You Are Empty
Score: 49% ESRB: Mature Publisher: Atari Developer: Digital Spray Studios Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: First Person Shooter/ Survival Horror
Graphics & Sound: I may be dating myself by saying that I feel like Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap waking up out of place and out of time again. So the year is 2007, I think. I have just played You are Empty, an alternate reality of Russian history in the 50's. It is a game that debuted at E3 in 2005, with graphics and design feeling like they are from 2003. Oh boy! With what I have said above, it should just about explain what to expect here about graphics. You would expect to be able to pump the graphics fairly high given the fact that it is an outdated engine, but it really didn't like doing that. They spent some time and some work on the characters, and that's good, but you are going to see the same ones over and over and over and over again. There are so few characters in the game that they were able to sit and list each one of them individually in their game manual. Don't spend a long time waiting for a deep and immersive soundtrack or voice over, because it ain't coming. If you speak Russian, you get a short blurb at the beginning, but alas I had to start out in the dark just like everyone else. Instead of voice, you will occasionally get to read a note to get through the game.
Gameplay: So you want to know why You are Empty? Yea, me too. The game starts you off in this enigma and blackout of information. I really think this adds to the plot, but a little info never hurt anybody. Especially when dealing with a language barrier. The opening abstract-style story just left me confused as to its point and why I was playing. It quickly lets you know you are playing a survival horror, but you play for quite a while before any actual story develops and, dare I say, a plot emerges. You wake up in a run-down hospital. I was unsure whether it was medical or mental, but I went with it. Wind your way through passages and corridors to find your way out and move forward. You eventually learn that the only goal is to survive and get out, and should you discover what has really happened and who is responsible along the way, then so be it. You will have an arsenal of weapons at your disposal, well sort of. You will have all of the understood basics of FPS guns. The melee weapon, the shotgun, and, of course, the uber gun that is out of this world. Everything about this game is rhetorical and outdated about the FPS genre. It is not a contest to do something new every single time you make a game, but you do have to try and avoid the negative stigmas and icons of the genre and not try and highlight them as if you were proud of it. Things like making you run upstairs to find a key so you can run back down the same stairs. Narrow hallways that are also unexplainabley blocked by debris. Weapons items and tools used by your enemies, that you can't pick up or use. Obscure, out of place puzzles. weak to non-existent artificial intelligence. I could go on; but why?
Difficulty: You are Empty is not that difficult of a game. If you played any FPS's at all, you have seen every single one of their puzzles done a hundred times. There is a problem that was identified in FPS's a long time ago about having puzzles in the game just to have puzzles in the game. They usually have nothing to do with the game, they are just there to be there. This is usually, and definitely in this case, to make up for a lack of content and story. There is also the continuously blocked corridors that force you to constantly retrace your steps to get through the path they have set for you. The hardest thing about this game is the ability to suspend disbelief and follow the game.
Game Mechanics: I have already touched on several of the lacking mechanics in You are Empty. The environments are not very well thought out, and you jump from one train track path to the next. The design is just, in a word, outdated. The only thing that I can derive from the game is that they are in an absolute rush to put titles out, so much so that I cannot help but be reminded of the early days of Atari. Just for a quick history lesson, the rush to slam poorly done games into a game system and thus, creating a market of distrust, almost killed the game industry. It may also come as no surprise to see Atari's name still attached to this problem. Now I am tempering that with the fact that they have made some great games recently too. It is just that there is no need to take a step back in the gaming industry to push this poorly done game out. In reading some of the promotional and marketing material associated with You Are Empty on the main game site, as well the various game sellers' sites, to say that they have taken some creative liberties is a gross understatement. Take the lack of an immersive visual experience, no real music or voiceovers to speak of, poorly done environments and unoriginal puzzles, and there is not much left to speak of.
-WUMPUSJAGGER, GameVortex Communications AKA Bryon Lloyd
Minimum System Requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Intel Pentium 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon/Sempron 2500, RAM 512 MB, GeForce FX 5600 or ATI 9600 with 128 MB, DVD-Rom drive 8x   Test System: Windows XP Pro, 3.2 GHz P4HT CPU, 2 GB Ram, 512 PCIE 16 ATI X1600XT
Rhythm 'N Notes Classic Speedball II