"Sir, You Are Being Hunted" is a procedurally generated survival sim. I don't usually play these, though the concept was intriguing enough to give this 2016 title a shot. It appeared to use different ideas than what many in this genre do.

Alas, all I found was very empty fields and not a lot of fun.

"The Most Dangerous Game" is a short story by novelist/journalist Richard Connell from 1924. It entered public domain last year. The story trope is now incredibly worn, a chap appears on the island and is hunted by another chap. This peaked with John Leguizamo's 1997 movie "The Pest" when a 50K reward for surviving being hunted would of been able to purchase the island itself and start an avocado toast plantation.

I remember watching this movie on VHS back in my hometown and not being totally impressed. But we only had 7 hours of internet and I was bullied because I had zero interest in sportsball, so I took what entertainment I could get.

At the time this line of writing was written, Wikipedia tells be that Rotten Tomatos gave "The Pest" a 8% approval rating. And that Jeff Millar of the Houston Chronicle wrote that "This film is utterly without discipline or focus in a way that—to one's shame—one eventually finds oddly endearing". Followed by a citation needed.

I think at this point I've started to confuse what I was talking about.

Oh, right. Sir, You Are Being Hunted.

It is a survival game set on a bunch of islands forming an archipelago. There's a rather unfortunate mishap causing an embuggerance and you find yourself on the central island after the algorithm takes a minute or two to generate the reality you play in.

Magical stones. Corpses of robots nearby. A Brittish guy speaking in you head calling you the aforementioned and titled 'Sir' (Or Madam, if you toggle it, and don't get upset by pronouns being in a twitter bio).
The aim? Look at that nearby smoky rock, which is VERY HOT because it is smoking, then pick it up with your hands and take it to the central pillar. Where a magical effect happens and the nice man in your head gives you a partial compliment that you may actually survive afterall.

The actual game at first sucks you in. Desolate. Grey hues, shifting to blue and pink with dusk and dawn. Fog and Mist counterbalancing the awfully low draw distance and popin. Shacks, churches, and burnt out houses containing loot of skulls, dead rats, and jars of pickled eggs. I say, totally scrumdiddlyumptious!

When I began playing, crawling through wheat fields, hiding behind boulders, sneaking and stealthing in those raised slanted pillar bits on the outside of a church where the devil waits to tempt those to atheism, therefore empowering Ahriman to rise from the serpent's trench and take over the realms. All this in patience while waiting for the robots to pass, or at least separate so I could take one from the group without alerting all of them. All of this. Was fun.

But this fun does not last.

The game... Is empty. So empty I had to fill part of this entry with a terrible mid 90s comedy movie reference.

I'd like to say that the visuals are good. But they just add to the crushing blandness that the game eventually becomes. Sound design showed promise, but I eventually found it to be radial. Thick walls not blocking it as it should, and the bloops and bleeps of the shotgun wielding metal chap being figured out more by the lack of anything to really stand behind than actually standing behind.

Three islands in and I was done.

Do I recommend it? Not really.

I'm certain this game has its audience. Reviews are on the positive side overall. But I just found it dull after about 40 minutes of playtime. Cutting this game back to less islands, and smaller, tighter islands would of made it far more pleasing.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (Indie Legends 4)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 12 July 2021
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

OS: Windows 7, Windows 8
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon X2, or equal at 1.6GHz or better
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 9.0c-compatible, SM 3.0-compatible
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 1 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c-compatible, 16-bit