OSES Reviews

[h1]OSES is a third-person shooter with some puzzle elements.[/h1] In [i]OSES[/i] you play as 1-3 survivors each level, switching at will as appropriate, attempting to complete the level objective. It's a bit silly that despite having three characters, there's no multiplayer whatsoever. It looks like something made for local co-op. But there's only one zombie type, except for the boss zombie of certain levels. The gameplay quickly grows stale. You can buy permanent weapons, power-ups, and cosmetics for survivors with in-game money earned by killing zombies. Weapons are a decent variety with rather obvious best weapons but power-ups weren't that useful to me. Cosmetics are fun and diverse, considering the simplistic character models. There are (currently) 7 campaign maps with a simple story and 16 challenge maps. Four types of levels exist. [list] [*]In [i]Defense[/i] you have to keep a bunch of generators intact. For some reasons zombies like to munch on those things. [*]In [i]Food Rush[/i] survivors die slowly and have to pick up the burgers falling from the sky to stay alive, while averting zombies. [*][i]Boss battles[/i] have a big zombie to kill. [*]Finally, in [i]Escape[/i], which I consider the best and most interesting mode, all survivors need to get to a campfire ("safety") while helping each other. [/list] [i]Defense[/i] and [i]Food Rush[/i] have small maps, in which you have to manage health and ammo to keep the survivors alive. Particularly, in [i]Food Rush[/i] it matters little if a survivor dies (you've got 3 after all) as you roam the map, but in [i]Defense[/i] preferrably two are defending the generators (usually two of them separated by a distance), while third is gathering ammo or kiting zombies. Since there's only one regular enemy type (i.e. beside boss levels) and they won't scale or vary anyhow, these modes quickly grow stale. Especially if you equip laser guns: effectively infinite recharging ammo trivializes [i]Defense[/i]. [h1]Best mode: [i]Escape[/i] puzzles[/h1] [i]Escape[/i] has the group complete a puzzle course to get all survivors (2-3 of them) to the campfires. The survivors need to open gates and operate lifts to help each other to reach the goal, while averting zombies. There's a time limit, which makes the last few maps sufficiently challenging action puzzles. Characters easily get stuck in the corners, a minor issue, but emphasized in puzzle levels. The controls are a bit awkward for what looks like a top-down shooter. [h1]Controls[/h1] Currently there's no gamepad support - which I'm fine with - so you're limited to keyboard and/or mouse controls. Remapping can be done in launcher. While there are 4 control schemes, combined with either [i]Camera Behind[/i] option enabled or not, I found only a couple of these confortable. The character moves by tank controls, with turning either by keyboard or mouse depending on the setting. A kind of strafing was recently implemented, allowing hopping left and right in certain control settings. Anyway, personally I found the Mouse Rot setting the best: character turns (and aims) by moving mouse and otherwise moves with the tank-like controls. It would have been simpler to stick with a single working control scheme, although I appreciate the variety provided. [h1]Full, albeit clumsy, level editor[/h1] I experimented with the level editor a bit (there's actually an achievement for uploading a level), and I believe it's extensive enough that one could even create levels the style of its campaign levels, full with story and events. The custom levels are of limited size and not much scripting can be done, but it's alright software for practicing some simple level designing. One could even make their own story campaign with it. [h1]Conclusions[/h1] Initially, I experienced some bugs with achievements but the developers were awesome and fixed them within a day. They also tweaked the control scheme for a better result with my feedback, so I can only commend them for their efforts. That said, I completed the campaign and all challenges within about 3-4 hours. The enemy variety is non-existing, and laser gun is over-powered, completely trivializing [i]Defense[/i] mode. Graphics are on the simpler side but music is alright and fitting. Level editor shows some promise. The game's a tad simple and needs more content (though [i]Steam Workshop[/i] helps in the long run), especially more puzzle levels and/or new kinds of enemies. [h1]Due to the relatively scarce amount of content, I'd recommend getting it on sale.[/h1] [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9997062/]~Twistorian Curator~[/url]