I have no idea why I still continue to punish myself by playing third-rated games. Maybe I’m just a sadist however whatever the case maybe, here comes my next fantastic review based on a game that not many people have heard of. Hellforces, developed by Orion and published by GMX Media and my personal favourite, Buka Entertainment will blow your mind. And don’t tell me that you never heard of Buka Entertainment – Stalin Subway rings a bell? Now that I have successfully triggered your memory, don’t expect too much from Hellforces other than when it will end. But in all seriousness, it’s not too bad of a game as the game doesn’t take itself too seriously (a.k.a. pretentious).
There’s not much of a storyline to go by however it plays along the theme of hell, zombies and all things senseless. I won’t say any more about the storyline as it’s a minor spoiler – but then again I don’t expect many people planning to buy this game. So if you have read this review this far, to my surprise, you seem to be interested. Nevertheless, the game starts off with the main hero Steven Geist, being questioned by some man-in-black wannabe of the events happened before this scene. Basically its Steven telling his story of the events took place before being captured. Yet I was really impressed with that comic book stylisation when Steven opens up the storyline however, and for reason/s unknown, this is the only time this comic book storyboard appears. What a wasted opportunity.
So the overall gameplay is in the form of a first person shooter – basically your HUD is like viewing from the eyes of the main protagonist Steven. As come to expect, there will be plenty of shooting with asking no questions or taking no prisoners. The game opens up in a suburban area populated with zombies – yep those glowing eyes types. However as the game progresses, it’s not all about zombies and its variance as you’ll meet other critters for which, more or less, still acts like zombies. This was actually refreshing to see as I was expecting zombies galore (and its offspring) until the end.
Also another surprise here is, I was expecting the suburban areas is the only location (including the mandatory sewer scampering). Well I was wrong again as there’s a fair bit of different locations to visit. I’ll give you just one example – Steven gets to visit Peru. And here the game gets confused as the different locals, even though it’s nice to see a change other than looking at endless rows of buildings, it’s really mixed up. Another words, it’s not coherent. It looks like the developers wanted to make multiple levels using different locations and really didn’t give a rats about coherence – just make a whole bunch of levels and leave it as that.
Also another incoherent element is the storyline progression. Yes I stated before there’s not much of a storyline however Hellforces really shows this – it’s like a reminder stating ‘I told you so there’s not much of a plotline here’. Again it’s all mixed up as some parts of the game I thought the game will end very soon however, looking back, I was only a third way in. It was like seeing a collection of chapters then mixing them all up and then leave it that way, whether it made sense or not. The developers maybe saying ‘Who cares? Just shoot more enemies ok?’
At least there’s a vast array of guns / melee weapons to collect (however the melee weapons will become obsolete very quickly) and plenty of ammo about so you don’t need to worry about running out of ammo. Yet, and this is my favourite part of the game, most levels have hard to find artefacts. Some have awesome abilities when activated and some just make noises – red herrings if you prefer. I won’t go into details what they are however I highly recommend finding these as some will place a smile on the dial and some you really need to activate them near the end of the game. Also note several have a time limit build into them and others have unlimited usage.
The AI on the other hand are simply a joke. They all are stupid and do the barrel roll just to amuse you. However to compensate their stupidity, they are all crack shots so beware. I was playing on medium (the other two difficulty levels being easy and hard) and I tell you it wasn’t an easy ride due to their crack shot ability. Take note that they all can see through the heaviest of foliage as well so you have been warned. Also the vast majority of them will collide against a door and you have no hope in hell opening it. What I do is to shotgun the door as somehow, this causes the AI to move away from the door. This goes to any obstacle really.
Optimisation is next to nothing as my graphics card, for the most part of the game, was screaming in terror. Granted that there’s a vast array of graphical options however it still won’t make a difference. In addition to this, the load times is one of the worst I have ever seen in a long while. Let’s put it this way – my Atari 800XL cassette player loads faster than this game. And if that’s not bad enough, the game will freeze a lot however, and oddly so, not enough to crash it. So if you encounter a sudden freeze, more than likely it’s the game trying to load the background music before playing that level. You can speed the loading time by cancelling the music – not much of an improvement however it’s better than nothing.
Visually for a 2005 game, it’s not too bad. The game’s main highlight was able to utilise DX9 (as it was a big deal back then) and thus the game’s lighting was actually decent to see. The textures were also nice so I really cannot complain in this department. The sounds are a mixed bag of goodies. The voice acting is poor (however it is, after all, a Russian game so all is forgiven here), the overall environmental effects were average at best and the musical scores really don’t suit the game. It really feels like the developers were a big fan of Quake 2 therefore trying to mimic that music into Hellforces. I don’t know if this is fact however that’s my 2c worth.
The game’s length can be described as a false / positive – meaning it took me close to fifteen hours to complete all thirty levels. However the false part is, I kept dying a lot. It was a hard game at times due to the AI’s uncanny shooting ability (especially in Peru with all that heavy foliage about). I reckon to finish a level may take around ten minutes each therefore giving the grand total of about six or so hours to complete. Take note I was playing on medium so playing it on hard would be hell (excuse the pun).
Hellforces overall is not a total write off. It does have its silly moments and the back cover art admits there are some humour as well. Another words, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously and thank goodness for that. It has some really silly puzzles to solve that kills the momentum at times and the total incoherent level designs just make this game even more perplexing. Honestly there were many times I just want this game to end and, of course, it didn’t – it just drags on and on. So, if you decide to play this game, don’t take it seriously and just play it until the end, as it eventually will end. You have to trust me on that.