Deadlight Xbox 360
Metascore
68 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 79 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 79
  2. Mixed: 49 out of 79
  3. Negative: 5 out of 79
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  1. BigPond GameArena
    Aug 1, 2012
    45
    The environments and the reasonably compelling flashback atmosphere lend what would otherwise be a pretty poor game a glimmer of hope.
  2. Level7.nu
    Aug 7, 2012
    40
    Deadlight begins well with a lot of atmosphere. But soon the illusion is shattered by clunky controls and a frustrating amount of trial and error.
  3. Gameplanet
    Aug 1, 2012
    40
    Deadlight could have been something great. Unfortunately, it's as mindless as the zombies it features.
  4. Metro GameCentral
    Aug 1, 2012
    40
    The cinematic atmosphere is highly impressive throughout, but that's about the only thing that is in this weirdly inconsistent 2D survival horror.
  5. Destructoid
    Jul 30, 2012
    40
    A beautiful intro does not a great game make, and the full product is a disappointment to say the absolute least. Tequila clearly has a lot of talent and an ability to craft genuinely intimidating, memorable environments -- Deadlight demonstrates the wealth of inventiveness the studio possesses. Yet it feels squandered on lazy design in the second chapter and mistreatment of player trust in the third.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 123 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 27
  3. Negative: 3 out of 27
  1. HercuIes
    4
    I will keep this short.
    Amazing graphics.
    Amazing atmosphere.
    Shocking length of gameplay.
    Shocking length of story (It ends abruptly. I t    hought I still had hours up my sleeve.)
    Voice acting is terrible sucks the believability out of the situation.
    The dialogue is shocking beyond belief.
    The control scheme is clunky. (It just doesn't quite work the way you want it to...intuitively)
    A large portion of the level design at one particular point is jarring by comparison to the rest of the game and, as a result, becomes a struggle to enjoy.
    Shocking story in general. This game probably boasts the worst closing moments of a video game. Badly written. Nonsensical. And whole bunch of other bad words are all that can describe it.
    The achievements are not achievements...they are gifts.
    No replayability, you will collect everything on the first try because the game is that linear. There might be a couple of items you miss, (if you aren't a curious gamer) but a quick scene select at the end of the game sees you find 'said item' in a matter of minutes.
    1200 MP is over-priced for something that is under-delivered - This game needed to be twice as long at least.
    Puzzles are lame and easily solved...I'm not actually sure if, by definition, they can be called puzzles.

    Overall, this game is disappointing. I had such a big smile on my face when I started the opening levels. I even boasted it to my friends and showed them some of what I had already done.
    Within 20 minutes of actually playing the game properly I realised my mistake and the fact that arcade games on xbox live a non-refundable. Don't make the same mistake I did. Wait for this game to drop in price, or, better yet, wait for shadow complex 2...if it ever comes out.    … Full Review »
  2. capthavic
    5
    Honestly....wait for a price drop. Things start out good with a very L4D feeling to the world and characters. Voice acting is decent although the main character, Randall Wayne, reactions randomly alternates between realistic and just plain bored. Gameplay is mostly solid with some light platforming and puzzle solving despite the sometimes wonky controls.

    Sadly, and perhaps fittingly, everything goes downhill as soon as you enter the sewers. Now as any fan of Spoony knows, sewer levels always suck...but apparently nobody told the folks at Tequila Works that info. Whoever at that studio thought it would be fun to send players through a gauntlet of trial-and-error death traps deserves a swift kick to the junk. There is simply no way to get through them your first time because they give zero margin for error, and you will have no way of knowing whats coming before it happens. Even if you happen to have the clairvoyance to know that the dual wall blades will come together instead of going in the same direction (like the previous visually identical pair you encountered!) you will still die constantly because Wayne only does what you want half the time. You have to be be perfect with timing your jumps or he will fall just short of a ledge he needed to grab. Oh and did I mention that Wayne can't swim....at all...instantly drowning in any body of water deeper than chest high. Even after you manage to drag yourself back to the surface these problems will hound you the entire remainder of the game. And that is what kills any enjoyment to be had here. What was a simple but fun zombie platformer action game just becomes a slog. You will die so often because of something you had no way of knowing would happen and given no time to react. It's not the good kind of challenge that comes from skill and mastery, it's just cheap deaths over and over until eventually figure out the one vague solution to move on. It really just starts to feel like artificial difficulty to pad the game out.

    As for the story the fact that its set in the mid 80's is barely touched on and hardly noticeable. The hidden collectibles offer some vague hints as to what caused the outbreak but its never really explained nor matters. And finally the ending was as predictable and stupid as the final segment leading up to it was frustrating.

    The ideas and beginning are pretty dang good, but is it worth paying $15? No. Wait for it to drop to $10 or (preferably) less. Or just play the free demo and leave it at that...    … Full Review »
  3. blognorg
    5
    I'll start off by saying that it's not a terrible game, and a 5 by my standards is only moderately below average. I often enjoy games that I would call a 7, or even a 6. There is some enjoyment to be had in this game, but not much in my opinion. First off, the I didn't find the story compelling in the slightest. This is for several reasons. The whole zombie apocalypse has been done to death, and the "spin" they put on it just didn't do it for me (i.e. calling zombies "shadows" doesn't add much). While the art itself was solid, I didn't care for the cutscenes. The comic book-esque, still-frame visual style clashed with the straightforward dialogue and it came off as a little cheesy. Also, I just didn't care for the main character; it couldn't sympathize with his plight, and his constant whining about his family annoyed me more than it instilled sympathy. The secondary villains weren't explained; they just seemed to be there for no real reason other than to give some variety to the enemy types and set pieces. A lot of the story felt like filler; it didn't really feel like a logical string of a events (save a few). Much of the game just seemed like a series of placeholders that the developers filled in hopes to change up the gameplay. And the story element suffered for it. Finally, I thought that the twist ending was laughable, but I'll spare the spoilers. I could live with that, though. I've enjoyed plenty of games where I didn't care about the story; my biggest qualm is the gameplay and design. For starters, I didn't care for the controls. They weren't necessarily broken; they were just unintuitive. For instance dropping down from a ledge in pretty much every game that I've ever played has been down and jump... not this game. That, by itself, doesn't seem like a huge issue, I know, but many things like that began to compound. Another thing is that ledge-grabbing was treated more like a prompt, rather than actually jumping and grabbing a ledge. In some instances, I would end up jumping underneath a ledge because I pressing a direction instead of standing right below it and just pressing jump. When you are hanging on a wall, you press jump to climb up, unless you are just switching to the other side, then you press right (or left). Again, this may seem benign, however there are parts in the game where that distinction is not always clear, and your life literally depends on knowing that. There are countless instances where I didn't feel my deaths were my fault, but rather because of an unintuitive, and slightly sluggish control scheme. I would like to preface this next section by saying there are a few clever puzzles and design choices, but it seems like for every one thing they did right, they did two things wrong. Something that annoyed me until the end of the game was the prompts and indicators. Everything from ledges, to doors, to almost everything you could interact with was highlighted in some way, even in some areas where they didn… Full Review »
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