Metal: Hellsinger

Примитивно. Однообразно. Скучно. Можно было сделать перезарядку частью механики, добавить более сложные ритмические фигуры с наградой за успешное выполнение — ничего этого нет. Люблю метал, но не стал бы слушать эти треки вне игры.

Magnífico juego si te gusta el nu-metal y el cazar demonios. En resumen es una fusión bien hecha entre Guitar Hero y Doom. Vale la pena comprarlo.

[h1][i]Fighting for metal, that's all that's real 🎶[/i] ~Manowar, Brothers of Metal[/h1] I'm a metalhead. I mean, I'm one of those people who can't see the problem with Chopin, Talib Kweli, Anoushka Shankar, Shpongle and Immortal being a part of the same playlist, but come on. Metal. That certain thing that started with the “Unholy Trio” (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and, of course, Black Sabbath)? There's something very special about it. Maybe it's about it being rebellious (I guess somewhere out there Confucius hates it very much, lol), maybe it's about channeling emotions, but still, there's nothing like metal. I also love rhythm games. Still have lots and lots of Guitar Hero plastic in my room. And it's not like it's just lying there, collecting dust, so yeah. This here goes right down my alley. I mean, come on. They've combined two of the most metal things out there – heavy music and first-person shooters. If that's not metal, I don't know what is. What's so special about it, though? I mean, heavy metal and FPS games have been in a close relationship for, like, ages now. Megadeth recorded Lee Jackson's iconic Duke Nukem theme as a bonus track for their album, and there was that game called Painkiller that literally revolved around Judas Priest's legendary song of the same name. So, um... What's the big deal? The big deal is the fact that Metal: Hellsinger is not just an FPS game with a heavy metal soundtrack. It's actually... a rhythm game. How is that possible? Well, The Outsiders (don't google them, despite the fact that we have people who worked on games like Mirror's Edge, Crusader Kings II, and Conan: Exiles here; for them as a team, this here is their very first game) took our usual crosshair... and turned it into the hit zone. You know, that certain space from rhythm games in which you're supposed to press the corresponding button. There won't be any icons coming at us, though. Heck, technically, you're free to ignore the whole rhythm thing entirely. But. If you become one with the rhythm... you'll win. Hitting enemies at the right moments (again, both the music and the “crosshair” will tell you when exactly) will reward you with so-called Fury. What's Fury exactly? Well, it's a lot like Star Power from Guitar Hero. And yes, Metal: Hellsinger is heavily score-oriented (leaderboards included, but we'll return to that later), but the score is not the most important thing. The most important thing about Fury is that it grants you a damage multiplier. What will happen if you try to play this game as your regular FPS? Technically you can (which is kind of a problem, but we'll return to that too in a bit), but... you'll get your butt kicked. Metal: Hellsinger is a game that's designed with both FPS and rhythm mechanics in mind. And it plays both for and against it. How so? Well, let's just admit it, not everyone has an ear for music. For many of us, rhythm games require quite a lot of concentration. Hitting that certain button at a very specific time may require a heck of a lot of training. You ever tried to get 100% on DragonForce's "Through the Fire and Flames" in Guitar Hero without having any skill with a real guitar? You know exactly what I mean. This game? While not punishing you for missing hits nearly as much, it still requires that. While also requiring pretty much everything a usual FPS game requires. Jumping, strafing, taking cover... it's all still there. Yet you'll need to constantly “pon-pon-patapon.” And it's not like you can afford missing a note. Again, technically you can, but you won't want to. Because again: Fury. There's even a weapon (a talking skull) that's designed specifically for the moments when you need to keep your Fury but don't have any enemies to shoot. Why is that a problem? I mean, it sounds cool, right? Well, it does. The problem is—it requires more than just skill. I mean, yes, this game will need you to develop an entirely new skill (playing it for the very first time is almost like learning how to play FPS games with a gamepad after years of playing those with a keyboard/mouse combo), but it also requires a very special state of mind. I'm talking about multitasking. And again, it's a very Guitar Hero situation. You know how during live performances musicians often do things on stage? Like, they're not just performing their songs live, but also interacting with each other, with the crowd and, since it's heavy metal we're talking about, playing their characters. In other words, the rhythm goes by default. Same thing with this game. If you aren't natural with the rhythm? You'll suffer. You've been warned. And guess what? There's another thing you need to be warned about. See, this here isn't a AAA project. It looks like a cheap FPS on Unity, it feels like a cheap FPS on Unity and, well, it is a cheap FPS on Unity. Which... ruins it quite a lot. I mean, rhythm games are supposed to be perfectly polished. Yet this here is anything but. Enemies will get stuck in the walls, drop through the floor (I'm writing this review, like, three years after release, so I guess it's safe to assume those things will never get fixed) even when they are necessary for progression, etc. And to make things worse? There's some sort of a leveling system designed around passive buffs. How to unlock them? Well, you're supposed to do timed challenges. The time frame there is strict as F, but... yeah. You guessed it. Cheap FPS on Unity. It's just way too chaotic for something like that. Metal: Hellsinger is also a very short game. Thanks to Dante (no, not the one from Devil May Cry, what's wrong with you?), there are only nine levels here (plus a very short tutorial) and you can easily beat those in less than four hours. And after that? Aside from a tiny little roguelite-like addition? There's nothing. You can change the levels' songs (some of those are sold separately, including, for whatever reason, bands like Depeche Mode, Paramore, and Muse), you can replay that roguelite thing until your eyes start bleeding, but all in all, that's it—nine tiny little levels. For $14.99. And no, DLC won't add more. Those are literally just songs. Something to replace the default songs with. Talking about those, by the way: I just love them. The whole concept is brilliant. What we have by default is not licensed tracks, but in-house music composed by so-called Two Feathers (video game composers Elvira Björkman and Nicklas Hjertberg). But. If you looked at the store page, you know that we have some big names here. With the biggest one being System of a Down's Serj Tankian. We also got Arch Enemy's Alissa White-Gluz (you haven't heard her performing Powerwolf's "Demons Are a Girl‘s Best Friend"? Go do it. NOW!) and others. And since those awesome vocals can only be heard at the maximum amount of Fury? Let's just say it's a great motivation. Like I said, I just love the concept. I also loved the fact that our hero here is a lady. Well, both the senior designer and lead character artist here are women, so you may think it's because of that, but come on. Heavy metal used to be known for its toxic masculinity (I didn't quote Manowar just for fun, OK?). You know how it was. This game did a kind of perfect job addressing that. So yeah. I love a lot of things about this game. Like, A LOT. Give it a bigger budget and more polish (for example, it desperately needs its own alternative to an aim assist) and it'll be a bloody masterpiece. The whole idea is downright fantastic, love it with all of my heart. But at the same exact time, it's... a very arguable thing. To say the least. The entry threshold for casual players is way higher than needed, the length is ridiculous (even with all the replayability in mind), while, like I said, at its heart, this game is just yet another cheap-ass FPS on Unity. Metal: Hellsinger is a very interesting project. But it's next to impossible not to feel a bit sad because of how it could be so-o-o much better.

Я в последнее время переиграл в кучу одиночных шутеров, так что немного опасался браться за Metal: Hellsinger. Не хотелось нырять в очередной пустой шутер с тонким сюжетом и небольшим количеством врагов. Но тут начались скидки… ну, короче, я не удержался. И рад, что не удержался — потому что, хотя некоторые из моих первоначальных опасений были оправданы, они перестали иметь значение, как только заиграла музыка. В игре восемь уровней, каждый из которых по сути представляет собой забег к битве с боссом. Сам босс повторяется, хотя каждая встреча с новым «аспектом», что немного разнообразит ситуацию. Единственное большое исключение — финальный босс, который совершенно другой и гораздо более запоминающийся. Разнообразие врагов ограничено: семь основных типов врагов, четыре более крутых варианта и небольшой арсенал из шести основных видов оружия (плюс еще два, если у вас есть DLC). На бумаге это звучит однообразно. Но у Hellsinger есть одна убийственная фишка. Вся игра построена вокруг простой, но гениальной механики ритма: убивай в такт саундтреку, и твой множитель урона взлетает. Каждая перезарядка, атака и визуальный эффект пульсируют в такт музыке, делая игровой процесс гипнотическим и невероятно приятным. Может быть, давно не играл в игры этого жанра но кровь закипела в тот момент, когда заиграл тяжелый металл и началась резня, я полностью потерялся в потоке. Кайф был такой чистый. Кроме того, сюжет на удивление крепкий для шутера такого стиля — хорошо поставленный, хорошо озвученный и ровно настолько, чтобы протащить вас через бойню. Итоговый вердикт: Metal: Hellsinger — это сосредоточенный, захватывающий и незабываемый опыт. Даже с ограниченным разнообразием, чистый адреналин от синхронизации убийств с ревущим металлическим саундтреком делает игру обязательной к прохождению. Оценка: 8.5 / 10

It's just an arcade boomer shooter that you have to click when your corny rhythm game beat meter is aligned. It's horribly optimised. It brings an RTX 3090 to its knees even on the lowest settings. Seemingly no surround sound support so for a game based on audio it can't even get audio right. Gameplay is also just fundamentally flawed. It's just a test of your peripheral vision as you stare intently at the beat meter and nothing else. All aiming is done by instinct, didn't look at the centre of the screen once. Couldn't tell you what anything looked like, was too busy timing my beat meter. Finished two levels and promptly uninstalled.

The soundtrack is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. The soundtrack is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. The soundtrack is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. My neck almost broke from all the headbanging. The game is not hard if you are used to rhytm games, some songs are harder to play on beat. It has right amount of lore. The boss fights feel very repetetive due to lack of variety in design and their attacks. They're even voiced by one person. Overall I love this game.

Good rhythm game for people that don't normally play rhythm games, Game runs well, Shooting feels really good, Enemies are interesting and challenging as you progress through the game, the music is really good and the game has a simple but interesting enough story on top of it. The only con if you can call it that is sometimes it can be a little hard to tell which part of the beat (bass or lead) you're actually supposed to be following at times leading to missed hits. But I do suck at rhythm games and don't play them super often so it could be just me. I recommend picking up this game if you haven't already especially if you really like this genre.