Get inspiration from Gears of War gameplay, add in some Resident Evil-esque classic puzzle mode, and finish it with mind-boggling story-telling, you will get Gene Rain. I’ll stop here and just save it for the paragraphs below. Here are some details first:
Reviewed: Xbox One
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC via Steam
Developer: Deeli network
Publisher: Deeli network
Release Date: July 10, 2018
MSRP: $24.99
Review code provided by Deeli Network
Graphics: Totally washed out visuals, poorly done animation
Gene Rain is one of those indie video games that did not have enough funding and just got created because they were inspired by another title. This game was just poorly done, sadly, and everything looks so washed out. Even some of the visuals look glitchy and unstable that it sometimes disfigures the 3D models. I know it’s an indie game but at least make it look good in today’s standards? Even the special effects look weird… Actually, it looks like this game was made for the PlayStation 2 era. It’s just that bad, I’m sorry.
For visuals, I’m giving Gene Rain a 4 out of 10 points. If they had more funding and effort for this category, I think they would have improved.
Story: Baffling, all over the place
First of all, the introduction of the game was weird as hell. It started off with a small speech, some quote or a phrase then you get into a fight right away. The world looks like from the future and the protagonists are fighting against some alien robots. After that, it turned into some kind of flashback and then the gameplay turned into something similar of a Resident Evil classic puzzle solving game. From then on, it was fighting against alien robots again. All I could say was it was too confusing, the story points were all over the place, I couldn’t even tell what they were talking about.
For the story, I’m giving Gene Rain 2 out of 10 points because I couldn’t make what the story is all about.
Gameplay: Looks like a copycat of a certain game
You know what’s wrong with this game? It’s the gameplay that looks very similar to a popular Xbox exclusive franchise: Gears of War! The run, the cover, the aim, even the melee is all so similar. Even the targeting system looks way too similar to the popular franchise. In this game, it’s a bit unpolished so it’s not that good and the aim snapping to an enemy is a bit, not that fluid. It’s pretty serviceable though, but everything is way too familiar.
The puzzle solving sequences also look too familiar and they are very hard to solve because the objectives are hard to find. The controls are kinda whacked as well, running is hard to do. Overall, it’s kind of a mess.
For gameplay, Gene Rain has a score of 2 out of 10 points because it’s almost like a copycat and it’s not polished enough.
Audio: So much broken English in dialogue
The English dialogue is so broken in this game that this contributed in confusing me what the story is all about. If we’re having a conversation with one of the characters in the game, I would’ve smacked his face silly just to make him talk some sense. I don’t know, maybe the voice actors they hired were amateurs or they were foreigners that did not know much about the English language? It’s really hard to listen to. The music is quite good though, it keeps you on your toes.
The score for the audio category is a 4 considering the good tracks. The voice acting is just so rough though.
In a whole, Gene Rain is a poorly done indie video game with similar controls of Gears of War. Hopefully, the game developers could update, or better yet, revamp the whole game with more fluid controls, better voice acting, and hire a better story writer to make it worthwhile.
