A lot of games sell themselves as a nostalgic experience these days. It's big business to go find something adults who grew up in the 80s and 90s loved as children and sell it to them again. And many of those adults will smile fondly at their memories and buy that small token to remind them of those days. Video games are no exception as over the past few years we have seen remakes, remasters, and special anniversary editions of games that used to run on pre-Pentium PCs and pre-CD-ROM consoles all over the place. The results can be varied from really cool to blatant cash-grab. And that's perhaps the biggest tragedy of this game. While it was clearly made by people who love the original and wanted to share that experience with modern tech, that love of the old and the nostalgia that comes with it is simply not enough to make a game great... or in this case good.
You are a member of H.U.N.T (High-Risk United Nations Task-force) and on a mission to investigate terrorist activity around an island near Los-Angeles. Unfortunately for you, your boat is seen and blown up by the terrorist cult there. Unfortunately for them, you are now stuck on the island and going through them is the only way out. From this simple starting point you will choose one of 5 members of the team to play as and rip your way through 20 levels of first person madness filled with gore, traps, and a complete inability to take itself seriously. This last part may just be the best thing the game offers, however, as this game seems more interested in serving up "the old days" then actually serving up a good game.
The levels are divided into 4 episodes, the last level of each being a boss encounter, and you will see just about everything good this game has to offer by the end of the first, which takes place on the base that ruined your escape route. It will offer some interesting maps which hearken back to the 90s quite well while still being fun over all. In fact between the speed you move, the enemies begging for their lives, items to collect, and overall over-the-top design, it will feel like the 90s again in a good way. But that does not mean this early game does not show signs of trouble: both to come and on a technical level. Its very common to get stuck in the geometry of the game and it will happen many times if you look for secrets (as one does when 90s over the top action is the theme). And while there is a quicksave/quickload function, having to do so every couple minutes to ensure you don't lose all progress in a section because you can't move is frankly stupid.
But the game has more then map-based issues. The last part of the 4th level features an obstacle course of blades and jumping that, while relatively simple, is just a small hint of the "creativity" that will follow in later levels. And it can be tough at times to actually see the enemy as their color scheme can blend in with the background at long distances. Add to this that almost every enemy in the game uses "scan-shot" type weapons (aka there is no dodging possible) and you are in for a tough game where you are not going to have a lot of options but to eat the damage and keep going from time to time. And even this would have been countered somewhat if the game let you use saves, but for the most part, this game uses checkpoints which are per-determined. (That quicksave/load feature mentioned before is never noted in the game and in fact I only found out about it during the last 5 levels by accident.) So there is no really good way to just retry what is giving you trouble. All these issues culminate in this episode with the boss, which starts you in a room with guys flying at you from all directions and no cover (keep in mind there is NOTHING to dodge anyway when enemies use bullets) before you can actually take the boss on... and then it goes downhill from there.
Meatgrinder rooms like that become more common, new enemy types that don't change how this plays but are just bigger damage sponges (assuming its a type that doesn't need missiles to kill... or can be killed at all) while the maps themselves seem made to obscure them in the distance, and deviously retarded trap puzzles are all waiting for you as the developers try to spice up the game. And then we can get to the most unforgivable of all: This is a first person shoorter with moving platforms, bouncing platforms, and all with a control scheme that just doesn't support it well and instant death if you fail. This is especially egregious with bouncing platforms due to how much control the game gives you mid-air and tiny easy to miss targets. Basically, if you don't know the direction (or even how much force to put in that direction) to find the small places they give you in several places, expect to see a loading screen a lot.. and at least one spot can kill you AFTER YOU FINISH THE LEVEL. It just goes from a little off to a total design mess once the devs decided to really get "creative" for the later levels.
Bugs: While the game never had an issue running, it definitely had a few problems we will need to talk about:
- HELP I'M STUCK! As noted in the review, this game has an issue with geometry and the player easily getting stuck along the way. I have had to blast myself out of a corner with a missile launcher more then once, and you will too to avoid losing progress.
- I'm dead? I'm not even playing! This game has a weird issue in that when you finish a level, you are still in said level while you see how you did before clicking "continue". As such everything else still in the level is there too, including hazards. It is entirely possible to die after you finish a level and be asked to restart from the last check point. I lucked out when this happened to me and my game continued on the next level, but you may not be so lucky. You have been warned.
Score:
3/10
System Requirements:
- 2.4Ghz dual core processor
- 2 GB RAM
- ATi Radeon HD 3870 or NVidia Geforce 8800 GT
- Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10
- 5 GB hard drive space
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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