Hollow Reviews

Unfortunately I cannot recommend Hollow. I could write a lengthy review, but for your sakes here's a summary. Pros: -cool atmosphere -mixture of all known AAA titles (like Dead Space etc) -a bit of gore -umm... lots of naked breasts? Cons: -changing settings causes game to crash -lots of bugs -I have an OC'ed 1080 EVGA GTX with all new shiny parts in my pc (Prey on max settings has 80-100fps) and here at max I get 65fps and during fights it drops to 13fps. -1.5h gameplay including cutscenes (yes, I'm serious here) -walking speed is set to UBER-SLOW and 'running' is still slower than normal walking -transport in game moves slower than your UBER-SLOW walking speed -poor quality of sounds -cannot lower the sounds volume -actually, you cannot lower any volume (it says 0 but yet you hear sounds and sometimes you get assaulted by background noises and music which suddenly rises to 150% of set volume) -music is a 5sec loop (after 30min I played with no headphones, same sounds over and over again drove me nuts) -desync during cutscenes -only 4 kinds of enemies -sometimes you have to reload a checkpoint (which you save manually if you find a working station), because 'something went wrong' and the monsters didn't spawn My play time is twice as much as required to finish the game, because I tried to fix menu bug with settings and sounds - it didn't work. And I had to restart game from checkpoint a few times, due to bugs. My opinion? If you want to suppoort the devs or waste money - go ahead and buy. Otherwise stay away, it's a waste of time and money.

This is a solid little Horror game that makes very good use of its sound and lighting mechanics. I am thoroughly impressed. The game does have an Indie Flavor, its very linear but the Devs really do a great job of using this to their advantage and create a very claustrophobic and creepy environment. The budget does show a little with some cringe worthy dialogue, the random collection of Girlie Pictures, and in particularly with the creature types, but the environments are very lovely. I highly recommend this game to any lover of Sci Fi/Horror. Lovers of Dead Space and Event Horizon will easily enjoy this Indie take, and since EA has Dead Space DOA at the moment (if not forever) this game is a great fix for that style of Storyline. PROS : - Sci Fi Horror Done Right - Good Visuals - The use of lighting and sound is very solid - The Use of and Overall Sound Quality Can Not Be Praised Enough - A very claustrophobic atmosphere - The use of Film Grain gives the game a movie like quality - A few comedic texts to break up tension Cons : - The New Kick feature that replaces gun use at 'Close Range' is Horrid. If you get swarmed just give up and restart. The kicking animation is slow and recovery takes forever. - No indication on screen for ammo quantity - No Inventory Screen to sort threw items and view ammo types & auantity - The Map can be very difficult to read - Some Creature Animations are not the best and kinda break immersion - Some Dialogue Verges on Cringe - Enemies Get Stuck on Corners and while Turning a lot - Still needs some optimization work - Very Linear (But this also helps the claustrophobic feel so its as much a strength as it is a weakness) Easily an 8/10 For Me. A Solid Indie Attempt at Sci Fi Horror. I hope this becomes a series for MMEU, I look forward to seeing them improve, not just this game, but their over all ability to craft a solid game. This title would be a great foundation for them to build on.

I'd like to write a more in depth review for this one, but given I've been stuck at the opening monster sequence pretty much the whole time, such action is impossible. The premise is interesting enough - a bit of a rip off of the infinitely superior Syndrome, you find yourself alone in space on a severely 'wrong' spaceship and have to survive the horror of what's going on around you. That's as much as I can say because this game is a completely pile of rubbish in execution and I dearly wish I'd paid more attention to the reviews on here before I paid for this. Pros: Visually half decent, environmentally. Good job of painting a grim and suitably sci fi Event Horizon esque landscape. Interesting premise and good voice acting. Cons: Framerate is disgusting for a game which doesn't look technically demanding. It's almost comically hard. Even on easy. Cannot get past the opening 'combat' sequence. Maybe I'm just rubbish or maybe the game is unfairly difficult. Sneaking is ludicrously slow. You can't even use it. It's to build tension but it's just absurdly snail pace. Navigation is horrendous. You don't have a clue where you're supposed to go. Enemies look awful. Imagine a crash test dummy on LSD. Combat is woeful. Apparently a 'head shot kills'. No, it didn't, not for me. And ammo is so rare that you will die constantly on the 6 shots you have. Rip off of Syndrome - barely anything is different about this game to that one. Same idea, setting, and enemy types. ----------- This game is awful. I can't remember having less fun playing a game than I did with this. I hoped it would pick up, but it got worse. Garbage.

Pretty buggy and needs some work. As of this date, 11/19/2017, Ive been able to play about 20 minutes into it and it just crashes to desktop on loading now. From what I have been able to play, the sounds are way too loud and when you encounter an enemy you get bogged down in low fps land. I like the concept and I like what Ive seen so far and I think it has a lot of promise once the issues are resolved.

A decent horror FPS with a great sci-fi spaceship atmosphere. The gameplay is not perfect, some design-issues are clearly there. However, in the in end the atmosphere makes Hollow a perfect purchase on sale or in a bundle. Check out my video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iraAvTzbRUg

Thought this had potential.. I mean, it looks pretty nice, no? The voice-acting may be rather meh-meh but it's not like I expected any in the first place.. It also plays sort of okay. It's a survival horror thing at its core so everything is as you'd expect. Insanely clunky combat paired with extremely limited health and ammo - in fact you'll be in for a painful surprise the first time you reload your firearm and notice all the remaining ammo in your magazine will be lost when you load a new one. That's fine, might be a feature, might be that the developers were unable to keep track of remaining rounds rather than mags.. There is a melee weapon after all but I wonder why it was included in the first place. It either does no damage or is unable to connect with your enemies since I haven't even managed to get as much as an acknowledgment of getting hit out of them. Just like the stick in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Again, that's fine, it is a survival. However the big problem here - scary, it is not. Let me tell you why that is. See that screenshot with the cyber nurse from System Shock 2 look-alike? Congrats, you've seen all the enemies you will encounter. It just so takes away of their effectiveness if they ALL look one hundred percent identical. They are named "Wanton", implying it is some kind of flesh and metal hap-hazardly thrown together creature but then when you are running from a conga line of six or so of them and they all look and act the exact same, that's way more comical than it is menacing, even though they will tear your sorry behind apart in just a couple of hits or so. And as if it wasn't enough running away from a group of topless cyborg ladies like Justin Bieber from his concert after-shows, the other thing that takes away from the more or less carefully crafted atmosphere is the porn. Yes, the porn. The eerie space station is littered with posters of busty models in various states of undress, those posters are collectables, no less. They're often in places where they make no to little sense, too, and while I am generally fine with lingerie photography, I just don't see why this horror game would profit from that. I'd expect to see maimed corpses, missing people posters, obituaries and disturbing drawings instead, but no. Boobs and asses. I guess that's Russian horror for you? There's also a couple of bugs but I'd lie if I would say it's any more than I expected in the first place. People have compared this to Dead Space and System Shock, but in my opinion, it resembles neither. It's something that doesn't know if it wants to be survival or walking simulator and thus fails at both. I know the game is inexpensive, but seeing how frustrating and plain out boring it is, I'll hold my breath for the System Shock 1 remake and give these guys the money I fortunately got refunded off of Hollow.

After two attempts I was unable to finish. Lightbulb head got me every time. After watching a few play-throughs I realized it is a bug, not something I did. You are supposed to be able to evade him, even hear him screeching on the floor, but in my case, he insta-spawned right on top of me no matter what I did. Attempted uninstalling and reinstalling the game, verifying integrity, everything the web could suggest. Nothing worked, however that is not the reason for this review. Game issues. 1) Settings - Resetting every load. Sound in particular. I turned the sound almost completely off, yet every time I died or restarted it almost damaged my speakers. The markers were where I left them before the save but the volume would not remain lowered. Gama settings were the same. I like my horror games dark but each load the gama returned to default. 2) The two-layered reality bit has been done by so many games. As well as the "Is it all in your head trip?" It kind of had a Pandorum vibe to it. This game was not that bad at it...although the transitions could use some work. There are only so many times you can catch people with a jack in the box before they start tromping around the station not caring how much noise they make. Another issue was, several instances could only be visited once, so if you missed something then you had to restart the game to get it. 3) Map utterly horrible. Who reads a map by smashing their face into it? No one. You cannot see while using it and you have little to no control over it. Additionally, there points in the game where you could get lost and inadvertently back track, so the absence of waypoints made it a useless feature. That is in all ways except finding nearby ammo or syringes. 4) Repetitive Background & Placeables. It is interesting to consider cardboard in space, but apparently there is a lot of it. These filler items were so abundant it felt like being in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, rather than a horror game. [During Scooby-Doo chase scenes, characters ran by the same door or objects many times to allow for dialog. This made the house or area seemed to be miles wide.] It is a space station, not a recycling center, but it is not just the cardboard. 5) Controls, well they could have been better but they were not the worst I've seen. Being a bit jittery added to the suspense of the game. I did not care for the hud or the accuracy of the weapons, but personally I did not have difficulty keeping ammo. I am also a seasoned first & third-person shooter, so my aim is better than most. Still, I could see how many people found it difficult to keep ammo. The kick feature is nice, but you cannot melee your way through the game. 6) Guns? What craziness! I know they were makeshift but wow did they need to be outlandish? Especially considering that ammo for these weapons was just lying around everywhere. To be different does not mean you have to be outlandish. If you brought a musketeer to the modern world they would be able to identify our most advanced rifles and pistols as weapons. That is because a good weapon does not put form before function. 7) Monsters, Mutilated nude women and gigantic boob monsters vomiting up burning heads is unique but also underwhelming. If you were hoping that nudity would push game sales, well, the poor modeling ruined it. Less is often more and in this case it seems quite obvious. The monsters did not feel plausible. Tiny sticks for legs, grossly oversized bodies, and impossible movement. They looked TOO unreal to be a threat. There was also stark differences between character modeling and pictures, well porn. Real photography only belongs on backdrops like distant mountains or a sunset, and much like the repetitive placeables the same images in every dorm? Is there a serious lack of porn in the future? To be clear, this has nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with repetitive imagery. Done right it is an amazing wow factor in games, but too much and you just made a game for lonely desperate men who never get any. [b] [u] I kind of wanted to give this game a thumbs up but it is not quite there. I can only think of a very select few who would find it entertaining and have the patience to put up with its flaws. All and all it is better than some other botched attempts I have seen on the Steam network. Here is to hoping H2 is better. They did an amazing job on Sparkle.[/u] [/b]

So this game officially went into my trash at about the 40 minutes mark. I had spent ages walking around aimlessly a couple times before, but this time was different. The game told me these giants made of boobs were pointless to fight, and to avoid them. Turns out you have to kill it to make a random wall dissapear so you can progress. I couldn't figure this one out the first try, so I ended up letting the giant made of boobs kill me. It took me back to the nearest checkpoint which was ages back. Made my way back, decided to take on the giant made of boobs out of boredom/lack of all other things to do... Killed it, progressed, jumped onto a bed and got stuck in the environment with no option other than to kill myself. It took me back to the same checkpoint that was AEONS ago by now. Forget this game, do yourself a favor and just watch a youtube playthrough.

First of all i bought it with the discount for only 2€ and i was glad i did that, because this game isn't even worth the money. *SPOILER ALERT*!!!! The Story is pretty boring, because you and your girlfriend are on a spacestation/ship with insanity problems and you try to activate every reactor only to flee with a shuttle and wait for the next game (Hollow 2). By the way you get the information from yourself that your girlfriend already died...., so fuck that. Gameplay: You have 3 weapons in this game for 4 monsters (booby monster small, booby giant, some flying idk what it is and a Ghostspaceman that can't be killed). The worst of the weapons is the melee one (wrench), because you can't hit anything. the other 2 weapons are pretty good. The bad part of the Gameplay is the Movement, because you are really slow, your sprint is like normal walking and your jumps are really bad (maybe because of the Spacesuit?). Everytime your Guy is talking (like you click on a switch to open a door, but it has no power and he said "no power") your guy gets in slowmotion. The hard part sometimes is to understand what you need to do or where you need to go, because you get only little hints, like go to the generator x, get a powercell, etc.. With the Notes and stuff you can get some hints or even help, but even that is in some points not enough.(You also have a map with a nice radar function, but you can't move it to look if you missed something.) Atmosphere: The game should be a "horror" game, but it has only Gore and Boobs on ugly girl pirates and giants, but not really an atmosphere. You can't get a feeling or even goosebumps (i played this game with headphones + in the night for better immersion). The characters are there but thats all.. no emotions or anything at all. You have no jumpscares or anything like that to have even a little ".. woah.." moment. Characters: The guy (Mark) is going through the game 2 times?, because you play him through the game, but you get emails, hints and stuff, also from him, even at the end he said "... i'm talking to myself...". And everytime he sees some shit... it's like he ate some shrooms, you even get the same vision problems when you use a syringe (to heal yourself). The girl (Sara) is an illusion/hallucination (because she seems to be dead or maybe the Ghostman) and tries to stop you while she has her insane moments. The Enemies: Girl boob pirate: is the hardest normal enemy (only because of the damage you can get from them), but you can 1 shot them with a headshot. They are not really fast but annoying in groups. Giant: is very big and has a lot of hp, but makes no damage at all. It won't follow you and it's most of the time a static monster, but when it moves it's really slow. Flying something: you need 2 shots to kill it and if it comes near you, it will eat your face. Ghostman: Invincible, Immortal, kills you 1 hit when touched, but can be vanished by shooting it. Something else: The end is pretty bad, because of no functioning computers (3 are in the room) and sometimes if you stand near the railing your charater won't shoot but kick and you will die if the Ghostman comes near you. Sometimes you have a problem if you shoot him to make him disappear, he will spawn right behind you and kill you. (very annoying). Sound: Dialogues/Dialogs have some sound problems like getting quieter or louder. The music seems not really noticeable, except for radios (they are pretty nice). What else can i tell you about the Game...? It has i would say max. 2 hours content, if you can find every hint and way. Sometimes i had some performance issues (fps drops from 100 to 15). Conclusion: The Game is not worth the time or the money and has a lot of flaws, especially not for 20€. I had games for 2-5€ with more content and more fun etc. than in this game. If you want to have a really good horror game with nice atmosphere, then try something like Amnesia: Dark Descent. I know it is an indie game, but i'm honest and somewhat picky.

I am genuinely distraught that I have to not recommend this game, but there's no damn way this game is "finished". Yes, I am aware there's planned to be a Hollow 2 (probably even a 3rd one), but man... I'm sorry, but I was aware this game was janky, maybe had issues, but this? This game doesn't even have an excuse for being this janky, bugridden, unbalanced, and nauseating to play. I first got eyes for this game when I saw the excellently made trailer (the one that switches back and forth between playing "Mad World" and nightmare visions). Hell, I even saw gameplay footage of the game to make sure it wasn't bad. But no it is bad. I'm sure the devs put their heart into it, that the devs' previous attempts at games might've been flukes based on people being salty. Be warned: If you're going to buy AND play this game, there will be issues. - No FOV changes. Really? You won't let the FOV be changeable for "atmosphere"? Even Alien Isolation allowed it when it could break the player model. You may ask "can't you edit an ini file or w/e?". No. You have to edit a sav file (yes, "sav"), which is a legit pain in the arse compared to the usual modifications of FOV in literally every other game I've played. - The game asks you to re-do your gamma settings whenever you go to the main menu. Died? Gamma settings. Crashed? Gamma settings. - There are key-rebinds, and I'll give them credit for actually allowing my M4 button to be mapable. However the tutorial messages still want you to hit those old keybinds to close them. :) - Enemy hitboxes are janky. Yes, the head = easy kill, but when I can't tell if I hit the damn head or the body, then TF am I supposed to do? - Speaking of enemy hitboxes, the melee weapon doesn't work. Why? Why not? - The kick defaults you to aiming around mid-height. That might seem fine, but assume you're looking down, trying to kick an enemy's face in, and your boot (and vision) will swiftly kick up to torso height and kick the air. - The animations and acting are... servicable. Nothing to write home about. - I'll give props to the character having a model and not being a floating camera. - Enemies are actually neat, until you somehow manage to kill one so bad it kills your framerate from a decent 60 to 24 for no particular reason. How do you screw up gibs and gore that badly, look at Killing Floor 2 for crying out loud! - If an enemy gets too close when you try to shoot, you'll kick them. Remember the awful kicking defaulting to torso-height no matter where you're looking? That applies here too. Good luck scoring a headshot at close range. - Speaking of scoring headshots: How the fuck does the hitboxes work? I can kick an enemy down but I can't land a proper shot on them? Like, I'm really sorry I'm writing this review, cause I was actually excited for this game. I kept watching the trailer, over and over. Annnnnnnnd it just... it's a bad game. Like, I am surprised the game is even at a "mixed" rating. This is atrocious. It's a waste of an interesting concept. It's like a delicious apple pie that someone managed to undercook and now the family is stuck with food poisoning for 2 weeks. I'm genuinely distraught at how awful this game really is. Unless they address ANY of the issues I mentioned, DO NOT BOTHER, do not buy this game, do not buy the sequels (if they ever happen) and for the love of god, don't bother with this developer until they sort their shit out and can produce a product that isn't awful and unenjoyable.