Devastation falls far short of Half-Life 2
There are up to forty weapons, but unfortunately, you can only choose from weapons you have previously picked-up in another level. There are three choices for weapons, small arms, like pistols; heavy weapons like rifles, and shotguns; then accessories, like samurai swords, and grenades. As a level starts, the player gets to choose from the three categories, but what you can carry fills up quickly. The other thing one may not realize is the amount of ammo available with each weapon. You do not know this available ammo level when you choose the weapon at the beginning of the episode. There was one choice the author particularly liked, the drone rat. Now, this was cool! A drone that looks like a rat could move where the gamer could not. The gamer directs the rat to a strategic location and then sets it to explode.
The graphic engine was designed to work like HL2 with all the physics of the real world at play. However, this feature hits the tilt button in gameplay. Objects are stuck in walls, floors, and ceilings. Enemy weapons may remain floating in the air. The sounds genuinely accompany the movement of objects. There are bottles crashing, chairs tumbling, cardboard boxes rustling. When in a narrow hallway, if your rebel friends are behind you, it becomes very difficult to backtrack, since they stay in your way. The author did not play the game on the highest video setting, but regardless the characters look “chunky”. The shadows, reflections, and textures were just so-so. The game totally crashed about five times for the author during the entire gameplay.
The author felt the gameplay to be rather difficult. There were ReGen machines that re-spawn the enemy as fast as they can be shot. Until I figured out how to take the generators out so re-spawning was terminated, this feature was very frustrating. There is at least one re-generator per level about one quarter of the way through the game until the end. The good news is you and your team could use the ReGen machines too. At the end, the enemy perfects a Re-Gen with nanocytes, so ReGens of the last BOSS are spontaneous and continuous until you can take him out. The author could not kill the last BOSS with the guns and ammo left. His firepower was vastly superior compared to mine. Thus, my 12-gauge shotgun just could not complete with his heavy mini-gun. Game maps are small due to the difficult encounters with the ReGen machines.
Overall, this game should have been tested more before being released. The plot is the same as any other apocalyptic game. The weapons are great, if one could use them all. The author would only recommend this game to the most desperate FPS, locked away, with nothing else to play!