Customer Reviews

You Are Empty

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Eastern European gaming companies have came up with some great ideas in the last 5 years (STALKER and THE WITCHER pop to mind, to name just a couple). Unfortunately, although it tries hard, YOU ARE EMPTY is NOT one of the best examples.

This game's strengths are mainly the story and the settings. Soviet-era mentality had always been obsessed with mind-control sciences, and when something goes terribly wrong the world is turned into a zombie and cyber-entities cesspool.
The graphics are nice (comparable, at least, to those of HL2 - a 3-year old game mind you), the surfaces are gorgeous and have been done painstakingly in polygons (not bump mapping!) - and the game engine, although previously untested, hardly ever glitches! Now THAT is solid kung-fu programming!
The scenery, with all the Soviet propaganda posters and the beautifully done cut-scenes, is gorgeous; whereas, the sounds and music have been tastefully chosen, with radio loop-announcements cutting through the cold Russian wind making the power-lines whistle: this is a game that is really easy to get immersed into!
Interestingly, YOU ARE EMPTY runs for well over 16 hours(!): this is how long FPS games used to last - and not the miserly 3-4 hours the latest over-hyped releases do...

On the down side, the weapons may be realistic yet could not be more generic and unimaginative; movement is slower than flowing syrup, something especially nerve-raking when enemies have the tendency to jump you from all directions; and the damage (both sustained and inflicted) is hardly balanced: it is preferable to get hit by a grenade than to jump a single floor, to absorb several bullets that get bitten by a single rat and to keep using your sidearm than a rifle, since they do about the same damage, appear to have the same range and the sidearm can hold more bullets...!

This is a game that had been available for more than a year in Europe before finding distribution in the US - and, undoubtedly, this is not helping its chances to impress. We should count our blessings though: the European release also featured ...STARFORCE.

This is a solid first effort by DIGITAL SPRAY, a newly founded group, that although fails to stand out in this pre-Christmas crowd, lays stable groundwork for its future developments. Let's only hope they do not get outright absorbed into a gaming mega-corporation...

All in all: a creative and atmospheric game that is worth a budget admission price.

A good amount of gameplay here. Graphics range from clean and creative to a bit washed-out and 2003ish. Mostly on the good side, though. Music is atmospheric and carries the mood of the game well. The game itself is simplistic in it's approach with a dab every now and again of a creative puzzle. You run. You gun. You find the switch. You find (only a few... thank god) keys. You ride a few vehicles. You never drive them. You only ride them. You watch some very surrealistic cut scenes that make virtually no sense until the end of the game. Quite artsy on the cutscenes. They are a creative blend of real-time video, and graphics combined. With a touch of 'squiggly animation' over the real-time video. Kind of feels like an 80's retro AHA video. The video for the song 'Take on me'. The vocal acting is mostly good with a few quite humorous attempts at a 'serious' tone from some pretty bad actors. But, that's pretty common in a shooter, isn't it? Just a few game restarting bugs. Which, frankly, surprised me. I had been prepared to expect far more problems. I experienced very few. The gameplay is essentially linear. You do have a few choices now and again at your approach to a situation. However, one nagging problem really irked me. I reached the end of a level (a quite good one, at that) and i couldn't figure out how to go on. I spent the better part of an hour trying to determine what the heck had happenned. I finally decided to retrace my steps. After quite a while i figured out that one of the 'bad guys' was still alive. And, hiding behind a wall where i could not see him or shoot him. I finally restarted the level, made sure he was also dead, and then quite easily figured out how to end the level. So, you MUST kill all of the baddies or you cannot finish the level. And, last irritating point. At a crucial time in the game you are told you have a serious choice to make. It has the potential to be a powerful turning point in the whole game and could've added an element of human choice that really would've given this game something new and creative to stand on. Except that after you're told to make the choice, your on-screen personna makes the choice for you. Unfair. I would've chosen the opposite. I felt a bit robbed of an awesome experience there. Making a choice that could've made the game more of a personnal experience. Oh, well. The game had a nice ending overall. Though it seems that, towards the end, the developers forgot to fill in some blanks. Leaving the ending a little sparce on real puzzles and fighting. I have had many more endings that were far worse than this. But, the game starts off so strong it's kind of a shame that the ending was not more memorable. But, they did not forget to provide MANY environments all the way up until the end. Not to mention MANY weapons along the way. And, even a few quite surprising, and frightening, characters to jump out and scare the living daylights out of you.
A lot of the characters act a bit like the Serious Sam baddies. They see you from a distance and come running straight for you. Yet there are some that hide and duck behind barriers so the AI is not totally moronic. A lot of this game takes place indoors in enclosed spaces like DOOM 3 did. But, it does have some spacious outdoor environments like DOOM 3 didn't.
This game, at it's best, reminds one of a cross between the first Half Life and Return to Castle Wolfenstein combined. But, at it's worst, is a bit more like the long forgotten PC flop, Mortyr. The graphics are sometimes spectacular. And at times you have little more than that to go on. But, in other glimpses of greatness, there is more to this game than meets the eye. In closing, once i finished this game, i have decided that i WILL play this again. I feel this deserves one more chance to impress me even more than it did the first time. This is not by any means a bad game. It's just one game in a HUGE pile of other games very much like it. And, in my opinion, it doesn't deserve to be on the bottom of the pile. Even in it's (It seems...) unfinished state. Buy it when it's under 25 bucks. ADDED INFO ::: Please note that once this review was submitted i saw that the 'fun' star rating was at '1'. I tried to change it, but i couldn't. Really, it's a '4' just like my overall rating.

Eastern European gaming companies have came up with some great ideas in the last 5 years (STALKER and THE WITCHER pop to mind, to name just a couple). Unfortunately, although it tries hard, YOU ARE EMPTY is NOT one of the best examples.

This game's strengths are mainly the story and the settings. Soviet-era mentality had always been obsessed with mind-control sciences, and when something goes terribly wrong the world is turned into a zombie and cyber-entities cesspool.
The graphics are nice (comparable, at least, to those of HL2 - a 6-year old game mind you), the surfaces are not too shabby (notice that they have been done painstakingly in polygons, not bump mapping!) - and the game engine, although previously untested, hardly ever glitches! Now THAT is solid kung-fu programming!
The scenery, with all the Soviet propaganda posters and the beautifully done cut-scenes, is gorgeous; whereas, the sounds and music have been tastefully chosen, with radio loop-announcements cutting through the cold Russian wind making the power-lines whistle: this is a game that is really easy to get immersed into!
Interestingly, YOU ARE EMPTY runs for well over 16 hours(!): this is how long FPS games used to last - and not the miserly 3-4 hours the latest over-hyped releases do...

On the down side, the weapons may be realistic yet could not be more generic and unimaginative; movement is slower than flowing syrup, something especially nerve-raking when enemies have the tendency to jump you from all directions; and the damage (both sustained and inflicted) is hardly balanced: it is preferable to get hit by a grenade than to jump a single floor, to absorb several bullets that get bitten by a single rat and to keep using your sidearm than a rifle, since they do about the same damage, appear to have the same range and the sidearm can hold more bullets...!

This is a game that had been available since 2008 in Europe before finding distribution in the US - and, undoubtedly, this is not helping its chances to impress. We should count our blessings though: the European release also featured the infamous...StarFORCE.

This is a solid first effort by DIGITAL SPRAY, a newly founded group, that although fails to stand out in this pre-Christmas crowd, lays stable groundwork for its future developments. Let's only hope they do not get outright absorbed into a gaming mega-corporation...

All in all: a creative and atmospheric game that is worth a budget admission price.

I downloaded this during the week before the end of the Spring semester final exams. I'm in a master's program and the work load is heavy. I needed something to veg my mind out a bit in between studying. You Are Empty did the trick.

I'm not a huge First Person Shooter fan but You Are Empty was pretty straight forward. The story was interesting though I felt it could have had a lot more depth to it. The game isn't too long or too short. It fits into that just right area. The idea of the Russians doing strange genetic tests was nice. Usually its Nazi Germany but looking at the idea of Communist abominations was slightly original. Slighty.

I say its like Resident Evil 2 for PSone because they keep your ammo on the low side, although finding health booster is pretty easy. The enemies are like something out of a Soviet Red Scare Horror movie. They put in charged metal music at tense points in the game.

The setting was nice, this is where Medal of Honor Underground for PSone comes in. You creep around corners and are attacked by everything from mutant chickens, strangely busty nurses with melted off faces (I thought this was a bit much), insane firemen, steel workers (with hammers), peasants (with sickles), and a host of other strange mutants. You will find yourself using the handgun a lot, this is because it is perfect for sniping people. The electric gun was the dumbest thing ever. If you fire it and someone is close to you, YOU lose health too! Not to mention that the weapon is weak and takes a few hits to kill someone.

The ending was a bit lacking in my opinion. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone.

Die hard gamers might find this to be too elementary by a casual game might find a jem.

Yes, I have read all the professional reviews on Metacritic that basically gave the middle finger to this game. But having played it to the end, I simply don't get the hate. It's not a perfect game, but clearly a lot of work and love went into creating it, so I think it deserves some comment.

First, the positive. From the moment I was treated to the first cutscene, which like all the cutscenes, looks like it was created by the same guys who did Pink Floyd's "The Wall", I was impressed by the art design. Both the cutscenes and ingame art are quite striking and beautiful. Very atmospheric. I have no clue what the story is, but then again, I didn't understand "The Wall" either. I'm sure there is a deep story there, and I may play this again sometime, and pay more attention. Level design is overall good, with some caveats I'll get to in the 'negative' section. Some very creative minds here. Clearly inspired by "Half Life 2" in that these guys are just as good at creating stunning set pieces.

Unfortunately, the look and atmosphere are where the great stuff ends. Weapons are decent, and the music does help set the tone. The music is used sparingly, which I liked. For once, I didn't immediately shut it off, and just left it on for the entire game. It's also a quite long game, at least for these days. Maybe 12 to 15 hours for me.

And I was never bored. I was always very curious to see what was around the next corner...mostly. And here's where the negatives start.

About two-thirds through the game, I started noticing a lot more crates than usual. And it got worse toward the end (though thankfully not at THE end). It was pretty obvious that they got rushed to get this game out the door, as there was pretty blatant use of crates as as means to guide you by using them as impromptu walls. This only happened on a few levels, but it was obvious and annoying to see. This is a shame, since the levels they were used in were otherwise quite nice.

The game is very linear, which could have been alleviated by making a few more places to explore, and a few more secrets to find. While there are some secret areas, they are precious few.

There is no "Run" key. You walk the same exact speed through the entire game. This was my biggest peeve. I got used to it, but it was annoying. I believe this was done intentionally, as a way to pace the game, but it was totally a mistake in my view.

While I understand that the plot includes mutated creatures, I think the huge-breasted nurses and giant chickens only detract from the excellent mood they had already succeeded at.

Yeah, that's a lot of negatives, but overall, the positives do outweigh them. But only if you're into playing primarily an atmospheric game. Other than that, the actual gamePLAY is average at best. But I'm into bleak cities and landscapes, so I really liked my playthrough. Your experience may vary. The game was stable, and ran just fine for me from beginning to end. I'm using Vista Premium 64-bit on a Q6600 and 9800GT.

Someone has said that electronic gaming is the new art form. In my

opinion, "You Are Empty" epitomizes this ideal.

Mostly panned or damned with faint praise by its' critics, this is

nevertheless an exceptional gaming experience, reminiscent of several

top-drawer games such as Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R. and Iron Storm.

A unique single-player FPS game for grown-ups that takes place in an

atmospheric, post-apocalyptic Russia [by Russian developers], it

has great graphics, exciting game-play and truly terrifying

mutant enemy AI not seen elsewhere. Maps are large and detailed.

Negatives are a lack of a run, lean or prone mode, hence the 4 stars.

All-in-all though, this is an excellent game that you'll play again

and again!

The game is a lot of fun. It's quite long and has an eerie atmosphere. It runs perfectly on Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. Buy this, you won't be disappointed.

Very different,but nice game. Very European. There is only one cheat code. The main one! Nice game ,buy or download it!

The mechanics were serviceable, and the atmosphere not bad (though the dated graphics didn't help).

The problem with this game is that after a couple levels you've killed the same zombie-with-a-broomstick and scary-nurse-with-huge-breasts A HUNDRED TIMES.

If there had been a bit more variety, I might have made it further, but it's just such a dud. It really makes you think "I have better things to do than this."

I went into this knowing it wasn't a AAA title and that's okay, budget titles can be fun too. The levels if a little bland can be imaginative, but the problem is the weapons. there is ZERO feedback so you have NO idea if you are doing damage or not! What I mean by feedback is the bad guys just don't really react when you shoot them and visually there isn't really any damage modeling so you can't really tell if you are hurting them until they fall down. As someone who like games like Brothers in Arms where I can pop a head smooth off or Bioshock where you can ragdoll someone across the room with a close twelve gauge hit no feedback is more than a little irritating.

Still i paid a grand total of $6 WITH shipping, so if you can get it at that price? It'll kill a weekend if you have already gone through the Brothers In Arms series (which I HIGHLY recommend BTW) and are bored. the enemies are cool and the 50s Soviet propaganda is appropriately creepy. All in all on a scale of 1-5 I'd give it a high 2 or a low 3, depending on how much creepiness appeals to you as a gamer. for some the creep factor will make up for the lack of feedback, others not.