Metal Hellsinger, an examination of a shooter played to the rhythm of metal

Mixing a first-person shooter with a rhythm game, why hadn’t anyone thought of it before? Probably because the two worlds appear to be separate and are too far apart to be practically reconciled. After all, most people see musical games as having a certain qualification and reduce them to B-series products. Metal Hellsinger’s review.

rhythmic play

The Unknown, the protagonist of the game, wants revenge on Hell for some reason. He is especially angry with the Red Judge, for whom he has unfinished business and has a deep grudge against him. Half-demon and half-human, ours then embarks on a journey through the eight hells to destroy his enemy. For Metal Hellsinger, John Carmack’s maxim goes like this: “The plot in a video game is like the plot in a porn movie: you expect it to be there, but it’s basically useless.” general economy Gameplay. Not because it doesn’t offer interesting insight, but it stands there like a cardboard backdrop, justifying the rhythmic carnage of the infernal creatures that aim to stop us.

Developed by the newly released The Outsiders, the title begins to scream out the writers’ love for the movie. Metal From every pixel on the title screen, the ball music and protagonist look like they’ve come off the cover of a death metal recording, and it’s pretty clear where they’re going. As we learned later by playing the tutorial, this is actually just the beginning.

The Unknown is a killing machine capable of scaring and killing its opponents. rhythm… literally. Basically, we are dealing with a first-person shooter where you have to learn to shoot to the beat of the music. The more you can follow when it hits, the more it feeds a damage multiplier that makes our attacks increasingly deadly (up to 16x). When you fail to shoot or get hit, the multiplier drops and weakens us. Timeless attacks still do damage, but are much weaker than rhythmic ones. The gist of it is that frantic shooting isn’t going anywhere, so much so that for those of you who might have difficulties with such a mechanic, we recommend that you evaluate the game well, perhaps by trying the official demo (lack of rhythm isn’t an issue). crime). Consider that all Metal Hellsinger is built around it, including many graphics, both in the interface and on the maps.

There music is the essence of experience, as can be predicted from some of the details of the game world: for example, the hellish torches move to the rhythm of the level’s song to give the player a visual cue when to shoot. The viewfinder is also built around the music and has pressure gauges. Finally, there is the music itself, a different song for each hell, increasing in intensity as the multiplier increases, reaching the point of singing when 16X level is reached.

Fast action

We admit that after experiencing some confusion at first, we found ourselves lost in Metal Hellsinger and its dynamics. We tried to keep it in mind while playing rhythm Shooting at just the right time to inflict massive damage to (1, 2, 1, 2 etc.), floating skeletons, armed demons throwing fireballs at us, ruthless giants, armored creatures, hellhounds and all other beings. demonic creatures that populate the game. It must be said that it is not easy to be successful, and especially at the advanced levels, we lost the so-called rhythmic series due to the overwhelming number of enemies. The important thing is to immediately heal from the pain of seeing the multiplier reset or worse, die so that you have to start the level again (unless you want to sacrifice some of your accumulated points to continue). ).

Learning how to use it is also essential unknown movements, that’s the double jump, and best of all, the only sprint that lets you dodge certain attacks. Of course, it is not easy to master everything by following the music, but this is very important if you want to progress. It is precisely this challenge that makes shooting particularly rewarding when approached in the right way.

Levels

this levels they are very linear and very rigidly structured. Basically, they are arenas connected by mandatory passages, where from time to time it is necessary to eliminate all waves of enemies and then move on to the next level. At the end of a chapter, you have to fight the classic boss, a very powerful creature with special attacks, whether it’s an icy land, a ruined cathedral or the very center of Hell. In reality, the appearance of many bosses is practically the same, the same creature moving from one area to another, but luckily their attack patterns change each time to avoid excessive repetition.

After a level, the so-called locks are opened grindi.e. overcoming to get bonuses to engage in battle, such as protection or damage bonuses for rhythmic series (kill a certain number of enemies in a certain time, maintain a rhythmic series for a certain number of kills, etc.).

Weaponry

There are several tools to help the unknown. By the way weaponry, very different from each other, all while establishing a strong connection with music. For example, there is a crossbow that fires explosive projectiles that do tremendous damage when used in rhythm, or at least ideally, there are two pistols that look almost like drumsticks used rhythmically. For each mission, you can bring two to add to the two fixed missions, one of which is also the narrator (it is a skull that is recovered at the beginning of the game and has its own unique function in the story). Each weapon has its own secondary attack of enormous power, which is charged by performing rhythmic series (rhythmic kills) and is often decisive for getting out of completely unpleasant situations.

Technically, Metal Hellsinger is a successful game. Of course, graphic It doesn’t stand out for the details, but the enemies are well made and despite the basic simplicity the levels manage to offer generally very beautiful scenery while remaining functional in most cases in the game system. Finally, as you’ll understand by reading the rest of the article, the soundtrack is absolutely brilliant, with creatively used metal songs.

problems

From the metal: Hellsinger works, and if you get carried away, it works very well too. Shot shooting can be of particular interest, especially at advanced levels, even if it doesn’t increase the overall difficulty a bit. Here comes one problems gist of the game: having to start the stages from scratch in case of death. The choice is confirmed by the presence of a score, which ends in a global ranking, and therefore understandable. However, having to replay all the levels in case of ultimate death is not very pleasant, especially the long final chapters. It’s true that performing better and better is one of the motives that drives us to continue playing even after the ending that comes after a few hours (it took us about 8 hours to finish all the levels, but the duration of the game varies) a lot. depending on the player’s skill) so it makes sense that there are no checkpoints and can’t be saved, even if it’s frustrating. All in all, if you’re looking for a new first-person shooter with original mechanics, give it high regard.