You Are Empty is a Russian production set in a fictional Soviet-era scenario. The story revolves around a mind-controlling apparatus which the player character - a Soviet officer who survived the devastating effects of the device due to a road accident - tries to shut down.

As you would expect, the technical framework of this game is nothing to write home about. It probably looked dated even when it was first released. Graphics are OK, and by that I mean early Call of Duty level.

Gameplay corresponds to the first-person shooter standard, except that you cannot run or sprint. This results in a very slow playing pace which is bound to annoy most gamers expecting fast action in a game like this. It does make for a more survival-oriented playing style, though. Ammo is scarce - at least early on - and neither you nor your enemies can take all that many hits. Your arsenal is mostly conventional - wrench, Mauser pistol, Spagin submachine gun, Mosin-Nagant rifle, etc. - and enemies vary from New Red Guard troops to insane patients and mutated chickens.

Where the game shines is in its art style - a Half-Life 2 kind of Eastern European architecture and poster art - and the totalitarian atmosphere created thereby.

I did find my playthrough interesting enough, but obviously this game is very far from being among the genre greats. Pick it up during a sale if you're interested in Soviet-themed shooters.

Gameplay-wise, it doesn't do anything special over your other FPS, but has a lot of style and charm about it. ove the setting and enemies matched with an interesting atmosphere. You are not as empty as you think.

utter tosh! Left me feeling robbed after playing for an hour. Unbelieveable enemies, rubbish graphics and story. I'd rather poke a stick at a slug to see if I can make it go faster.

I wasn't sure what to expect with "You Are Empty" apart from the fact that i knew it was an fps game.

After playing through the game, it is still unclear as to what the story is supposed to be about, mostly due to the random incoherent sequences. For example, one cut scene has a boy looking into a shop window, on the other side it's a dog. All of a sudden they have some sort of staring competition and the dog starts head butting the window repeatedly! What is that all about!? There are also moments where the voice acting is horrific (it's generic and wooden, as if it was read to you by a school teacher).

You may now be thinking "why the 4 stars then". Well it's because those things make the experience memorable to me. It is fun to play through the game (the game engine is decent enough) it feels like a cross between half life and painkiller.

If you are after a top of the line big budget fps, this isn't what you are looking for. But if you want a bizarre budget fps, if you can get it at a cheap price, i would say it warrants a purchase. There are quite a few moments that will make you think "what on earth is that supposed to be!?"

This isn't an actively BAD game, but given the glut of shooters on the market, it doesn't give one any compelling reason to pick it up. There are no innovative or especially great gameplay elements to speak of, and if there was a story, I couldn't find it. There are just too many superior shooters to play.

its definitely one of the weirder games ive played. the art style has such a different feel about it too.

has a definite budget feel to it but its still enjoyable

Enjoyable horror FPS. I got it with the 1C collection, which was a great deal, some amazingly good games in there, plus some duds. This falls into the middle ground. Lots of bugs, some gameplay issues, but the games premise and interesting artstyle even that out in my mind. Worth the price of admission.

You Are Empty is an horror-style FPS. I've bought this game on sale at a great price, but if it is cheap, it doesn't mean that it's a bad game. Instead, I think that You Are Empty has an high level atmosphere, and it's also scary, sometimes (zombies will appear right in front of you a lot of times in the game). The graphic is very good for a budget game like this (for the details level). One of the problem I have had with running You Are Empty are the game's movies, that don't work; the game give me an error during these video sequences, so I could not follow them (and then I could not follow the game's storyline). Maybe is an incompatibility issue between Windows 7 and You Are Empty, I don't know. However, for his price, You Are Empty deserves to be played, because is very original, and probably there aren't others FPS like this.

This game is... bizarre, in a good way. It's not the greatest fun you'll ever have, and it doesn't offer any spectacular graphics.

But somehow, the design of the levels and the enemies made me play this one for a while. Give it a shot, please, only if you get it at a discount price.

It's not a bad game for the price, and it's quite enjoyable if you're a seasoned FPS gamer. I love the game not only for its status as an FPS, but the premise is really interesting to me. It's a great game, although it's pretty "hidden" like most of the 1C games, but it delivered a great experience that I won't soon forget. =]

Rough as guts, buggy but as others have said, there's something underneath that makes it fun enough if you can get in the mood. Get it when on sale though.

this game is unique in a special kind of way. the atmosphere is creepy and gets you in that mood where your constantly looking back to see if there's an enemy behind you...only 30 minutes later rock music starts playing and your gunning baddies down like there's no tommarrow. I"ve pretty much summed up the game in a nutshell, every level is creepy with the last section of that level ending by you killing a thousand things. jumping really sucks since its hard to go down ladders and the weapon variety (while nice) is kinda bland. however enemies are the highlight here, twisted deformed and ultimately you end up feeling sorry for the experiments you just killed. rarely do i find a game like this... and i only payed 10 bucks for it! Should you play it? yeah definetly even if the campaign is rather short and no multiplayer (this did come out in '03 before online gaming in shooters was HUGE like it is today). buy this game, it'll definetely be 1 of the best 10 dollar purchases you've made

Well this is a tough one. You Are Empty is strange, it's buggy, it's confusing and it's linear; it's essentialyy flawed. But it grows on you; it has a silly charm. Some twisted atmosphere and visuals combined this game is actually quite fun; running and gunning these grotesk and crazed enemies game spits at you is almost satisfying.

Under a tenner, this is worth the asking price.

I can understand all the negative reviews but you know what? I've seen worse! This game actually has a creepy atmosphere and music that sort of sucks you in (love the cinematics)... no the graphics are not spectacular and the game does have it's flaws but in all fairness.....it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be!

A strange and flawed game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless - mostly due to some cool design choices (such as the twisted, grotesque enemies) and the gray and desolate look and atmosphere of the environments. The graphics are dated, the gameplay is very basic and it's a linear experience from beginning to end, still... I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if it caught your interest!

With so many great shooters out there there is no reason to play this one. Graphical glitches, terrible AI, uninspired level design, the list goes on. I bought this on sale and played through it pretty quickly and I found myself paying more attention to how things could have been improved than being immersed in the gameplay.

Not worth the time it takes to play. It has no particular gameplay elements to recommend it and the narrative is basically non-existent. It is a well-made game-- environments lead you through them easily enough, enemies don't get stuck in walls, etc. If I was involved in the production of this game I'd put it on my resume as an example of solid work, but I wouldn't recommend it to a player. There just isn't anything new or particularly fun about the game. Play half-life 2 again, instead.

While "You are empty" is not precisely an impressive game, it is surprisingly fun, and good for the price. It has a few bugs, and some parts can result a little confusing… but it grows on you, and I'm sure that you will end enjoying the 7/8 hours of gameplay that it has to offer. The difficulty is fair (quite easy sometimes; you will find plenty of health packs), and it has a good number of weapons (Mauser C96 pistol, PPSh-41 submachine gun, Mosin-Nagant rifle...). And, actually, some parts of the game looked very similar to “Bioshock”.

The story of “YaE” do makes sense, but you need to pay attention to the cutscenes that appear between some of the levels. I'd recommend "You are Empty" to anyone who likes shooters... especially, rare shooters.

A strange and flawed game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless - mostly due to some cool design choices (such as the twisted, grotesque enemies) and the gray and desolate look and atmosphere of the environments. The graphics are dated, the gameplay is very basic and it's a linear experience from beginning to end, still... I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if it caught your interest!

This game is very linear--the design constricts you to basically stay along one path the whole game and as you walk along--there's no running, which at times makes things a little slow--enemies will spawn a few at a time for you to dispatch, and so on and so forth--as such the gameplay itself isn't all that interesting. I played on the "Normal" difficulty setting and it was quite easy. The setting/atmosphere of the game--a Soviet dystopia born of some of the stranger veins of Soviet (pseudo)scientific research, which I found to be an intriguing and novel setting. This setting is definitely the games strong point; although the fairly plain gameplay left me feeling a bit like the game could have done more to capitalize on the interesting world it had put you in. On the whole an acceptable game--an average, straightforward shooter with a Soviet-horror twist.

A FPS that reminds you of the true FPS classics like Doom, with an awesome apocalypse feeling. Like "The Crazies".

If that sounds awesome to you, then this is a buy you won't regret.

Make sure your video card is up to date and up to speed for this game. Tried to run it on a low end ancient laptop on very low specs (I'm talking P4 32mb video card), and it not only crashed my computer, it crashed Win XP and required a full system restore.

My bad of course. Game works fine on Win 7 and has a really weird unique atmosphere. Very bizarre enemies too. Makes the game interesting even if it does feel sort of generic at times. It's kind of a survival horror RPG too, which is a nice change.

This game is just another FPS.

While generally I'm not interested in graphics or special effects, YAE has a very minimal gameplay.

The story isn't well flashed out. You awake in an old russian hospital and... that's it, start killing monster.

The game isn't so scary, very little I'll say, and the gameplay is very linear.

Add to this many tech glitches (at least on Windows 7), like menu not showing, poligonal intersation, etc.

Buy only if you are a fan of FPS.

Don't expect a great game here, it's more of a concept around what could happen in russia in a crazy alternate reality. There are, indeed, good music and ambientalization, but the gameplay, and the fact that everytime you're hit, or take a medicine, or find ammo the screen goes blank for a second, totally kills the immersion, or frustrates you. It's a nice idea that could have been a bit more polished before hitting the shelves. =/

This game is quite fun.

I don't understand anything that's going on and the voice-acting for the three other characters is terrible but I had quite a bit of fun with it nonetheless.

My favorite thing is probably the ridiculous (and sometimes truly terrifying) enemies.

My least favorite is the DRM.

My experience of this game is not as positive.Read that many with me have had trouble getting the game to function properly.

So my advice to you who are eager to buy the game,make sure your computer has the correct drivers.Very bottom of this page,you can get help to maybe solve some problems that may arise.

Which player would be able to purchase,download and play without a lot of trouble but,unfortunately,does this game bad for some.

But finally I got the game to function reasonably.The graphics are okay,as are the sound but I can do just by playing the game for 30 minutes before I start to feel seasick.Other FPS-games I can play without starting to feel sick but there are something about "You are empty"that I can not handle.

Well,this is my experience of the game,maybe you have better luck than me but I can not even think of the game,I get sick!

Why I did not put a one in grade is for graphics that are sometimes nice.Some cool weapons,MauserC96 or PPSH41 machine guns taken from the 50th century Soviet are available which raises rating from one to a two.

This actually not a game, though it has all aspects of a FPS. This is like in a delirious fever dream, where everything is unreal, hilarious and EMPTY of sense. And you are trapped there - and for the bad part of it.

So, you keep on playing for some strange need to survive this brutal and deserted world. Where everyone is reduced to a violent puppet of their darkest instincts. In it´s best moments this even reminds me of Silent Hill.

So yes, atmosphere you get plenty. And that is not a thing to put down easily. Put if you don´t have a real twisted sense of humor you won´t enjoy that.

Ok, for some more technical impressions, you get the following:

- Most enemies are crazed, wicked, mutated people and some animals, which have an appearance ranging from distorted, to cool, to funny. Also the AI ranges from stupid to quite good (Soldiers & Flyers) but all enemies are chasing you around as they can. Some cn even jump! This is esp. wicked and fun in hard mode.

- Weapons are limited but sufficient. You don´t need many guns, you some that fit, which they do. Besides that Tesla-thingy, maybe.

- Gameplay is nihilistic Run & Gun, which is fine with me. Survival is the goal. And with the unfortunately linear level design there are no questions to be answered beyond that either. But there is still some intelligent scenery design behind it. And design variation you will also find enough. And do yourself a favor and play this on Hard Mode.

- Game physics engine is really good and comparable to top level FPS.

The serious downers are:

- Sounds, Music and SFX.

- you cannot run

- you die when falling from higher than a table.

- invisible walls

- ladder climbing is most dangerous

- stuff gets stuck in walls

- WAY TOO SHORT.

pretty awesome story line and area, but the graphics are very bad and ammo is very little, pretty hard as well, but still a good game for under $10

You Are Empty is an interesting game, but it truthfully feels a little too much like they were trying to make another Half Life 2 at times. The graphics and imagery are of a post-apocalyptic world, which I guess limits things and would force a certain amount of similarity, but there is such a thing as too much. Especially since HL2 was released 2 years before YAE.

However, the game does hold up under its own merits. The game play is solid, even though the character control is slightly stiff.

The artwork creates the right mood for the game.

AI and enemies are pretty standard for the time.

On the downside though, the in game aspect of storyline tends to be a bit disjointed at times. I suppose the FMVs make up for that.

YAE is not a high end FPS, but its definitely an enjoyable experience playing through.

Critics have given this game poor reviews, because they have tried to compare it to AAA shooters. Taken on its own, it a very interesting and entertaining game. The shooter mechanics are workable, but the real charm comes from the unique locations and game progression. It also feels like much older FPS games, which may be a negative to some, but gives a nostalgic quality to it.

I am freaked out by some horror action games and this game is making check my back twice every 5 seconds. So far the enemies are just as disturbing as the game setting but you get a gun pretty early and a good amount of ammo so they don't present much of a threat. If you are quick you can take no damage and take out all the grunts without any trouble but you gotta watch out for the higher tier monsters. Overall a game I probably will not play as much unless its daylight outside and there isn't anyone home to open my door and scare my pants off.

I enjoyed playing this game quite a bit. It is a somewhat challenging FPS game and scared the crap out of me at first. A very unique atmosphere. Only about 10 monster types, still fun and hard. It seemed like they spent alot of time on the city environments which is a good thing because they suck you in pretty good. Some things are ultra realistic looking, very good style. Other things are not.

I had some bugs installing. I had to unstall my sound card and install onboard sound and on top of that the sound was buggy the whole game. I didn't really hear half of anything action related. Some grahpics seemed buggy as well and some enemies always hit with the first shot. A little ridiculous.

I'd heard good things about this game and was hoping to like it, but I get a (seemingly) uncorrectable issue with tiled textures flickering at insane speeds, almost like they're constantly switching the tiling size. A few hours of searching hasn't shown anyone else with this issue, so I have to assume the game might not be compatible with the newer ATI cards (5850 here) and Windows 7 (even in various compatibility modes).

With the development team long gone I can't expect a fix for it, so I have to say keep away if your system is newer and you don't want to take a chance on a game actually working.

I'm sure you may have read the reviews to this game by professional websites. All I can tell you is, they are right, the game IS bad.

Pros:

1. There are movies that run from time to time explaining the story and they are amazingly interesting and well made.

Cons:

1. No coherent in-game storyline (it's like the movies are from a different game).

2. Terrible sound effects.

3. Worst voiceacting in a game ever. Has it been done with a simple microphone?

4. Graphics are terrible. And before you jump at me let me tell you I am not comparing it with Crysis but with Aliens vs Predator 2 (2001) which I think has better graphics. Not to mention Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay (2004).

5. Bad creature design (except for the flying creatures).

6. You walk all the game (it's like you forgot the Shift pressed).

That's all I can think of now. One more important thing is, I played this game on Windows 7 and I had problems with the sound which at first I coulnd't hear and with the graphics (some textures, floor ones especially were glitchy).

Keep in mind this is only my opinion and yours may differ but I wonder by how much?

This is an entertaining linear shooter, if a little dated. I would strongly caution anyone who might purchase this, it's not easy to get the game running on some systems. I only managed to get it running by using a noCD patch and running the game in compatibility mode for windows NT. best of luck, it's a cool game if you can get it working.

"You Are Empty" does not try to be a AAA shooter and is not! There is something artistic about this game that makes it very unique. Its impossible to imagine what comes next on every corner. "You are Empty" is a weird trip!

First Let me say, Starforce is probaly the worse part of this otherwise fun game, I had problems getting the game to work on my Win7 64 Bit system until I found a ahem "unofficial solution". After that, the game works nicely.

As for the game proper, the game is alot of fun, surprisingly good, while the storyline is almost non-existent and it seems your character whom I cant say I even know the game of just gets droped down into different locales full of zombie like creatures, also not explained. So firstly dont bother thinking too much of it, at least in the beginning. The atmosphere however is great, its really creepy, your left with a feeling something horrible has befallen Russia with how empty the locations are of living people. The Graphics are passable, and the level designs are pretty good.

The biggest problems which are easy to get over is the lack of enemy diversity, the almost non-existent storyline and how things dont seem to have no rhyme or reason to them. For the price point however its worth it. As I mentioned earlier however, the biggest turn off and problem with the game is the Starforce DRM.

Decided to buy this title on a coin toss after checking out the mostly negative reviews around the web...Like most peeps on GG, happy I did! The levels are simply AMAZING!!! Although you're fairly limited in the actual "game zone" none of the level felt cramped...All of this due to the huge work on all the details in the scenery (the city buildings are truly great)...You'll understand this even more when on the rooftops of the industrial quarters...you can actually see the city your heading to from afar...and it's VERY detailed. Although there's not a lot a variety in the enemy types, all of them also sports a fair amount of work and some are pretty crazy looking. The flying welder and the axe-swinging fire-fighter are some good example of original looking meanies...Good amount of available weapons, although some feel a bit under-powered. Nice soundtrack and a genuinely spooky atmosphere makes this game a safe buy for the low price.

I wasn't expecting much from You Are Empty. Not least of all because of the dismal scores many critics gave it. But something about it appealed to me and eventually made me decide to buy it in spite of this. I'm glad to say it was a wise decision. Sure, the game has its weak points. But for the most part its a very enjoyable game in its own right. The level design in particular is praiseworthy. Eastern European architecture wasn't this well depicted even in Half Life 2. A lot of time was spent bringing the environments to life and it has paid off. Not least of all in the way it adds to the atmosphere of the game. Overall the art direction is noticeably strong. The cut scenes in particular are particularly creative and well produced. It's unfortunate then that this is counterbalanced by some lacklustre modelling on the enemy models. Something which is further compounded by the fact that there are so few of them so they're repeated regularly. All in all it's a good game, but it's probably for the best that you wait for it to turn up in a sale or drop in price.

I bought this game on a recent sale and I was gladly surprised. This game has mood, great level design, good music. It was more than I expected. If you search the internet on opinions about this title, you will find a lot of criticism, saying the game is mediocre, uninspired, slow, etc. I am glad those opinions did not turned me down from buying the game. Of course I am a lover of this particular brand of game and my opinion may seen highly biased. On the plus side I found the game very moody and depressingly beautiful. It shows some unique scenery of a 50 era USSR, but very desolate, almost deserted. In fact, it takes place solely in a single unspecified city and you can see your final destination from the beginning. The city architecture is beautiful and the level design is well done to a point where you get to see a lot of the city. The level design forces you to never go on a straight line, but this is done in a natural way, with blockages of junk, broken vehicles, old metal parts, etc, very fitting also to transmit a post apocaliptic place impression, as something has gone very wrong.

The pacing of the game is slow and you can make it slower by being cautious. I did not have a problem with that. In fact I liked since it allowed me to do some sight seeing. Also with this you can adjust the difficulty of the game, as there is no enemy respawn, thank God.

Please keep in mind this is a budget game. It clearly shows the game was developed with constraints. This also translates to the simplicity of gameplay. My feeling is that most of the resources were directed to the art, level and scenery, which in my opinion was a correct decision.

Gameplay-wise, it does not have bosses, which is refreshing and helps keep a steady pace. The music kicks in at the right time. The enemies are well placed and their type fit the area you are in (nurses in the hospital, men with nail gun on the more industrial parts, etc)

The graphics are very well done and ran great on my 8800 GTS. The cutscenes are also very well made.

The story may seem confusing at the beginning, but the loose ends are tied at end, although not in an explicit way, leaving room for interpretation. That´s why I think some people was put off by it.

On the minus side, the music sometimes has a techno feel to it, which detracts a little from the era the game is set. The enemies, when dead, disappear very quickly, which is a minus on the mood as well, but I can understand the design decision for that. Collision detection for melee attacks on you is a bit off. The scenery, although beautiful, is totally stale (apart from some working machines in the industrial part of the game). It would do great good to the mood of the game (which is its strongest point) if there was some effects like waving flags, water droppings, insects on the lamps, etc.

There are some memorable moments for this game. The last stage (Utopia) is very nice and will remind you of Half-Life 2. The controls are eas

Half of the bad things you've heard about this game are not true. Yes, the gameplay is quite simple and extremely linear. The enemies are not very varied. The plot does not make sense. BUT. The atmosphere is absolutely amazing. And the sceneries you will see - those of a crumbling, monumental, surreal, deserted post-Soviet city - are among the best ever created in a computer game, period. Half-Life 2's pseudo-Eastern-European locales look amateurish in comparison to the detailed, varied and suggestive levels in You Are EMPTY. You have to see it to believe it. In this respect, the game is up there with the real greats of Eastern European game design - STALKER, Cryostasis or The Void. The amazing atmosphere plus average, but interesting gameplay (think Redneck Rampage) make this a really worthwhile game. And, I somehow feel like mentioning it, the ragdoll physics are damn satisfying. Gotta love the shotgun.

A FPS with Abstract story and cutscenes, good atmospheres, and realistic looking of cities. gameplay is very simple, where you proceed and kill things. There are no armor and enemies hit pretty hard, but instead you'll find lots of health items around(they're bottles and can be destroyed during firefights). Recommended if you think you're a true singleplayer FPS addict like me.

This game is really a lot of fun. Great atmosphere and the action is exactly the way i like it. This will appeal to those who grew up watching FPS games advance.. If you liked Return to Wolfenstein... you'll love this. This one is just straight run and gun in a spooky atmosphere.