This leads us to the next big flaw: the awful controls.
Expect one solution per problem for most occasions, and while there are actually more, those require doing some ultra-creative stunts in order to "break" the game. The biggest problem, however, is that the game doesn't "communicate" with you as well as it should - it simply doesn't help you "feel" it, and understand why "this" failed and why "that" worked.Īnother issue with this is that it's not the sandbox it used to be - or should be. As mentioned before, he is an unreliable NPC. Instead of moving around like a human being that reacts to certain stimuli, he just aimlessly runs from room to room, sees you when he is not supposed to, reacts to your careful tiptoeing, while not giving a damn when you noisily jump on his roof… and not always. Simply put, one of the most heavily advertised parts of Hello Neighbor, the enemy AI, is not cunning, but annoying.
One can walk past him, smash a window, or fall into one of his traps, and not really alert him, and then have him run towards you at full speed just because he has seen one hair from your head, and from a pretty long distance - and all this while he flings tomatoes at your face with sniper-like accuracy.
For starters, the neighbour is a pretty unreliable foe. Well, that's actually the first part where this fails, as the whole sneaking-in mechanics are full of holes. The concept is very simple: approach the house of the neighbour, and go deeper into the labyrinth in order to find out what's going on, while also avoid getting caught - standard stealth tactics stuff.
Furthermore, everybody loves a good mystery, right? Unfortunately, while this could be the indie classic of 2017, everything is bolted into a very problematic piece of software that, apart from 'passion project,' every single pixel screams the word 'rushed.' Moreover, not only has Dynamic Pixels released this in a pretty bad state, but it has also downgraded it, with a game world that feels less open-ended than before, and an enemy AI that is not as fun to play against as in the Alpha stages. Hello Neighbor's premise is pretty interesting, and the atmosphere gives off some rather surreal vibes due to a visual style that feels like a very spooky Pixar film. The task from there on will be to get to the bottom of things (literally), with the only thing standing in your way being a microcosm where Alien Isolation meets Home Alone, as well as the lunatic that resides in it. Walking closer to the front window, the young protagonist watches this moustachioed fellow locking "something" in the basement - something that must be really terrible, by the look of things. A small kiddo is playing with a ball in sunny suburbia, when, suddenly, he sees the titular neighbour "taking care" of some business inside his house business that screams of a monstrous maniac.