] If the story had ended [spoiler]around the time of the final radio broadcast, or even with the protagonist trying to flee after the broadcast but being stopped by something - and this is the important part - [i]the audience never gets to see[/i], that would be perfection. The game would've lived in my head rent-free forever after that. Maybe an implication that the protagonist got grabbed, followed by the house/dream section that's already in the endgame, but then smash cut to black when the lights go out and the door starts rattling.[/spoiler] But the audio log anomalies and everything that happens in [spoiler]the sub-levels / research base[/spoiler]...it's just too much. It explains everything and, in doing so, takes away everything that makes the game scary. I'd argue for cutting [spoiler]the first dream sequence as well. It's just kinda goofy nonsense, not to mention foreshadowing for stuff we never really needed to see to begin with.[/spoiler] Gameplay-wise, your walking pace can be a touch on the too-slow side sometimes, and juggling inventory items is a little fiddly at times. And, personally, I had issues with getting the scanners in Act 3 to work correctly--not sure if that was on me or if it was a bug, as it felt like you had to [spoiler]line up the flashlight beam[/spoiler] just [i]slightly[/i] off-center or in one case completely below a scanner, which...can't be right? Optimization might still need a little work, too. It's much improved from the demo (and added v-sync is a nice plus), but it will still pin your GPU utilization to 100% if you try to max out everything when the graphics...don't really reflect that level of usage. I also experienced some hitches and frame drops in spots on a system that well exceeds the recommended requirements. At the end of the day, this is still a game I'll recommend, with the above caveats, just because of how slept on it is. If you've got $5 and an hour to spare and want some above-decent horror, this is still worth picking up. Just be aware that, if you're like me, you'll come away a little frustrated with the final act and just [i]how close[/i] the game came to sticking the landing. Maybe in the devs' next game!