Made my guy strong, tough, melee, eagle eye, tracking, fast metabolism. I used strong + melee to kick the dog man's ass so hard that my guy went into the camera system to make a copy of the beatdown. I found that hilarious. It was worth $50 so I might have to come back for it. I went west slightly to scavenge and found a crowbar, much better than the multi tool from the cryo place. When I got back though 2 guys were looting the place and took my video. I killed them. By this point I had no new weapons, duffle bag in left hand (weird that it would not go on the backpack slot), plastic bag in backpack, hoodie, cargo pants and shoes on both feet. I spent a while cooking and eating those guys, and going out short distances to loot. Soon enough I decided to leave SE and make a backup save (the save file was automatically deleted upon death but could be copied and restored). By this point I had binoculars around my neck, patchwork hide armor, a meat cleaver, and revolver with 2 bullets. Clean water was an issue though and I ended up with cholera and gastroenteritis. I tried resting in place and drinking plenty of unclean water. At 1 point I ate red berries since I figure how much worse could it be if these are poison? That was how I died, after 4 days.

Next time I recalled that there was a metal can in 1 of the places I looted. Why didnt I think to use that to boil water before? With that and eating some dogs I rested long enough to get better, maybe 2 or 3 days. Soon after that I seen 2 guards wreck multiple people. I waited another day or 2 for them to move away then checked the findings. Couple school backpacks, 2 crowbars, rifle, better revolver, pills, laptops, functional smartphone, nightvision goggles. I could not actually do anything with the phone though so I guess it had no apps. The time always showed 930. I was hoping I could at least use it as a watch. I moved the good stuff back to my camp in the woods and made another save. The next death happened at day 8 and was again due to damn poisoned berries. I ate white/yellow berries from those dead guys, which led to poison, sickness and pain. I took some painkillers and rested until 2 bandits attacked. 1 had a rifle and the other was unarmed. I did not realize I could switch between targets so I let rifle guy get 1st strike because I was waiting for the unarmed guy to get close enough. I took a butt to the chest for fractured ribs. I killed 1 and maybe let the other flee. Took another painkiller and started cooking him when 2 blue sash guys attacked. Neither had a weapon but 1 picked up the rifle from the ground. I probably would have won if not for the other sources of pain, as buddy was seriously injured when I passed out from pain. So preventing any of those 3 errors would most likely have kept me alive; not eating poison berries, not letting the guy get 1st strike, and not leaving a weapon on the ground to be used against me. I did figure out the camp screen gave more space to put stuff and later that nothing ever went missing from there.

Next time I decided to head straight for Detroit. I snuck up on a sleeping deer, which was good eating. I found a sled and attached string to it for much larger inventory. I filled it up with loot to sell, even finding 3 more crowbars along the way, though 1 was in terrible condition. So bad that I used it up till 0.1% then destroyed it on the off chance someone hostile might pick it up. I ditched the sled in favor of a shopping cart, which had a bit more room but could not hold very small items. Interesting realism. Unfortunately I realized a little later that it was just the basket part of a cart with no wheels or handles. So that was why I could only make 1 move per turn. This was some Trailer Park Boys antics. Some guy tried to steal the basket when I ditched it to chase after a dog. It ran into the poison swamp, which I assume was a death sentence. Meanwhile buddy with 1 move with my cart was not getting away from me. I was starving and needed that dog, so he will have to suffice. I then went back to swap back to the sled. Made it to Detroit the next day due to not stopping anywhere. Sold a lot of my stuff and got in minor trouble for selling human meat. They still bought it but I was warned not to do it again. I bought a couple batteries for my flashlight and a bunch of canned food. I wandered around in the north until my sled broke, at which point I left most loot behind. I went all the way back to the beginning to get that tape to sell. There were a couple deaths, 2 dogmen and a cultist with a gun, plus my save corrupted and I had to restore from the recycle bin. Seemed like the game did not properly save and after closing the program the save would not load. I eventually found a new sled and began hauling loot back until I had over $5000. The save bug happened again on the way to the military camp to do the next quest from Hatter. I later discovered the flash drive for that quest on the ground on Hatter's tile: oops. I had no idea that Camp Grayling was the end of the game. Along the way I came down with blue rot. Ok so melee fighting and eating blue frog cult members was bad, and testing showed I caught it before the last backup save. I got attacked by a bunch of people at the base when I said I was there to scavenge. I moved away and they all wandered off without attacking me. Then I went through the base choosing options that led to the ending. Tough allowed me to tank the defense system, then I rigged the forklift as a distraction, then I went to the hanger figuring it would have more to deal with the robots than the barracks or control tower. It was the right call because any deviation from those choices would have led to death unless I had foil ponchos.

The game then loaded back to the previous save. I had turned off autosave to help against save corruption and had no further issues with that. I then did the mental institution since it was nearby and had the cure for blue rot, however I did not read a walkthrough. I snuck in and poked around then did the quest to challenge the bishop, looking up the part about the trial since the wording was a little confusing. Eagle eye let me know that the bishop was only pretending to be nervous but the wording about the trial made me confused. So he really wanted the light trial and the correct choice was to refuse it, but I could have still won with tough. Liza took over the cult and reformed it into not crazy, and I took the medical record reward for story. No cure though. To get that I had to not sneak in and legit join the cult. I tried following Liza on the map after but I lost her when night fell. Then I went back to Detroit to recover naturally. I ate the veggy meal from the canteen, boiled water, ate white antibiotic pills and slept off to the side. I read online that surviving this way was only 30% chance or less and required blood transfusions, but my health never went below 50% and I had no negative symptoms. Perhaps the roll to decide survival occured at onset rather than the end. After fully recovering I edited a text file to give me 100 moves per turn to expedite checking out the rest of the game. He still got tired from every move so it was easy to mess up the sleep schedule, but it was great being able to zip around as if there was fast travel. I could not sell all the loot because the stores kept getting full. I found the ATN with another juicy shop to sell loot, which also sold useful things like wooden sleds, bags, bows and war clubs. I got the wendigo curse cured and the place offered free daily meals so no more cannibalism. It was a much better place than Detroit and the best place to go early on. Then I did Zom Zom and got another quest for the military camp. Disappointed that there was no shop and only human meat on offer. I did go back in to fight a robot to get unstoppable perk, using eagle eye to figure out the bot was being remote controlled from the audience and winning by default. The other special locations nearby did not have much of interest and I never found the silver urn house. I missed the loot at the fair grounds but it was nothing special. The only thing left to do was kill the wraith so I took off the bronze talisman and had a shotgun ready. It took several attempts to win because even at close range he missed most shots. I got a decent head shot once but every other hit and crowbar strike barely did anything. Until I noticed the expose weakness special move from unstoppable. After using that and waiting until close range, the wraith died from a single shot to the chest. I should have saved visiting the isotope mine because you could trade the talisman for a rifle, but I was already filthy rich.

At this point I was done with the game. Most of the map was not explored. I did go to the far NW corner and scout along the coast but died to an archer. He was hidden and shot twice before I could close in and melee him. Then I had 2 embedded arrow wounds and clicked on an arrow to see if there was 1st aid to remove it. Yes he pulled it out without any kind of prompt then passed out from pain and died. The pain mechanic was absolutely ridiculous in this game. So I should have taken the powerful painkillers then pulled out 1 arrow at a time with bandages in between to maybe survive. I read there was decent loot to find in the poison swamp and a gas mask would make it safe. I could also kill Detroit guards for the best gear and use tin foil cloaks to do more at the military camp, but it all seemed pointless. The concept was cool and the story and world building were well done, but the rest of the game was very tedious. By far the worst aspect was the extremely limited inventory, which bled over into making the other mechanics unnecessarily tedious. At the beginning you can only carry 2 items, 1 in each hand. What the hell? I can carry way more than that in real life using my arm crook. The amount of inventory granted by a shopping cart should be the baseline for a naked man, at the very least. The most annoying flaw of the limited inventory was during combat because only weapons actually held in the hands could be used yet I almost always had a bag in the offhand for more space. There was no way to access the inventory during combat, even when hidden or far away with plenty of time. The rifle strapped to the back could not be used nor could small things like pistols, knives and even extra bullets. I hated this lack of tactics. The combat also needed hotkeys for the wait and advance commands, or new commands to repeat those actions until the enemy was in range. Overall I found this game way too restricting and with not nearly enough content, such as weapon, armor and enemy variety. The lore was very good and I liked the supernatural cannibalism penalty but I still kinda regret buying this. I read there are mods so I might try that in the future.

6.0/10