Special guest reviewer Sean Michael talks about the unique intricacies of “The Forest” and what makes it different from the many other “Mindcraft-like” clones currently available.
The Forest Review – Sean Michael
The Forest is a first person survival horror game that is still in early alpha, so bear with me when it comes to the hard details. The game focuses around you trying to survive being trapped alone on an island that is inhabited by cannibals who live somewhere on the island in deep caves. There is no set objective at this time to the game, though many people believe that there is. *Spoiler Alert* Well sort of. When the plane crashes, in the beginning of the game, one of the strange cannibals comes and takes a kid who is sitting next to you, who many presume to be your child, on the plane as the game starts. Many believe the ultimate goal is find the kid and escape the island. However, the game developers have never stated this as the true goal of the game.
Graphically, The Forest is beautiful.The game even for being in Alpha is amazingly well done for being an open world game, but that doesn’t mean it’s without faults. There were a couple of times when I would get strange graphical errors that seemed to kaleidoscope the screen when you got close but went away eventually.
The game sounds like it has been done before with titles like Rust and Don’t Starve, but stands out above them because of the amazing crafting systems and unique interactive environment. The crafting system lets you build everything from simple homes to huge log cabins and walls to make your very own compound in the woods. You aren’t just limited to buildings either you can make new and interesting weapons to help defend yourself. I made Molotov cocktails out of the mini bottles of booze on the plane and some cloth. The possibility for the crafting system in this game is quite astounding. On top of its amazing crafting system everything, yes I mean everything, in the world is somehow interactive. If you have your axe out and walk next to a bush or small tree it will actually cut it, as if you were actually running with an axe. This sort of interactivity really makes me want to see this go to Oculus Rift support. The game itself is already immersive just because of the environment. The Oculus Rift would just step it up that much more. The crafting system in the game definitely could use some work, but again this is in alpha.
Speaking of this game being in Alpha, let me just explain some of the interesting bugs that I actually ran into. Yes, there was the graphical error but there were some pretty interesting gameplay issues that reared their ugly heads too. Upon saving the game for the first time, which is done by sleeping, all the animals in the game disappeared. I had no food source and eventually died of starvation. This was rather disappointing, but I fired the game up again and remembered to just not save that time. Then I had an issue where the cannibals came to my camp and I fought them off but there was one of the cannibals, a female, who didn’t die no matter how many times I attacked. She also didn’t attack, all she did was stand there. I decided that’s fine I will just make her my jungle bride I guess.
Overall, I would suggest the game, despite all of its short comings at the moment. The potential for a truly awesome game is there buried beneath the alpha bugs. This game is taking a rather refreshing look at these survival horror games and seems to be defining the genre right now. This is Minecraft ,if Minecraft was rated M and actually caused you to panic every time you heard a twig snap behind you. You can do whatever you want with the game as it stands and that leaves each person to make their own experience. You definitely will not have the same experience over and over again as is so common with games these days. This one is a definite buy!