Ah, a game-related post, finally! Sorry for the overload of music-related content lately, but you know how I work, I just post what I feel like, when I feel like. Anyway, with GTA IV on my hands one would think that I wouldn't play anything other than that hallowed game, wouldn't it? Well, you're wrong...
Wait, what game could possibly distract me from Rocktar Games' masterpiece? First it was that brilliant RPG IceWind Dale (yeah, I like to write IceWind with a capital W, satan knows why...) that kept me busy for the weekend, but more recently it was a retro blast from the past. Most people first experienced FPS games with classics like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Half-Life or, moving to more recent times, Call of Duty. Well, although I eventually have played all those games, my first contact with the genre was through the demo of a pretty obscure title, the perfect example of an "hidden gem" that few have played, called Gunman Chronicles.
This game was originally planned as a total conversion for Quake, then Quake II and finally Half-Life, but eventually Sierra (Valve's publisher at the time) noticed it and decided to give the amateur programmers all the support they needed to release a full retail product.
That may be one of the reasons why it wasn't so well received by the fans, who were expecting a free mod for HL, but trust me, this game really deserves to be bought (nowadays it's rather irrelevant since Rewolf, as the producers called themselves, is long extinct), for it is made of greatness, and 7 years after playing the demo I finally have the full retail version!!!
What we have here is a game that plays a lot like HL. That's the same as saying that it's story-driven (at least more than the usual Doom-like), full of (awesome) scripted sequences and overall it's just a memorable, if short, experience. But don't think it's just a clone, for it has a lot of unique and original ideas!
Not only it features some really original locations and enemies (cowboys in space?), but it has some of the best weapons ever seen in a game! They're brilliantly designed (the machine-gun is just awesome) and, even better, they all feature a shit-load of different firing modes! Just the basic pistol, for example, can shoot slow, accurate, shots; a fully charged shot that looks like a ball of energy or rapid fire that makes it look like a sub-machine-gun, and you can even upgrade it with a sniper mod that, guess what, let's you snipe enemies from afar!
And then there's the MULE, a rocket launcher with 11 different customizations! You can select the missiles to fly straight or guided, to explode on impact or in proximity, to shoot freely or just when locked onto a target, etc, etc... In the end there may be only a handful of weapons, but when properly configured, you have exactly what you need for any and every situation you'll encounter.
Overall, the gameplay is so enjoyable that after finishing it I immediately started a new game. Yeah, it's that awesome! It ends rather quickly, though, but that can be a good thing if you have a tight schedule, meaning that everyone can (and definitely should!) play this game. Also, it's based on the HL engine, so nowadays even the crappiest computer can run it, therefore there's just no excuse for a FPS fan not to try this one out.
3 comentários:
A lovely and particularly original read. Also a most interesting game I had never heard of, even though the name does have a vaguely familiar sound to it... Oh, well, guess I'll have to play it and see if this MULE system is indeed as brilliant as I think it could be...
Doesn't look half bad at all... Probably won't ever have time to play it, but at least now I know it exsisted..!!
I find it hard to play a game like this after Quake.
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