You Are Empty Critic Reviews

That feeling of mild disappointment is a good way to sum up You Are Empty. It feels a little behind the times and doesn’t fully deliver in every respect, but it’s still fun from start to finish.

Any fan of the genre has already been here and done this before — probably 2-3 years ago. While the visual and aural facets of YAE are generally solid, its gameplay is not all that entertaining, and there are plenty of other titles in the genre that can offer a more entertaining and diversified gaming experience.

Man, what a stinker.

It's hard for me to completely hate You Are Empty, but then again I'm a sucker for those really bad horror movies the Sci Fi Channel churns out on a weekly basis.

The glass isn't 'half empty,' it isn't even 'not full.' It's a soundless, hateful asphyxiating void.

You Are Empty fails to really bring anything new to the table, but it does bring a unique setting and a creepy atmosphere. Where it falls flat, however, is the most important part of any game: its gameplay and its ability to be replayed.

Unfortunately, the graphics just aren't up to snuff, the character models, aside from being horrendous, repeat often and your character moves with all the zip of a drugged elephant.

The stylish storytelling and the possibilities posed by the setting can't hide the embarrassing localization, the unexciting fetch-the-key gameplay that most every other FPS has moved beyond, and issues with the graphics that might have you reaching for the nearest bottle of pain relievers and asking what happened to quality testing.

Why am I empty, then? Perhaps because this crass, banal, unchallenging belch of a first person shooter has left me that way, groaning and giggling like a mental patient.

Be warned...You Are Empty isn't so much a title as a disclaimer.

You Are Empty is four years too late.

Bereft of any sort of challenging AI and sporting a handful of weapons that all seem to have been dredged from some imaginary WWII shooter from the eighties, this game is the kind of thing you can expect to get for Christmas from a grandma that knows nothing about video games and relies on a shifty game store employee looking to move the non-sellers.

More intelligent enemies would have been great, or at least greater numbers of stupid foes. Digital Spray instead decided to throw small numbers of morons at you, give you an infuriatingly inadequate run speed, and make available one of the most boring arsenals in recent memory. It's an absolute must-bypass.

Soviet gulags were probably more punishing than You Are Empty, but we're not taking any bets.