Scars Above (2023)

It's not the best game but has a lot of items and a few mechanics which made fights interesting.

I played it on normal difficulty and it was pretty easy, maybe playing it in hard would make it more enjoyable(?) idk, you have a lot of resources/items to just not die, so maybe hard should be the standard.

There were few types of enemies which were being reused along the entire game but in different elements (felt like an old mmorpg) but they all had different attack patterns and movements so it didn't feel boring.

Bosses designs were really cool but it would have been better if they had more attack patterns.

On the visual aspect, it looks good enough (worst aspect of the game was facial expressions, they didn't spent too much time on this), movement was fluent and shooting or using objects was satisfying and felt rewarding.

Overall i think it's a really short (Took me 7h to complete) and good game which makes it easier for me to recommend. (Oh and if you like achievements then go for it, i got 43 of 45 just playing normally)

Scars Above feels like a first game from a promising studio. Somewhat competent but full of terrible design decisions. A game grafted from various elements of popular games without much care or though on how they interact or what role they play in their original ecosystem.

It's also terrible undisciplined in the mechanics that it introduces and then doesn't use. In the first few minutes you find a puzzle that blocks your progress; there are a total of three puzzles in the whole game. You also find a crafting table and upgrades are presented to you as a crafting item that allows you to craft upgrades; except that you just press E and immediately get the upgrade. There's a bonfire-like system that restores health, items and ammo at the cost of all enemies respawning; but the game is linear so you never need to go back to previous areas so who cares.

Now, it's not all bad. The core combat is solid, I think. You get a few elemental weapons and enemies have weak points particular to each element. So a big hulking monster might have a few glowing red protuberances that take massive damage if you hit it with the fire gun. Elements also combine; a wet enemy freezes more easily and a poisoned enemy takes extra fire damage. There's a lot to like in this system, I think. Guns also are used to affect the environment, such as igniting trees to get warm in cold areas.

The problem with combat, though, is that there's too many cheap enemy encounters. Enemies that appear out of nowhere right next to you and all but guarantee a hit, for example. There's a mushroom dude with an unavoidable poison attack in this game in which a single poison status effect can take your hole life bar.

The game is also too long. After you get the final gun and fight a weird boss, the devs must've feel the campaigned turned out too short and decide to pad the gameplay with meaningless running around and pressing E, with no new mechanics and no new enemies.

Finally, the graphics are murky, the animations stiff and the story bland and predictable.

But, hear me out, I think this is a solid average game. A respectable 6.0 with some potential smothered under all the crap that the devs didn't have the courage to remove.

When you look around and see the reviews and scores at 5 or worse for Scars Above you have to ask, do smaller games and smaller developers have any chance? Scars Above is a lower budget game and it does have things we’ve seen a bunch of times before but it’s fun, well made, does enough to differentiate itself and is at a lower price point.

One of the first things that stand out to me about Scars Above is the atmosphere and world. I would honestly describe it as Metroid Prime-ish. The environments look great, feel alien and are populated with some good looking creatures. Unfortunately not everything about the way Scars Above looks is that great. Animations could be better and characters don’t look particularly good. It gets worse when watching them talk. They lack expression and it looks like what they are saying doesn’t match up with their face. It’s not the end of the world though and mostly it’s a very good looking game, maybe it just falls short in some areas because of the smaller budget and team.

Scars Above is about a group of scientists getting mysteriously transported to a hostile alien world. It’s a pretty enjoyable story that had no problem holding my interest throughout and I think sci-fi fans will enjoy it. It has a great main character, Kate, who is brought to life very well by Erin Yvette. Kate is a capable, likable scientist who has no problem stepping up into the hero role. She is constantly curious and analytical but still has plenty of compassion which ties into what the story is about. I think it was just refreshing to play as a scientist and the approach it brings to many areas of the game is too. Unfortunately outside Kate and Naya the rest of the cast is very forgettable.

The gameplay is very likable too. It’s a third person shooter but actually feels more like a mostly ranged action game. There’s no cover so you’ll find yourself sprinting around shooting enemies, using gadgets, dodging and maybe sneaking in some melee hits. There is a stamina bar to consider while doing this and your resources are on the more limited side. The really cool thing about combat is using elements and the right combinations of them to fight efficiently. Your guns are fire, electric, ice and toxic and these can be combined together on their own and with things like water, rain and ice in the environment. Enemies have weak spots as well which are vulnerable to a particular element. There is a small variety of gadgets like a shield and gravity trap too. It’s really fun and keeps you on your toes as you frantically move about dodge rolling incoming attacks, prioritising targets, using the right combination of gadgets and elements and healing when needed. It’s just a shame they didn’t push things even further. I’d love to see a follow up to this game that builds upon what’s here. The biggest flaw for me was the difficulty. The game starts off with this promise of a good challenge but once you get comfortable and Kate gets more gear and skills it falls off a bit and death becomes a lot rarer. It’s not too bad and there is enjoyment it getting powerful but it’s enough to consider putting the difficulty up.

Outside combat you’ll be exploring, investigating and solving some puzzles. The world is linear but often loops back on itself, creating a short cut and it has some small side paths to check out. The checkpoint/recover points also respawn enemies in the area, so it is slightly souls-ish but there’s no recovering anything from where you died. The experience in Scars Above is called knowledge and is earned by scanning things and picking up little knowledge cubes. This builds up to earn ability points which are used to unlock new skills. There are weapon upgrades to look out for as well. Investigating is similar to what you have probably seen in other games and has you clicking and scanning stuff to figure what happened or get answers. I am not usually the biggest fan of this but I didn’t mind it here. The puzzles are a bit basic but at least they don’t feel hand-holdy. As you can see Kate being a scientist is carried across most aspects of the game and it is done well. As a whole the game does a great job of being consistent through its story, main character and gameplay.

Something that Scars Above also does well is pacing and progression. It is on the shorter side and has you pushing through at a good pace, except for a section right before the end when it does slow for a bit while you complete three tasks. I kept feeling like I was constantly getting something whether it was an ability point or more story or a weapon upgrade or a new enemy. The other fantastic thing is it doesn’t waste your time. Scars Above is not open world, it’s not full of padding, and it doesn’t run too long, there are no lackluster side quests, no pointless collectables and no microtransactions. God damn, this is a beautiful thing which more games should learn from.

Scars Above is like a PS3 era game and I mean that as both a wonderful compliment and a bit of a criticism. It does look lower budget or a bit dated and even feels like it a bit too. But it doesn’t mess around and isn’t full of bloat. It’s just fun, plays well, works well, has great atmosphere and tells a decent story. It is interesting because it can come off as unoriginal but it feels so refreshing at the same time. The developer Mad Head Games is another one to keep an eye on. Scars Above is at a lower price point and would be fairly reduced by now too, so I would recommend not hesitating to pick it up if it has you interested at all.

7.7/10

I didn’t absolutely love this game, but the things I did like, I tended to like a lot. As simple as that summary is, that's probably the best way to put it. Some things held it back from being great but there was plenty I'd really like to see more games do.

I most enjoyed the idea of playing as a scientist who’s in an extremely dangerous and bizarre situation but can’t help her intellectual curiosity and analytic side. This is the main premise of the game and you can tell the devs used it as a guiding post for a lot of the design. And it really works! At no point in the story is Kate's background as a scientist and an explorer not evident and it helps to characterize her more than the mostly solitary plotline might otherwise allow. This concept was really well done and built into the gameplay and progression. For instance, you get 0 exp from killing monsters and instead only advance by gaining knowledge of creatures by scanning your first kill of a new enemy or inspecting new alien technology. There are also a few parts where you investigate some scene or device, somewhat similar to the crime scene analysis from the Arkham games. There weren't a ton of these but I found them a lot more interesting in execution in this game than the iterations I've seen in other games, mostly due to the fact that while the science in the game is a bit hand-wavey, hearing Kate's more analytical musings made those mechanics come alive. Unfortunately, there weren't a ton of these, I could've gone with one or two more scattered throughout. Another way this is not done quite as extensively as it could is that the vast majority of your experience comes from pick ups that just look like little cubes of alien knowledge, they're not files or anything, you just grab them. So the theme is there but they might as well be random "experience" boxes. Still, I really liked the concept a lot and the parts she does extrapolate the strange biology of the creatures and planet I found it really interesting and immersive. The skill tree is also divided into "Engineering" and "Xenobiology." While admittedly these are all still essentially combat skills, I appreciated that they tied it back to the science theme rather than just "Offense" and "Defense" or something.

The setting is generally a strength in the game. There's a decent variety of biomes on the alien planet that correlate to ones we're familiar with but each has some kind of twist to make them seem fantastical and interesting in some sense. The team also did a great job with the visuals. The graphics overall are very good for an indie studio, if not top of the line, but there are also great vistas and I think the game mostly has good art direction other than the monsters that look kind of generic. I've also seen some complaints about Kate looking weird, but I thought she looked fine.

The combat was decent but felt like it could’ve used a little work. It’s weirdly soulslike in a lot of ways but combat depends heavily on aiming and hitting weak points that are often very tiny considering how fast everything moves and that could make some fights rather frustrating. You get tons of tools that can help with this by slowing or trapping enemies, but I found it too annoying to shuffle through the item wheel all the time and made do without them most of the time. You also get different elemental guns and upgrade them in some fairly basic ways but while there was nothing super new here, I did like that each of the guns worked quite differently with the environment and against enemies. The combat could be enjoyable at times, but I wouldn't consider it a big pull for the game and in some ways is a weakness with the reliance on the itty bitty weakpoints.

The story was decent and easy to follow, if nothing special. In a way, I kind of liked that it was so basic though. It had the cozy feel of a “sci-fi classic” kind of story that you weirdly don’t get as much of in video games and it really hit those concepts well. I have also been kind of craving that kind of story so it hit the spot there. Just to clarify, while I didn't mind, this is definitely not "hard sci-fi" and there is a lot in the world that is just "mysterious alien technology" that has barely any explanation. I mostly mean it's classic in the sense of sci-fi tropes and style.

The characters don't make a ton of impact. Kate cares about them and that's an important part of the story, but it did feel weird that some of the emotional weight of the story seemed to depend on how much I cared about these characters you barely meet or know anything about. I generally liked Kate for the scientist angle I mentioned but otherwise she admittedly doesn't have much to her other than general heroic aspects most video game protagonists have.

Overall, I think the somewhat rocky combat kept this from being a major 5 star game. I didn't find myself compelled to blast through it and had to play it in chunks. Still, considering it looks quite good and does some things super well, I think it's a very playable game that's worth a try especially if anything I've said about the setting and sci-fi style piques your interest. I will also say that I don't see much replay value in the game and it's only about 7 hours long. It's not super expensive but I could see waiting for a sale. I'm quite pleased with the game and would love to try another game this studio makes in the same vein.

It's a game for you if you want your Gordon Freeman like "scientist turned into a soldier due to circumstances" thing.

It's and ambitious AA game with an interesting setting. Starts with a great prologue then, when the game starts production quality is not matching the cutscene. Even with the highest settings, textures are quite disappointing after watching that movie-like cutscene. Game has a mysterious setting and the scenario starts really intriguing. I felt like game had so much Control (Remedy) inspirations both for it's setting and gameplay. It felt similar for it's collectibles, crafting, gun types, superpowers etc. On top of that Scars Above had environmental puzzles. One thing about gameplay, Scars Above emphasizes boss weak points too heavily like it's not balanced at all. I also felt like it had inspirations from Death Stranding for both environments and mysterious atmosphere. It even had a very similar colossal Humanoid entity all the way up to the skies. Game's scenario has a "mixed" message I will explain later in spoilers.

Now the disappointing parts, like you don't directly battle the boss, you battle the minions he sent. Game has a mixed message like "trust the science" but also villain of the story, Custodian is a master scientist pursuing the unpursued, his hunger for knowledge ruins literally everything. In the near end, our mentor is saying "Do not repeat our mistakes. But never stop searching for answers. Never stop being hungry for knowledge." Like it's kinda contradicting but is she suggesting trying to find a balance?

You can see on their socials that game is made to "inspire the next generation of female STEM graduates!" and "about the gender gap in STEM and how video games can encourage more girls to pursue science and engineering". So they are clearly "trust the science" side of the things but maybe they are trying to say "Science without morality will end in catastrophe" or maybe it's just my thoughts.

Also it's kinda feels like a "revenge of the feminism" scenario when all the female characters in the game are either "Hero, Mentor and strong helpful ally" and male characters are "Villain, victim, and weak helpless ally" like kinda felt a pattern there. It's not a problem but they felt obsessive about it.

Oh my GODS, what a freaking fantastic game this was!!!

Let's start with the Metacritic score, because some of you may look it up after this. It has a 65. That score is objectively wrong. IGN gave it a 5/10, and another outlet scored it a 1/5. Both of these scores are utterly asinine. The game looks amazing, I had far fewer technical issues on PS5 than most AAA games, and it's an absolute blast to play. Sometimes critics don't match the popular opinion, but this is a case where the negative reviews are so ludicrously out-to-lunch that I had to start with that. Like it's just frustrating, to see a great game overlooked because of some bad takes.

So what IS Scars Above? It's a AA sci-fi horror third-person shooter released on Feb 28 from Serbian game developers Mad Head Games for the budget price of $40CDN. Some outlets have characterized this game as a "Soulslike", and while it does have some of those elements, I'd say it has more in common with the linear single-player campaigns of the PS2 and PS3 days. You play as a scientist stranded on an alien planet after her and her crew were teleported there after attempting to interact with a giant, inverted pyramid orbiting the Earth.

And this alien world... By golly, this is some of the absolute best art design I have seen in games. It looks AMAZING. I'm sure the pixels are not as detailed as a FromSoft or Sony game, and fair enough. But in terms of sheer creativity and atmosphere building, this game is, in my opinion, a master class. Some of the monster designs are great too. The only real knock to the visuals is the human facial animations, which are... Not great. They are definitely not mo-capped, but as this is a budget title with otherwise fantastic visuals, I honestly don't care.

The gameplay is where I really got hooked on this one though. You have a single weapon - an improvised welding tool which, as the game progresses, will have 4 different elemental weapons - a bolt-action rifle style electric weapon, a grenade launcher-like fire weapon, an acid shotgun, and a Splatoon-like ice weapon that splorts ice in a wide radius. All four of these weapons can deal environmental and/or status effects, and even combine for specific reactions - for instance, freezing an enemy before pelting it with electric bolts will do massive damage. Paired with some really great controls, a reliable dodge roll, and a whole bunch of gadgets and supportive items crafted from common pools (battery power and fibre, respectively), this game was just a TON of fun to play. I found the game to be Soulsborne hard at first, but as I learned the mechanics and figured out some of the combo effects, I was breezing through by the end - and having genuine FUN.

It has a ton of really, really memorable moments too. I don't really wanna spoil anything, but there was one level in particular that my friend and I were calling the "Meat Cave" during my playthrough, and it was genuinely unsettling - appropriately so, for what this game is going for. The game runs about 6-10 hours, and the pacing feels exactly right. It didn't overstay its welcome, nor did it feel like it was over before it could say its piece.

I say without hyperbole, this game hit so many of the right notes for me that it's going to be tough to top for GOTY 2023. That could just be a me thing - I'm not saying this game is a masterpiece that will please everyone. But if it does seem like your jam, check out some videos and consider giving this one a shot. Mark my words, this will be a hidden gem one day, and Metal Jesus Jr. will be singing its praises. XD