Fight for your life in the unforgiving Amazon. The Green Hell of Nature works against you. And many eyes hide in the trees.
One might think Green Hell is just another survival game. So, I took it for a spin on Xbox One to check it out. While it shares similarities with many, the setting has been used by very few games. Taking inspiration from titles like The Green Inferno, the game pits players against the elements of the Amazon Rainforest in a sandbox survival setting. Which isn’t limited to four-legged creatures with sharp teeth. From Creepy Jar comes a nail-biting tale of survival.
Anyone who has watched Naked and Afraid knows how rugged the wilderness can be. The very things that aid in survival may poison you if ingested. Or, one may simply starve before any worthwhile protein is ever found. Taking on the role of Jake, I was a little more equipped to handle the situation.
Green Hell thrusts players deep into the heart of the Amazon. Jake and his wife Mia have tasked themselves with asking for aid from the Yabahuaca Amazon tribe. When she awakens alone, Mia decides to sneak off, leaving her husband a birthday gift in the form of a watch—a tool vital to his survival. Something went wrong during the initiation Mia was to be a part of. Jake must find out what happened and if his wife is okay.
Green Hell had what I felt was a very comprehensive crafting system. Unlocking blueprints for certain things was part of the fun. One of the most exciting parts of crafting your tools is that each created item increases the durability of the next one you make. Everything in the crafting mechanics felt like it belonged in a game with Amazon as the setting.
Even with resources close to your dwelling, there was no telling if my jaunt to scavenge would yield any reward. And sometimes, even my most desired resource at the time couldn’t always be found. Green Hell certainly earns the name it presents itself with.
Jake’s watch gave him a readout of four traits: protein, carbohydrates, fats, and water. Carbohydrates, I feel, are the more important of the characteristics. My character seemed to work faster when carbs were maxed out. Water, while plentiful, could only be ingested in specific ways. If I filled my coconut canteen with dirty water and drank, a parasitic infection is very likely. Boiling the water in coconut shells solved this problem. Those same shells could also be used to make certain soups.
In addition to nutrients, Green Hell also has a sanity meter. It wasn’t hard to keep at a positive level, provided I did the right things. I found it a little funny that meat was essential to keep this at a high number. This was done easiest by gathering more food than necessary at the time. With a drying rack, most pieces of meat last for four days. Cooking the meat was easy enough. But tracking down animals was a little more complicated. Capybaras were most plentiful, and their meat provided fat. But if I were lucky enough to down a jaguar, I gained lean beef. And it seemed to offer more energy.
My favorite part of the whole game was probably scavenging for food sources. It was surprisingly in-depth. And I liked that there was a meter for how long the food would stay good. It’s great, but I found I ran into trouble if I ignored how well specific food sources would keep. Fruit, depending on what it is, may last longer or not. Bananas, which give the most carbohydrates, seemed to stay better for longer. It also wasn’t possible to harvest from the same trees as quickly as two days in a row.
Thanks to how this game was done, I did my best to avoid playing it at night. Not all of the tribes were individuals you wanted to meet as I explored the jungle in Green Hell, a tribe known as the Waraha, who were individuals I always had to watch out for. They are identified by the skulls they paint on their faces. As soon as I heard chanting, I had to find where they were and choose one of two things: sneak up on them or leave the area and return when they were gone.
Armor was vital if I were to engage any member of the Waraha. Even something as low-tier as stick armor would exponentially increase my survivability. They are fierce enemies, and it should always be assumed that their group number is three or more significant.
While there were things to love, many things became a source of frustration. As seen above, there was an issue with equipping the bow. Occasionally, the bow will glitch out. This causes the player character to lose additional weapons for some reason. I found that re-loading a save didn’t remedy this issue. But what I did notice was that it didn’t occur once I left the drug den.
Additionally, mud mixers provided similar glitch issues. If I were to leave a single mud brick in, it could wear down the mixer. Understandably, that would happen, but there’s no indicator to see how long I had. And reloading a save near a mixer that can be used sometimes rendered it completely useless.
Green Hell was a rollercoaster of emotion. Just when I thought I had things figured out, the game decided to throw me a curveball. The twists and turns were well done, and the crafting system was fascinating. But the number of things I could craft mainly felt unfinished. Overall, it was a pleasant experience. And I recommend it for any fan of the survival genre, even with the handful of issues it has.
Green Hell is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam for PC. Check out our news section for more on the latest. If you’re an Epic Games user, check out the Epic Store Unlocked article and our Green Hell PlayStation 4 review.
