The title is Only Lead can Stop Them. However, fire works too. What will stop you? The ability to look up or down.
Well, if you want, but it’ll be less authentic.
Only Lead Can Stop Them (or OLCST from here on) is a very authentic feeling boomershooter that feels like a half-way-house between Wolfenstein and Doom, all set in a fantastical retelling of the Spanish civil war. It is so authentically 90s feeling that it is likely to be a very Marmite game; you will love its authenticity, or you will despise its clunkiness. While there are some bugs here and there, a couple of stability issues and one or two moments where the level design raises an eyebrow, it is very much the kind of early to mid 90s charm that is hard to replicate, especially to the degree OLCST does.
As per usual, this is something of an odd fish. I’m not sure it is something I can advise to all, but for those who like these kinds of games, this is absolutely something worth considering. As with all niche products, this is absolutely not a title that can have “something for everybody” used as a descriptor, and even amongst fans of old school shooters, this is a very specific flavour that will likely appeal to only a small subset of folks who will are so starved of content that even a flawed title such as this will sustain them. In this regard, if you are interested in these unique selling points, OLCST will be very appealing. Outside of that, the game will be a pain in the behind.
So what are these unique features? Well, there are twofold concepts worth considering. One is the setting, the other is the premise.
First is the setting. OLCST takes place during the Spanish civil war during the late 1930s. With only a small selection of tiles such as grand strategy titles, this setting is rarely ever covered. Since this is such a unique setting for an FPS title, especially an old school boomshoot, it gives the whole thing a flare, with lots of catholic symbolism and distinctly Spanish looking locations and equipment, such as the Astra pistols. Despite this, the game is far from realistic, containing just as many magical Catholic wizards throwing fireballs, skeletons carrying axes (quite amusingly with the fasces around them) and even a dragon for one of the bosses. It has the same mixture of a serious backdrop twisted into something of a silly situation that a title like Wolfenstein would have considering Mecha Hitler and the likes.
The comparison to Wolfenstein is the second main selling point, and what I would consider to be the main draw of the game. Not only is OLCST something that could be classes as a boomershooter, but also something so authentic feeling that to the untrained eye you could easily fool someone into thinking that it came out in 1995 or 1996. Sometimes with the newer throwback games, you have to squint slightly and limit your movement options to try and get a feeling for how it is supposed to be a 90s title beyond the lower resolution, unfiltered textures. With OLCST, the colour palate is low, the animations jerky, the sprite resolutions somewhat nasty looking and all the locations have a believably low poly look to them. Everything just feels very, very old in ways you can just tell more effort likely went into making it feel authentic than went into any kind of marketing the game had. If there was a time or tech period I could pigeonhole it into, it would be the in-between point of Wolf 3D and the first Doom. There is verticality to the levels, but it feels more haphazard than in Doom. Adding to that the game defaults you to having no vertical aim. With this in mind, I’ll say you can, if you want play entirely with just the keyboard, using the arrow keys for movement, and from my testing it is perfectly playable that way. Despite all this, you can dial the game either down or up to the right, downscaled resolutions that you wish for, or cap the frame rate at something appropriately old school, even having the ability to switch on full mouse look if you please. While this does take away some of the old school feel, it is nice to have the option to play either way.
As an aside on the period vibes it has, the music must be mentioned. Whoever was working on this music was on fire! It ranges from, at the worst, sort of weird ambiance on a sewer level, and at best, which is quite a lot, it rivals a lot of the tracks in the classic Rise of the Triad! Rise of the Triad had some of the best damn midi music for the mid 90s! The music here is absurdly good! WHY CAN’T I BUY THE OST! IT’S ABSURD!
So, OLCST is a classic blast from the past! Considering that, there is a lot of baggage that comes with it. For one, the focus on the mid 90s somewhat extends to the controls feeling slightly stiff. Similarly, the simplistic graphics can leave things being muddy and confusing to make out what you are looking at, even when you have the resolution set to a modern one. Everything is also very basic, so much so that after about an hour, a person looking for novelty is likely going to get bored. The vertical aiming system also sometimes breaks at longer distances, meaning enemies can shoot at you, but you cannot shoot back. The sound, as great as it is with the music, is very weak and the guns sound like someone flicking a piece of paper.
I could go on, but it would be like picking apart an ice cream for its use of milk as a primary ingredient; it has a lot of flaws and issues, but if you are criticising ice cream for using milk, then your best bet is to not eat ice cream. OLCST is an early 90s throwback title and that is what you get, warts and all. Consider that before laying down cash for it.
Away from the inherent flaws of something for simply being itself, there are more tangible issues with the game, namely level design and bugs.
On the level design there are some issues. Occasionality there are inexplicable empty rooms. With the simplistic environs, sometimes an empty room can feel especially empty here, often making some areas in the larger levels seem meaningless. Also, the levels sometimes are too wide for their own good. You’ll have massive open spaces where enemies can shoot you from any odd angle and it is hard to pin down where they are. Also, as the game goes on, there are some oddly designed levels. A mine level late game for instance, requires you to blow up walls with dynamite. This is not communicated well, and required a bit of trial and error to figure out. To make things worse, I noticed that if you are liberal with the dynamite use, you can easily soft lock yourself. Also there were times where doors would not open or I’d phase through them inexplicably. Not the best.
This also connects to the bugs in the game. Sometimes enemies would walk through solid walls, start moonwalking across the level or just not react to you, despite standing right in front of them. They would also at times become invincible for inexplicable reasons. Sometimes items could not be picked up, or I would pick them up and the resources given would be all over the place. Sometimes I died inexplicably. Sometimes enemies would get stuck trying to attack but couldn’t. Finally I had 3 crashes while playing, which did not set me back too far, but that was because I was saving at the start of each level and sometimes mid level. If you forget to save and it crashes, well, back to the start of the game!
This may make OLCST sound awful, but truth be told, they are just some minor bugs here and there. In truth, a lot of them go right back to that really rough early 90s feel. There are problems, and a number of them are inherent to the core design principles. How one reacts to those issues are mostly down to how much you yearn for a shooter straight out of 1995. If you crave it in its purest form, OLCST will be one of the clearest, purest examples of a game from the said time period. Else, this game will have little to offer other than bemusement.
Very yes, or very no.
