The world of real game makers is very small. I’m talking about the creators of hits, strong projects, or at least mediocre ones. Fierce competition, lack of funding, limited budgets; the slightest move by the publisher – and obedient developers change half the code to please the marketing gods. Only peripheral programmers – Russian, Chinese, Korean – are staying afloat without much innovation. They can create mind-blowing projects without taking into account the mass player. Non-standard RPGs, flight simulators thought out to the smallest detail and “sea” games – these are quite unusual and, unfortunately, not always commercially successful brainchildren of Russian developers. But it’s one thing when a strong team invests all its resources into a project – a lot of money, a lot of really cool features and finds, countless man-hours of manual work; completely different – ​​a hack game created according to last year’s European clichés. Even from such a famous studio as Media Art.

System Shock: Neuro Hunter – 2:0

Sharp pain pierces me. The brain https://slothypecasino.co.uk/ refuses to process information. Chapek also wrote: “A hundred repetitions lead to a distortion of the meaning of the text.”. Dry, insipid plot, monotonous NPCs, sluggish dialogues and… no, not dashing, but twisted quests with excessive hardcore. The idea of ​​placing the protagonist in the world of a terrible dungeon also does not shine with originality – it has happened, more than once. The world is desperately trying to seem original and unique, but don’t expect a new setting: memory helpfully reproduces long-forgotten scenes from TCoR:EfBB. Ugly prisoners, narrow-minded biologists, broken miners and creepy mutants. Blood, betrayal, revenge, no, even retribution – and a happy ending. Around us revolve merchants, criminals, adventurers and agents of the Bureau of Strategic Research – an analogue of the cosmic. We are walled up in a huge underground plant. The main thing is to survive, and the means and methods are on everyone’s conscience. Everything that happens here is led by a Hacker, who was also once deceived by his employers and thirsty for revenge. Old cabbage soup, but it will do with salt. Foreign publishers focus either on entertaining and accessible projects for everyone (at the level of the very, very famous Molyneux product), or on tough games on the verge of a foul. However, here there is not even a trace of something like the Western word “fun”.
Every year I become more and more convinced that the RPG genre is dying. Usually, every successful “roleplayer” has: a cool plot, the opportunity to play a high-quality role, a living world, interesting quests and well-written characters. Their goals and motives are usually well defined. We know why the Hlaalu are at war with the Telvanni, why the world of Gothic is dying, who the necromancers are. But the goals of Hacker, Bronski, Nina, the reasons for Katrin’s permanent help are unclear. What do they want, what do they achieve?? Characters live separate lives – well-written movement routes (very reminiscent of Morr’s soldiers walking around the perimeter), minimal AI, gestures, different faces and different figures. But, having gotten to know each other better, you understand that we were deceived: either they sold a completely crude project, not yet ready for release, or they simply played on the lack of special competition in the role-playing games market. Linear quests of the “fetch-and-give” level, “find-and-bring” – and then Miss Katrin climbs in with tips. If you wanted a plot, you get meager portions of another story about mutants, zombies and innocent convicts. Who played in System Shock? If I already advise others not to buy this game, then you… well, I don’t know, don’t even look at the counter. Let’s continue to mock the Indian’s corpse. Do you know why the Indian? German publishers simply call trashy game projects with a claim to secularism “Indian”. And the meaning of this very term is clear only to the original Bavarian burghers. Tough combat System Shock , a well-made interface of the same by no means ideal “Xenus”, smooth controls and a balanced number of enemies at the level – the characteristics of anything but Neuro Hunter. Hit the victim’s head with a club or knife – causing damage to her. Back in Deus Ex there was a rather crooked control system, but the pace of the gameplay corrected everything. The enemies here are not particularly smart – fast, nimble mutants; leisurely zombies and robots with sniper accuracy. Many types of weapons do not improve the situation – crossbows and three-barreled guns are too slow, or something like that, a laser rifle falls into our hands generally towards the end of the game.
In a classic RPG, one of the main requirements for quality is the balance of parameters. Here are the guys from Media Art “tried”: “Constitution” is an analogue of health and an indicator of carrying capacity; “Weapons” – access to a specific type of weapon; The special pride of the game is “CyberSkill” – the ability to steal information even from the victim’s head; who said "Assembly"?"Comrades, you need an unnecessary load weighing 2-3 quintals? Wire, dishwashing powder, boards and bearings? If yes, then pump your character to the limit and “enjoy” the game..

We are ahead of the rest

Media Art, despite the general vileness of the gameplay, its secondary and moldy plot, the disgusting combat system, the insignificant shooter component, I was able to prove some of my professional skills: a fast engine, really fast loading, a beautiful map, a pleasant-looking notepad, a user-friendly interface (something, and this can add more than one plus to the game. I remember my complaints about the magnificent Project: Snow Blindness for its overly rich and confusing design). The same models of monsters with different facial features/muzzles, Tron 2 level lighting.0 and the explosions of the era of the second Quake – what kind of atmosphere, especially a gloomy and ominous dungeon, can we talk about?! Typically, developers use caves and basements to distract the discerning player from featureless textures and single-poly characters. Even the darkness won’t help here.
The sound is either electronic or heavy metal. Monotonous compositions that become boring even at the first level. Mayakovsky said back in the 30s: “Zero is still acceptable, zero is already a minus!"The level of voice acting and musical accompaniment here is simply ZERO.
Mini-games don’t help the situation either. IN "Space Rangers“these same examples of pure plagiarism would look quite appropriate, but in a serious RPG shooter neither a copy of Minesweeper nor an analogue of a simple wargame would work! The units are no different in intelligence, the riddles are repeated, even the location of the enemy eventually becomes too predictable.

Final comments:
We were promised another symbiosis of shooter and role-playing game. If an RPG is now considered to be holding the player’s hand through a meager plot, linear missions with scenery that was outdated the year before, the ability to choose one single answer to an NPC’s question, and optional leveling up of the protagonist; if now some Ukrainian developers in a shooter do not even use the recoil animation of weapons (even futuristic ones), enemies fall in a layer to the ground – we do not need such mixed-games.

Gameplay: Chopping, stabbing, cutting, shooting from a plasma gun – a mixture Doom 3 with an ambiguous Arc Fatalis, but at a truly Russian level, “maybe they’ll buy it”.
Graphics: Engine-based games have long since died Unreal first edition. Only in the CIS are budget games capable of delivering SUCH a level of in-game graphics. The concepts even looked better!
Sound: What did you want?? A composition no weaker than Bach or Mozart? New test for a series of newest sound cards? The voice acting was recorded in the publisher’s toilet, the music was recorded at a corporate party.