Half Dead

Genre: First-Person Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

Half-Dead is a First-Person Puzzle game first released on PC in 2016 and ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2020. This is a game that is clearly looking to evoke the same sort of look and feel of the horror film Cube, where a group of people find themselves waking up in a series of connected cube-shaped rooms filled with deadly traps and must use logic and observation skills to figure out a way to escape.

In terms of presentation, this game does a decent enough job presenting a series of rooms with death traps in them, but not much else. The ls have a decent framerate but there’s not much variety to them, and when you run into other prisoners they look awkward and low-poly and seem to be murmuring meaningless gibberish. There’s nothing impressive here in terms of graphics or sound, and the most I can say for it is there’s nothing outright broken

As for the gameplay, you’re given a “hint” that the markings on the floor tell you how many of the next four rooms have traps, but not told what “next four rooms” means, not told just what “markings” means, and not told what to do with this information. Players can toss one of their boots into a room to test for a trap, but you only have two boots and once a room reveals itself to house a trap you’ll usually lose your boot to that trap, so you can only really get two positive trap tests before your fate is resigned to lady luck.

Oh, one other thing before I finish – this game refuses to work with a Pro controller – it requires Joy-Cons to play, despite not using any of the Joy-Con’s unique features. Really frustrating.

While I appreciate that Half Dead is trying to recreate the experience of a fantastic cerebral horror film, the result here isn’t scary, it isn’t thoughtful, and is just frustrating, poorly-explained, and undercooked. Don’t bother with this game.

tl;dr – Half Dead is a First-Person Puzzle game that plays like the cerebral horror film Cube, except this game isn’t scary, doesn’t feel smart, and is nowhere near as enjoyable as that cult classic. Skip this one.

Grade: D

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Game

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