NeverDead

A fun and original revenge shooter, often playing like a big meat jigsaw. [March 2012, p.94]

There's a pretty good game to be found here underneath a considerable pile of design and execution flaws. It's worth a look right now for the more patient, curious, and tolerant player, but if you're on the fence, you might wait until the summer gaming drought.

A game with mixed results. It tries to innovate in the action genre but falls midway, and it has some technical problems and gameplay flaws. It has very good ideas, but the implementation of some of them is poor, and that makes its gameplay suffer. Maybe with some more time or budget this would have been a much better game.

Never Dead might be a scrappy mess in places – it's blighted by severe screen-tearing and dialogue so bad it makes the original Resi look like Citizen Kane. Yet it's a game about throwing a man around who's usually missing 75% of his torso, meaning it's impossible to be too scathing of its faults.

While the cut scenes look good, and Megadeth really gets the adrenaline pumping, the gameplay is too repetitive and buggy.

NeverDead is the kind of game you want to like more than you actually do. The gimmick is a smart one, it's quite funny when it wants to be, it's peppered with cool moments, and it's a big improvement from the developer's other recent efforts (Rogue Warrior, anyone?). Alas, fun though it is, NeverDead is several good ideas short of fulfilling its conceptual promise.

We wanted NeverDead to be a good game, because it was trying to achieve something different. But the game is frustrating and sometimes even boring.

Even though Neverdead has its moments of frantic action and fun ideas, badly implemented mechanics means the game will often test your patience.

Neverdead's problem is that, albeit being original and fun, it soon gets repetitive due to the abuse of its procedures.

Frustrating and badly designed, Neverdead is one of the first victims of the year. Shooter lovers could appreciate some original ideas, however.

It's unfortunate that a game with good ideas doesn't manage to reach to its potential. NeverDead doesn't get to shine in the action genre because its gameplay problems. It is original, sometimes beautiful and difficult, but the execution falls flat.

Enjoyable highs interspersed with crushing lows make NeverDead as inventive as it is frustrating.

Space prohibits a more comprehensive deconstruction of NeverDead's myriad flaws, so instead here's the pithy summary: this game is utter bullshit. There are heaps of bad games out there, but few that glory in their deficiencies the way this one does. [March 2012, p78]

NeverDead does show some promise. Still, these bright spots aren't nearly enough to elevate NeverDead above its frustrating combat and flawed concept. [Mar 2012, p.84]

NeverDead presents some good ideas with a level of eccentricity close to the work of Suda51 or Mikami. But the gameplay is just too poor and has a weak narrative context.

Dismemberment and immortality are quirky enough at first to spark some entertainment, but NeverDead doesn't really have any other legs to stand on.

NeverDead rocks with the music and the visuals can be a treat but beyond that, it's not much fun. There are just too many problems that hinder one's enjoyment, and those problems are critical because they translate to faultless deaths.

A potentially interesting idea with inherent problems, which NeverDead completely fails to identify or acknowledge, let alone solve. [March 2012, p.112]

It's a unique concept, but only the puzzles provide the promised amount of fun. The controls are a mess, combat is extremely repetitive and the game as a whole is awfully frustrating. Here's a cute synonym for NeverDead: NeverPlayIt.

This game has a really interesting premise, but unfortunately it won't take it across the finish line. The biggest innovation of this game – the immortal protagonist – is also the game's biggest flaw. When Bryce blows to bits and pieces, blood pressure rises on the other side of the screen. Stupid plot and clumsy controls are a suitable crown for this ass-fruit. [March 2012

A largely uninteresting game populated by awful characters that is a chore to play, NeverDead deserves to spend eternity alongside those infamous Atari 2600 ET cartridges, or perhaps digesting forever in the belly of The Biggest Loser's loser.

NeverDead does very little to separate itself from the legion of sub-par, gimmick-tagged titles. The premise of playing as an immortal protagonist who can reassemble parts of his anatomy is likely to catch out a number of curious gamers, but it's a concept that fails to shine amidst a crowd of poor design choices and a complete lack of narrative engagement.

Some great ideas has ended up in a game that's mediocre at best.

This lack of polish wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if not for the fact that the game's primary feature – the dismemberment of the main characters – makes the game less fun than it would have been as just a plain old third-person action game. Sure, it's a unique idea – but not every idea is worth pursuing. In the case of NeverDead, this concept should have been left on the cutting room floor. You could say the same about the game itself.

All style and no substance...a dull, derivative slasher. [Issue#215, p.82]

NeverDead has clearly some ambitions with a new game mechanic and completely new universe, but fails on an otherwise broken implementation and repetitive gameplay.

Avoid this game. The story is laughable, the characters are stereotypical and the gameplay is repetitive and dull.

I wanted NeverDead to be this sleeper-trash-hit, some kind of Deadly Premonition. A game which by most objective standards is bad but you can still love with devotion. Too bad, that NeverDead completely misses that essential second part. (...) What good are one or two nice ideas for a bossfight or some almost good surroundings, when the mechanics are a constant annoyance? Or, even worse: when most of the time the game seems dead set on doing its best to bore you right out of your skull?

NeverDead sways between boring, frustrating and painful.

But the most surprising thing about NeverDead is just how boring it all is. This is an utterly generic shooter with an inspired dismemberment mechanic that neither Rebellion nor director Shinta Nojiri seems to know what to do with. Lacking any kind of spark whatsoever, it becomes increasingly apparent that NeverAlive would be a more honest title.