Unknightly - VR Gameplay HTC Vive
21A decentish stealth game that promises big yet fails to deliver.
This was my second go with Unknightly as the first time I recorded the gameplay I did so incorrectly and couldn't use the footage. I suck. This video ended up being much longer than i intended, my apologies.
Back to the game. At launch, when I originally recorded the video there was a bug with the cluster of 5 wall candles where they didn't actually give off light. This was pretty game breaking as it ended up requiring no effort to get through the levels. I harp on it quite a bit because it was such a bad bug to launch with and just so careless.
On the other hand it does speak positively that the dev team had it fixed before I got back from my week long trip and recorded again. (I'm assuming it's fixed and not something I just didn't trigger this time. Benefit of the doubt.) At least they're supporting the game. Points in their favor.
The audio for the most part isn't too cringy. The guards have ok voice lines though they get repetitive very fast. When you die however the enemies being right on top of you causes their voices to raise in volume quite a bit. Again, this is something they've patched since launch but I still feel that they're too loud.
The big promise that I believe the game failed to deliver on was that of choice. The tutorial and first mission, (of which there are only 2, so half the game,) are extremely linear. The tutorial I can understand, it's a hand held guide through the game. The first mission however should have opened up options and choices. I still felt like I was on rails and had to follow a very specific path to get to my goal. I didn't feel like I had options on how to tackle a situation.
The AI was exceptionally laughable. Guards could not seem me 5 feet in front of their faces even though I could see them just fine and we were both in the same darkness. It's far more immersion breaking than you'd expect. If I can see them just fine, what's wrong with them that they can't see me as well?
I did like the light and sound mechanics. Having to worry about noise as well as whether I was in the light was a nice touch.
Even though they were very linear the levels felt pretty large. Even the tutorial. With only two real levels (+tutorial for "3") they had better be pretty large.
I did have some performance issues when I first loaded the game with a lot of dropped frames until I tinkered with the SS settings. If you experience this when you load up the game, move the SS settings slider and save. It felt like it was either trying to use my 4k desktop resolution or the default value of SS was too high and saving the settings felt like they overwrote those values and I stopped dropping frames. Performance related settings should be added and lower settings should be assumed if there is no hardware assessment/best settings function.
The verdict? Meh.
The stealth genre is underrepresented in VR so if you're really thirsty for some stealth action this might be your cup of tea. For everyone else, the lack of promised choice, the lack of any promised story elements, the immersion breaking guards and the lack of content really hurt this game. With a $19.99 price tag you're not really getting a lot of game for your buck.
Sadly this is a not recommended.
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§ https://store.steampowered.com/app/726250/Unknightly/
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