Betrayer (PC) Review

Betrayer is part FPS, part pain in the head.

I have no idea how to describe this game… Okay, that was probably a bad way to start off a review, so let me back it up a little. Betrayer is an indie game developed by Blackpowder Games and was released a couple of months ago. It was met with relatively average to positive reviews at the time. But just because most other people kind of enjoyed it doesn’t mean I did (did you hear that? That’s the sound of my credibility as a reviewer, flying out the window).

As goes the story here, I couldn’t get into it at the jump, and never really did. The game doesn’t state it right off the bat, but you come to find out that you are a settler headed for the New World as the tale opens. You arrive at your wild and untamed destination only to find empty villages and corpses similar to the ones found in Pompeii. Yeah, way to stick with history, guys. I should probably explain here that I have never been a fan of alternate history games; I just don’t care for them for some reason. The myriad of skeletons walking around like I was playing a high-fantasy title or a version of iD Software’s classic Doom didn’t help me much in that area either.

That’s not the only reason I didn’t completely care for my stay in the world of Betrayer though. Granted there are some interesting aspects; exploring the (rather bland and empty) world, you will find examinable items that eventually explain the lack of living beings in the area. This is all in an attempt to put together what happened in early America and where all your countrymen made off to. It comes off… okay, but not as robust as I would have liked and the whole thing kind of falls a bit flat in my estimation. It feels like there may have been a super-cool story in there somewhere, but it certainly never appeared for me.

Although I’ve started off here with a string of negatives, Betrayer does have a pretty awesome mechanic where you switch around the color scheme (I’ll get to why that’s a disaster as well as a good thing in a minute). It feels sort of like the Eagle Vision in Assassin’s Creed, and this mechanic makes different clues able to be viewed. It’s rather interesting and probably the only thing in this game that doesn’t waste potential outright. Alight… on to the big one.

And by ‘the big one’ I mean the main, number one reason I had such a miserable time playing Betrayer. I have never, ever had a game cause me actual physical pain before, but this one did. Why? Well, this game gave me a headache from the color scheme, black/white contrast, and I mean that literally. If the game was shaded, the graphics would probably be pretty nice, but good lord, it’s not. And it limited my play times because after about ten minutes I’d get a headache and have to come back later. Again, I’m being serious here- no exaggeration.

It’s probably not an issue for some, much like motion sickness in your typical FPS that some folks get, but for me this was pretty bad and it took me an extra long time to fight my way through the various levels of Betrayer because of it. I should mention that I haven’t heard this complaint anywhere else, so you own mileage may vary here, but it’s just something to keep in mind and I felt I had to mention it since it was the single biggest issue I had with the game.

Everything else was middle of the road as far as I’m concerned. While the graphics were most definitely a mixed bag, the sound design and controls were okay. I guess that counts as a pair of plusses for Betrayer.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t enjoy my time with Betrayer. And no, I won’t play it again.

If a game doesn’t catch your attention in the first few hours, is it really worth sticking to? In my estimation, no, it’s not. Again, it does feel like there was something cool going on with Betrayer, but the overall look and play mechanics of the game held it back in a big way.

And I could definitely have done without that color palate…