A standard zombie recipe.

Take a base of Limbo (for its platform-puzzling and deadly traps). Add two parts Walking Dead (the story, not necessarily the game, for its terrible-people-in-a-zombie-apocalypse story); one part Shadow Complex (for 2.5-D graphics in an Unreal Engine sidescroller); and one tablespoon of awful platforming controls. Stir in a pinch of shameful writing and voice acting. Bake for 3-4 hours. Congratulations! You've got a Deadlight.

It's certainly not the worst game I've ever played, but Deadlight presents a diverse mix of content that's either carbon-copied from other titles, or very poorly executed -- or both. The game's most persistent irritation is its over-reliance on precision platforming, despite its controls really not supporting this at all. I suffered dozens of insta-gib deaths from triggering traps, or falling down pits, or stumbling into death-orgies, as a result of over- or under-extended collision detection or unrecognized button presses. And why is it that this guy can fucking long-jump and wall-bounce, but can't swim? And then there are the numerous frustrating instances of enemies or chasms directly behind a blind door. And the utter hopelessness of being stunlocked to death by a pack of infinitely-respawning zombies (due to the game's lengthy animations).

Deadlight is typically generous with checkpoints, so it isn't an issue of wasted time, so much as it is an issue of outright unfairness. In games, a "good" death is one that you can learn something from, whether it's what you should have done instead, or merely what you shouldn't have done. But Deadlight's deaths are overwhelmingly cheap technical or design flukes, that challenge you only to fiddle with your timing until it magically works.

There are frequent hints, such as dangling story references and awkward cutscene transitions, that significant amounts of content were cut; and for once, I'm really glad for that, because the gameplay could certainly have buckled under a larger time commitment. In the end, Deadlight is mostly playable, and short enough that it's ultimately inoffensive. But its familiarity and poor execution make it hard to recommend, in the face of other games that do the same things better.

Better than: The Walking Dead (arguably -- at least Deadlight kept my attention throughout its brief running time)
Not as good as: Limbo, Shadow Complex
Such terrible voice acting: I seriously suspect that they just recorded random members of the development team.

Progress: Finished on Normal.