🌴🗡️ Green Hell | PS4 | Review | 8/10 | "Desperate Enough To Eat a Rotting Snail" 🗡️🌴 @GreenHellGame #IndieGames #GameDev

Green Hell is a survival game set in a jungle at the edge of the Amazon river. You play as Jake Higgins, an anthropologist who is researching the area with his wife, Mia. Mia goes to a nearby tribal village to learn and understand the ways of the indigenous people living there and ends up going missing. You hurtle to the rescue only to be outmatched and easily overpowered, ending up retreating and lost in the forest with very little to help you survive. 

This is first survival title I have personally played that actually had a story mode, it’s a massive plus in my case, as after a while aimlessly trying to survive just doesn't do it for me so having a narrative was a great start, but even better, it was an interesting and intriguing story. I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed the ride this game took me on, it’s a simple premise but the mystery the game introduced really kept me hooked and engaged.

One thing Green Hell really loves is a good death, it enjoys killing you frequently and in various ways. I died of infection, dehydration, hallucinations, malnutrition, falling, snake bite, spider bite and my favourite - eating an unknown mushroom. Frequent and varied, death comes in many forms and after a while does get a bit tedious, especially when you have to remember where you died as your stuff is left at that location, which is typical in most games but having to find them in a large rainforest was tricky.

The controls are finicky, and I found them confusing at times, I kept going into the wrong menu during the first few hours but as the game progressed, I did start to grasp them more fully. 

The game really doesn't hold your hand, it will give you vague instructions - then off you pop. For a good while, I spent time running around like a headless chicken trying to rush to my mission, which was a bad idea. I died about six times and slowly realised the game wants slow progression. You need to build a base, find food supplies, get yourself settled and not just hurtle into the jungle trying to complete objectives with very little preparation. You must manage your time, supplies and really think about what you're doing as well as where you're going - ensuring that you have everything you need. It really is a game of preparation and appreciating the gravity of your situation, understanding how quickly things can go wrong.

The game's greatest strength is in the atmosphere it creates - in the joyous exploration of the day when you get most of your prep and gathering done. When night comes, that all changes. The night is frightening and if you are ill-prepared you won't last very long. The sections of the game in darkness really create tension and drama and can be made even more challenging when your sanity meter runs low and your character starts hallucinating voices and people. Lost in the darkness, alone with little supplies and having auditory hallucinations was terrifying, I couldn’t wait for the sun to finally rise.

My lasting memory of Green Hell is remembering being lost at night, dying of a combination of exhaustion, thirst, hunger and being bitten by a poisonous spider then looking in my backpack and only finding one bit of food… I then contemplated, ‘was I desperate enough to eat a rotting snail?’

I was. 

Sadly, five minutes later I vomited, clutched my guts and keeled over, embracing death for the 22nd time, hoping that the next rescue attempt would be better. 

Spoiler alert - it wasn't.

Developer: Creepy Jar