Crimson Earth (PC) Review

Crimson Earth is so cheap that it can almost be viewed as free, and it's the creation of a very small indie team. Does that excuse it for being in such a sorry state? Of course not! As a game, it has a pretty simple concept: you select a stage, and then start shooting zombies by the dozen. Bring along two weapons (more can be bought later on), have a bunch of grenades, and also have a couple of one-time abilities that range from temporary perks, to aerial assaults.

So far, nothing good, nothing bad - just an average shooter with lots of zombies, right? Not really. For starters the hit detection does whatever it wants to, with bullets sometimes going where they are supposed to, while other times they just hit something else. Apart from making the player feel like a fool, this leads to lots of wasted ammo, which is not a good thing given the fact that this is quite stingy with ammunition, forcing those in control to make each shot count.

Still, even after these problems, this basically remains a mediocre shooter, and not an atrocious one. Oh, sure, it doesn't exactly look good, and the generic punk rock OST would fit much better on a skateboarding title, but it's easy to cut it some slack - it's an extremely cheap piece of software, after all. Here's the thing, though: Crimson Earth's main issue seems to be that it's not a finished piece of software.

Buildings hover above the ground; invisible walls stop the protagonist from moving on; the interior of certain structures is stuck in pre-Alpha limbo; and levels are many times gargantuan in size, but otherwise completely empty - and that's not all. Bugs run rampant, with the player frequently appearing right under the level, and watching the unfortunate avatar falling endlessly, sound effects glitch out or loop endlessly, and many more. TLDR? Crimson Earth = shovelware.