Deadly Rain Review

Deadly Rain is a wave-based survival horror developed and published by FireRing Studios. The story is that in 1954, the Soviets needed a weapon capable of distorting reality and spreading fear and panic to non-state supporters; it was then that the Fear Project began. Years later, nuclear power plants were built to infect the skies and spread the hallucinogenic material through the rain; now, there's no one left except you, the rain, and the monsters that lurk in the fog.

And all of that doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, it's not a matter of if you die; it's a matter of when.

At the start of every run, you spawn near or inside a house with only a pistol with seven bullets. Mutants are already coming your way, so you need to start smashing crates as soon as possible. The map is randomised with areas and items shuffled around so that no two playthroughs are quite the same. The maps themselves are rather dreary, with constant rain and abandoned buildings all throughout.

However, enough about your soon-to-be graveyard. Let's talk about survival. The gameplay is much slower-paced than what I was expecting, and your survival against the wave of mutants is an uphill battle. There is no regenerating health, so you have to rely on syringes to heal; you can't interrupt your reload animation by switching weapons, your default speed is a walk, your sprint isn't all that much faster, and your stamina regenerates slowly. Your only option for surviving longer, other than having enough bullets, is through the weapons randomly scattered throughout the map. There are 13 different weapons ranging from rifles to revolvers. However, you can't dump your pistol for a different secondary weapon, which really limits your arsenal, especially as the waves go on and the mutants get stronger.

Speaking of mutants, they are numerous and unrelenting. The different enemy types are rather scary-looking, but their A.I. is simple: just slowly walking/crawling towards you with the intent to rip you apart. At the very least, I didn't encounter any of them walking into a wall. It actually feels kind of scary as, during the initial waves, they're pretty sparse, and with the limited visibility outside and their near-silent noises, encountering one can actually frighten you, at least during your first couple of attempts.

Oh, I can't keep going like this. This is just a slower-paced Call of Duty: Zombies. While wave-based games are not bad, as proven by games like Killing Floor 2, this doesn't do enough to really separate itself from the game mode. There's no multiplayer, no secrets, barely anything but the rain outside. I like the atmosphere, and I did feel desperate looking for whatever guns and equipment I could find, but outside of that, I'd rather play Call of Duty: World at War or Black Ops, and they are still available on Steam.