S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include… | PC Review
This is the type of game that you play when you and your friends want to talk trash to each other. You can choose to hinder or help one another based on your mood. This is a 1-4 player co-op physics based brawler that thrives on chaos. This is not a tightly controlled and balanced experience, quite the opposite. A well timed experimental drug use can save your run or bring it crashing down on you and your team mates.
The High Risk High Reward Hook
Popping pills takes center stage here. Grabbing one of the experimental drugs creates an enormous amount of tension.You may get an extremely potent but short lived ability that lets you smash an entire wave of enemies. You will also get a side effect of some sort that will invariably cause issues if you are not communicating with your teammates. This is where the chaos goes up to the next level. You get a burst of awesome strength but along with that you can destabilize your entire run. Is it worth it? You will have to find out.
Mayhem and Randomness
The combat and physics make the fights feel sloppy. Unscripted. You have to use the environment to your advantage. Collisions with enemies and objects are often unpredictable and sometimes the best defense is to push an enemy into one of the hazards. There are also randomized events that happen during the run. Some of these are wild, like shifting gravity. You never know what will come next. You and your team will have to adapt in real time. No two runs will ever be the same.
Just Misses the Mark
Despite all the unique systems S.E.M.I. just misses the mark for me. Instead of a truly great co-op game that is a must-play, it ends up being frustrating. While the chaos and underlying systems are solid they feel too random at times. Cheap deaths are never fun. The overall loop ends up feeling like an anchor holding you down. This feels like a prototype rather than a fully polished experience.
Final Verdict
If you have a dedicated group of friends that don’t mind jank this might be worth a shot. There are some genuinely funny moments but for me it was overshadowed by the frustration.
To hear me talk more about S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include…, be sure to listen to the December 17th episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:02:10 time stamp.
This review is based on a Steam copy of S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include… provided by Two Horn Unicorn for coverage purposes. As of this writing, it is exclusive to that platform.
S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include...
$7.99
