Originally released in 2006 (original Russian version), You Are Empty reached Polish and North American games stores in 2007 - to generally negative critic reviews, holding averages such as 34 out of 100 on 'Metacritic.com' and 39.67 out of 100 on 'GameRankings.com'. But is it really that bad? No, it's not THAT bad. Though unfortunately, it sure does come very close to such a terrible rating. But the Cold War setting about Soviet experiments really does seem quite intriguing at first. So what makes You Are Empty such a disliked game, and is it really not worth even considering purchasing it, like many say? If you wish to know the truth, then feel free to read on…
To begin, let's talk about the game's visuals and art style. Sadly, You Are Empty is almost devoid of any impressive artistic direction in its characters, environments or graphics in general, so there's pretty much no artistic design at all. However, the graphics actually look satisfactory, even if dated. The character animations are terribly stiff, unnatural and robot-like. Most of the textures are of decent resolutions, but some models are of shockingly simplistic quality. However, even with these flaws, most of the environments can be interesting to some and a few of them are surprisingly well-crafted. The enemies look alright; it's a shame then that most of them are copied from other games.
The gameplay itself has a sluggish pace. The (biggest and most prominent) of the flaws present here, is simply the movement speed of the playable character. You can't run in this game at all. In addition, walking is very slow… so slow, that it's unacceptable and stops the player from getting too excited even in sections of the game where you have to fight many enemies at the same time. This sluggish pace makes even a generally easy game (such as YAE) have its difficult moments. However, it's not just that. Although there's a few interesting weapons in this game, none of them have enough "oomph" (which is pretty much required from firearms to give you a more realistic and exciting experience). Plus the melee weapons lack heavy impact upon the flesh of hostiles.
Many people who play and complete You Are Empty end up feeling dissatisfied and think there was no story in the game. They are wrong; there actually is a surprisingly complex narrative behind all the mindless shooting. However, you can't blame them for thinking otherwise, as it's impossible to find it just by playing the game. I understood very little of what was going on by the end, so I looked up the "Plot summary" of You Are Empty on Wikipedia which provided almost all the answers I was looking for. Beforehand, I didn't even know that this game had such a cool story. Unfortunately, I cannot raise the rating for this game just because of that. Even though it's all there in the game, it is almost impossible to understand it due to poor presentation and mediocre translation. I cannot even give the game full credit for its great, artistic cutscenes because they don't work in-game; I had to look for them on the internet.
So far it seems that almost everything that's in the game is bad, and its best features (those that are actually good… some even great) are either not fully functional and/or can only be fully understood when using outside sources. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the case here and sums up You Are Empty nicely. Thankfully there's one more positive thing: the music. The game's soundtrack is filled with quality, atmospheric music (though nothing as good as the stuff you'd hear in games like "The Witcher" or "S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl"). Also, when the game tries to implement horror elements and mostly fails, the music sometimes does the job for it and can successfully creep out the player.
Let's summarize You Are Empty's biggest and most important pros and cons.
The Good:
+ Cold War setting is intriguing at first and has lots of potential
+ Environments are interesting, some even surprisingly well-made
+ There's a good story behind all this, but it's hard to understand
+ Soundtrack is filled with atmospheric and (at times) creepy music
The Bad:
- Cold War setting is intriguing at first, but most of the potential is wasted
- Graphics are technologically dated, plus there's no artistic design
- Enemies, even if interesting, are mostly ripped-off from other games
- Gameplay has an unacceptably slow and sluggish pace (sometimes boring)
- Firearms lack power, melee weapons lack serious impact
- Story can only be fully understood thanks to outside sources
- Gameplay won't satisfy fans of exciting, action-packed FPS games
- Cutscenes don't work in-game at all
In the end, it is hard to recommend "You Are Empty" for any gamer. Most of the time, it's simply not fun enough; mainly due to its boring pace, plus there isn't enough eye-candy to make up for it. This game does have some good qualities, but the negatives both outnumber and outweigh the positives, mainly because the best of the game's features are either non-functional or cannot be fully grasped without the use of the internet. If you have some spare money and don't know what to get, maybe you're looking for something a little different, then only then is it worth to pay for You Are Empty… and ONLY if you find it cheap, and I mean really cheap. However, if you don't have much patience or you're picky, you won't enjoy playing this game and you will not accept any of its pros.
OVERALL RATING – 4.5/10 (Unsatisfactory)
NEW GS RATING – 4/10