Foreclosure? Go ahead and take it, I don’t want it.
You know when a game takes a concept and runs with it and only focuses on that aspect and lets the other things fall by the wayside? That’s what Foreclosed feels like. It has the style that makes it look neat, but I feel like the devs put so much thought into the look of that game that they didn’t take the time to make it feel or even play as good as it looks.
Players take on the role of Evan. He wakes up one morning to see that his identity is being seized by a government corporation. You see, in the Foreclosed universe, everyone’s personal identity is held as collateral by shady corporations that can collect on debts and take over a person’s life. To the point where they can no longer buy anything. Wonderful future to look forward to, I guess. Evan’s not going to take this sitting down, so he goes on the hunt for the people responsible for his foreclosure and gets tied up in a web of conspiracies and gun fights.
Platforms: XB1, XSX, PS4, PS5, Switch, PC
MSRP: $19.99
Price I’d pay: I wouldn’t buy this game
The game itself is a 3rd person shooter/stealth game. Even receives a gun early in the story that allows him to fight back rather than sneak his way around. Which was a bad thing because the stealth was far better than the actual shooting. The aiming sensitivity was so high, I could never actually aim properly. On top of that, the hit detection for shots was off by a quarter mile. There were times I got shot though walls and times I was able to shoot enemies through them. So, cover in this game was spotty at best. Evan can also earn XP that he can use to upgrade his abilities. He can gain different types of gun shots and some defensive abilities that can give him a shield, but none of this really helps matters.
What the game does have going for it is the art direction and overall style of the game. It tries to mimic a comic book and does a pretty great job of doing so. There were gameplay moments that were taking place in comic panels and I would be moving from one panel to another on screen. It gave me some XIII vibes and in a good way. Of course, this is a futuristic cyberpunk world so, multiple times I saw camera angles that felt like I was an all-seeing eye in the sky while watching the action via a surveillance camera. It has a good style to it; I’ll give it that.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the only grace this game has to offer. Notice I didn’t say “saving grace.” The story is bland and forgettable, the combat is downright atrocious and doesn’t work half the time, and multiple times I ran into issues with the game not progressing. I killed everyone in the area, did everything I needed to, and a door just won’t open because it didn’t trigger – this wasn’t the same instance of this, mind you.
Foreclosed feels like its on a swinging pendulum where the extremes are “Frustrating” and “Mediocre” and it constantly swings in these directions within minutes of each play session. It’s all style and no substance, unfortunately. If the aiming was so haphazardly programmed and maybe an extra animation or two to make it feel like I wasn’t shooting the same person over and over, or maybe if the cover in the cover-based shooter would actually work, then maybe I could give it a pass, but the way Foreclosed is currently, I would say pass on this one. Even at deep discount, you’re just going to end up frustrated or bored.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
