Edit: Game has changed a lot since this review, lots of things have changed for the better.


My initial reaction was how well it actually ran on my PC, I have a mediocre i7, 1050TI and 8gb RAM and with it defaulting me on epic settings I was pretty impressed that I was getting 40-50 frames, this however came an issue in certain areas if they were heavily populated so i've since sacrificed my graphics for frames and even now the game still looks wonderful.

During the first hour or so of gameplay I was lucky enough to start near the airfield, as many an hour on DayZ has taught me, this should be good! It didn't disapoint, I got geared easy enough whilst getting chased about by zombies, the controls felt smooth, looting felt great and buildings looked detailed.

Then a mech shot me. RIP.



So SCUM plays out like your typical survival game only there are some major differences to the likes of DayZ, H1 and <generic failed survival game here>

Third person

In SCUM you have the option on all servers to play in third or first, the choice is yours. However do not expect to use the third person camera to look around corners as the devs have implemented something wonderful...you can only see what your characters eyes can see, even if you are in third person.

I was very apprehensive about SCUM with it being primarily a third person game due to the way people cheese the mechanic so this new feature is very welcomed and any dev in the future would be a fool not to have a similar mechanic in their game if they want any element of realism in it. Bravo devs.

Food and water

Gone are the days where you eat anything and everything to fill up a merry little green bar that represents food.

Enter SCUM and the memories of your childhood being told to eat your greens, as in SCUM you'll need to eat a healthy balance of food ranging from other players legs to wild bears, layered with a sprinkling of chocolate and vitamin pills and you're good to go.

Whilst initially it's quite daunting and you might find yourself starving you need to remember SCUM is, in a sense, a realistic game so you can go a long time without actually eating, you will also soon find that food and drink isn't actually that hard to find as unlike other games it's not just about looking every building hoping from scraps. You can hunt animals, you can pick corn fields, grab apples from trees or hell kill a "puppet" (zombie) chop him up and cook him!

Daunting at first, but I love it and it's a fresh idea.

The world

The world of SCUM has been carefully created with twisting hillside roads leading over bridges, through tunnels and around various picturesque locations.

As you run around the map it's easy to see how much time and effort was put into creating the world, some locations are breathtaking (especially if you have the graphics up!). You have roadside cliffs that tower above small farming towns, military bunkers guarded by robots that hate socialising and buildings that are not just copy and pasted 1 floor houses but giant prison blocks with multiple floors and some even with basements, they're a maze of rooms filled with thought out interiors...the list goes on, in short, it's feels great to enjoy the world you spend so much time running around.

Events

Whilst playing in the free roam world of SCUM you earn "Fame points" this is essentially your currency and currently it is used for two things, respawning and events.

At any point you can buy into an event, for example team deathmatch. There are a few different types and locations which are played out in a instance seperate from the free roam world, your main character is removed from the world and is safe, if you die in these events it does not effect your free roam character in any way and once you're done you are put back into the world.

These are great fun for getting a feel for the guns, practicing combat in various locations or if you just want some quick action with no drawbacks; they are also a good way to make fame should you win.

Respawning

Currently respawning has the following options:

25 Fame : Spawn in random location

50 Fame : Spawn somewhere in the map grid you died

75 Fame : Spawn at your campsite (should you have placed one)

100 Fame : Spawn on squadmate

These all work great but my only issue is with the last one, spawning on squadmates. This really needs tweaking so you can't spawn on your squad if there is a conflict in the area much like how it's done in ARMA as currently it's fairly easy to get fame so whilst 100 sounds like a lot it's really not and means the squad you're shooting at will respawn almost on top of each other multiple times before you can drive them out of the area.

Hopefully this will be changed soon.


Rating

For an EA title that has been out around a week it's already proven to be better than other survival games on the market, the devs have also been pushing out patches almost daily to fix the major issues, even working all hours on Sundays.

It shows great promise and is very playable, priced at $20 it's easilly worth picking up if you enjoy these games.


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Figured i'd throw crafting in here as it is loosly related.

The controls are pretty generic and don't really need to be talked about too much, everything functions as intended and are bound in ways that feel comfortable from the get go.

One thing you will notice different is sprinting is done with your mousewheel, it's strange at first but it grows on you as it enables you to go from jogging to sprinting in no time at all and if need be straight back down to walking; if you've played Escape From Tarkov imagine how they have done their various crouch levels but with sprinting instead, sounds strange, but it works. Also I hope they add the Tarkov style precision crouching, it would be a welcome addition.

Crafting at first can also be a bit confusing, it took me longer than I care to admit to learn how to actually do some simple tasks like opening a can of food, you would think if you have a can opener and a can in your bag you'd be able to simply right click the can and open it, however you need to select your can opener with left click so it highlights it (or a knife / similar sharp object) and then the food which will then give you the option to open when you right click the food.

This is how you do various interactions with objects in the world, should you want to light a fire then you select your matches / lighter / flint + steel and then select the campfire which will then give you the option to light the fire when you right click the camp site.

Crafting objects can take quite a lot of materials, some of which are too large to lug around but luckily the devs have included crafting from the floor so the objects you need to craft just need to be within your vicinity which makes the crafting process a whole lot smoother.


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The game is stunning, there is no doubt about that. Even if you are playing on low graphics settings you can still see how beautiful the game is.

However it is plagued with a few memory leaks, however a patch has come out that hopefully has fixed this issue but as of writing this review I have yet to try it.

I fully believe in the dev team that this will be fixed either in this current patch or in the next few patches as so far they've done nothing but prove they're working on sorting these issues out as a matter of urgency.



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Brilliant early access title that's cheap and does what it says on the tin with hard working devs that are bringing new ideas to a genre that has been filled with awful let downs.

Worth buying if you enjoy a great survival experiance. I could write more but I have ran out of space!


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