I've found that there are a number of great Eastern European games that go unnoticed by the general Western audience. I know Metro isn't obscure anymore, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is getting more attention, what with Boris shining light on it, and Yahtzee exposed Painkiller to the world, but there's one that was never released outside of Europe I somehow got my hands on.
Yeah, yeah, it's got furries, so what, it's inspired by an H.G. Wells book. It's
yet another Ukrainian FPS based off a novel, just like Metro and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., this one being based on H.G. Wells'
The Island of Dr. Moraeu. The difference being that this game plays
so much differently. If I were to describe how it plays, it's sort of like Half-Life meets Painkiller, with the occasional moment of horror atmosphere that reminds me of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It's definitely worth playing, if you somehow manage to obtain it in a language you speak, though it's still unpolished. The first chapter is aggravating and tedious. The four-legged enemies you find in this section are had to hit, impossible to dodge, and just plain annoying in every fashion. It's universally considered shitty in any review you'll find. People who stuck around and got past it seem to really like the game, however. And I agree. Once you start fighting the human-animal hybrids, it's actually a lot of fun. It still has its issues, but the fun I had outweighed the negatives in my opinion. The story felt rushed and inconsistent, the characters are meh, and the voice acting can be pretty laughable, but it has a ton of heart put into it. I mean, the people who made it are a small studio in Ukraine that's now defunct, so I get the feeling that a number of the flaws came from their limitations of both the time it was made in and their budget.
Did I mention this game is violent? The gore is
not for the faint of heart, but I suspect that with a title like "vivisector," that's to be expected. The gore mechanic has your weapons literally rip the flesh from your enemies, which makes it weird when someone has no leg muscles and is sprinting around and I think it can be explained with the animals, as they have cybernetics and all sorts of augments, but the humans? I've got nothing.
Regardless, great game if you can make it past the first part, as it's truly terrible, but I think it's worth trudging through.