Bottom of the Bargain Bin: Devil’s Share
Ted Hentschke
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Playing Devils Share, I knew the game felt like an unforgivably cheap cash-in. As I stated before, it is often hard to tell between a scam and a genuinely amateur project that just lacked the skills or funding to come out better. Rarely do I find a Steam review that both elucidates and educates, but the prefect words explaining this mess were right at the top. Courtesy user “Rushcaliber”:
“Town, Guns, Monsters. This is literally the game. And for people to defend this crap?”
Well put, Mr. Caliber. In this case, we have evidence that this game was created with $120 of assets and not a single good natured fuck. This game is a fucking sham, and should not be on steam.
If you think the demon looks confused, it’s because he’s not even in the game.
Well Ted, tell us how you really feel! Sometimes, I have to be a bit bashful about hatefucking a game with words, giving the occasional reach-around to let the devs know that I still care about them and know they are trying their best. This is not one of those cases. I have no qualms about saying that this game is at best absolutely shit. It is almost impossible to conceive that anyone would have a contrary opinion that wasn’t held ironically.
You’re probably wondering what this game did to deserve such derision, aside from being a soulless and shameless attempt to make money off of a shockingly low price tag. Honestly, I really don’t care too much about stock assets or overall low production values. As long as a game is good, who gives a shit about all that other stuff? If you could not tell by my tone, Devils Share fails in this regard as well. The game is, without a doubt, one of the biggest piles of trash I have ever played. Calling this a game is generous, and perhaps even an abuse of the word.
Booting up the game with the all too familiar Unity settings prompt (sure to be known as our generation’s “custom map settings” screen), you are given the choice between regular and “silly” mode. We can go over the silly mode later; the game does not need the damnation of silly mode to drive home that it is shit, but I’ll be damned if I don’t let it keep digging its own grave. Spawning next to a dimly lit gas station, a MMO style objective tracker pops up in the top left and tells you to explore said adjacent gas station. Inside, you find a flashlight, which then prompts you to investigate the diner. In the diner, you find some keys, and are told to go investigate the fuel tanks. At the fuel tank, you find a pistol. If you want to take a wild guess at what the next dozen objectives look like, I bet you’d land pretty close to the mark.
Spoiler Alert: If you guessed, “find keys,” you’ve spoiled 90% of the game.
From the start, you will notice conspicuously red glowing ghoulish figures dotting the town, waiting for you to come into range to spring to life and shamble towards you. You don’t have to face this fearsome foe until you pick up the pistol, but fear not, your pinpoint accuracy and their single hitpoint life total makes you a force to be reckoned with. Beware, this foe has a secret weapon: infinite respawns with no logic as to when they will reappear in their designated waiting points. The only times you will die in this game happen when you do not realize you have reached one of those weird aggro/respawn zones, where the enemies behind you will simultaneously trigger to respawn and attack you at the same time. Truly, no horror is as intense as absurdly poor programming.
Phew, good thing they made them florescent red! Would hate to be surprised in my horror game!
Aside from the objectives, there’s nothing to see in the various extra buildings. You can fully explore all of them (that is if the models allow you to pass through the doorways and not get stuck in the environment), but aside from maybe an extra pistol clip now and then, you won’t find anything useful in the impossible to target properly shelves and drawers. Knowing this makes the experience infinitely more tolerable, allowing you to run through the game much more quickly and uninstall it those extra precious seconds faster.
So you run from objective to objective, taking time once in a while to slow down and shoot a glowstick zombie. You collect a shotgun and assault rifle in addition to the pistol, which confuses me, since they all kill with a single shot. After completing all the fetch-quests, you are sent to a house at the top of a hill, where you patiently wait for the assets to spawn before shooting the devil in the face. Credits role. Game over.
After a good 45 seconds of waiting in the final room, it goes from this…
…to HOLY SHIT, THE FUCK IS THAT!
I’d really love this review to be page after page of brutal dismemberment, picking apart every aspect of the game while making snarky parallels between the design to the ineptitude of our elected officials or hideousness to a particularly uncomely vulture. Unfortunately, I have already done that. There is so little to this game that I am left without more voluminous criticism. The game is a scant 15 minutes of complete incompetence, deplorable on every level and without redeeming factors to pad my narrative.
“And the explosion was super badass, with like tons of fire and stuff! We promise, it was so cool!”
If you didn’t hate this game enough yet by my description, let me aid your loathe with this actual description of the game’s “silly mode”. “New silly mode has been added. Silly mode introduces farts, burps, cow grenades, pistols that shoot chickens, shotguns that shoot goats, and assault rifles that shoot pigs. Have fun!” It’s the little “Have fun!” at the end that rustles my jimmies. You gave so little of a fuck about your tacked on “comedic” mode, that you couldn’t even think of a comedic way to describe it. So you give us the little ol’ bum slap given to those unfortunate Romans whose destiny it was to be lion bait before shoving us into the arena. “Have fun! Hope you avoid a gruesome lioney end! No refunds!”
The comedy equivalent of Pappa John’s: Technically pizza, but no one is smiling.
The game gives so little of a fuck, it doesn’t even add the apostrophe in “Devil’s”. It thinks you are so simple, that the entire backstory is only told to you on the Steam product page. It is such an effortless pile of shit, that every asset can be traced back to an easily purchasable general store. It is such an affront against God, that the actual launcher calls the game “Devils Cut” instead of “Devils Share”. How did you give so little of a shit that you didn’t even get the name right?
Do the world a favor. Don’t buy this game. Don’t spend the dollar on this indisputable piece of trash. Do not give the developer any money. Do not tell your friends about it. Don’t post on Facebook how much this game sucked. Do not write a Steam review. Honestly, I shouldn’t be writing this review. The slight amount of sales this will bring are a single dollar too many with each purchase. This game is an atrocity. It should not be played by anyone but YouTube clickbait scum who thrive off of shit to appease the slapping seal claps of their juvenile audiences.
As a reminder, Bottom of the Bargain Bin titles are rated in negative scores.
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Negative
Categorized:Editorials Horror Gaming Reviews
