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I don't Know...some fag submitted this turd called Hammerfight?
Quote:
Let me tell you about a game I've become obsessed with over the last week, an indie game from Russia called Hammerfight. Orginially called Hammerfall, it has been further polished and reborn as Hammerfight. An excellent buy if you're looking for a game on the cheap. At only $10 on Steam it has a ton to offer. It's gameplay is utterly unlike anything else you've experienced before, and it has beautiful 2D graphics to boot. Not a bad debut for the lone developer of this gem...
Let me tell you about a game I've become obsessed with over the last week, an indie game from Russia called Hammerfight. Orginially called Hammerfall, it has been further polished and reborn as Hammerfight. Supposedly the name change was courtesy of Bethesda, who apparently also lays claim to the original title. You control a helicopter-like flying machine with which you combat monsters and other flying machines using a variety of maces, swords, hammers and axes. The gameplay revolves around the realistic physics. Virtually everything is done via the mouse; the keyboard is only used for a few hotkeys. Movement is as simple as moving the mouse left, right, up, and down, but handling a weapon is more difficult. This is done by making circular motions with the mouse, the centripetal force causes your weapon to spin around your craft. Get yourself a bigger mousepad(or get rid of it altogether), because these gestures will have you covering a lot of desk space. The resulting gameplay is an aerial dogfight that will have you spinning and swooping to and fro, slicing, hacking, and bashing enemies left and right. It takes a little while to get used to, but once you do you'll find it surprisingly deep. You'll take great pleasure in unleashing the full force of your mace on hapless foes and watching them smash into the terrain. Kudos to the developer for coming up with such a simplistic and original control scheme. This really works to the game's benefit. You can almost feel a veritable crunch every time you get a good hit.
The game features a single player story mode which takes probably four to six hours to complete. The story itself is hard to follow. At the beginning you're given a paragraph or two explaining the world in which the game takes place, then you're thrust into the action. Basically, the plot is: You are an up and coming warrior of the Gaiar House, the rival House attacks, kills all your people, takes you prisoner, but you fight your way to freedom and set out on a path of revenge and bloodshed. Dialogue during cutscenes and the text between each mission is there to advance the story, but the game seems to take it for granted that you're already familiar with its abundance of proper nouns... Ha, right. No one will blame you if you have no idea what's going on until the second play through story mode. While other reviews might praise the storyline, and while it might actually be half way decent if you catch on, I consider this a fault for its lack of clarity or explanation. Thankfully it doesn't detract from the gameplay at all. You can go through the whole thing bashing everyone with your flail and have quite a good time. After a few missions you gain access to “The Hall,” which is basically your personal shop and armory. Every time you lose a mission the game gives you the option to return to the wall to swap weapons and buy equipment. Missions themselves are pretty straightforward, usually consisting of beating everyone on screen to death or surviving for a certain amount of time against waves of enemies. It's awesome.
This is a physics driven game, plain and simple, and for that, I love it. I, for one, enjoy watching things break. I think a lot of other people do too, and Hammerfight definitely allows you to do that. One of the things I love is when you smash an enemy you'll often see armor plates shatter and pieces go flying about. Flags streaming from flying machines will set on fire realistically and burn off. The terrain is for the most part destructible. Bricks fall from ceilings and walls after heavy impacts, and wooden structures shatter like one would expect them to.
The game's 2D graphics are beautifully intricate. While the game is definitely middle eastern themed, there's something about it that seems to indicate that it is Russian made. There are many explosion and smoke effects that make the game look awesome. Sometimes they get so thick that you can hardly tell where you are on the screen. While this looks really cool and adds to the sense of desperation you may be having during a tough fight, some players would prefer to be able to tell what's going on. Music is fitting, though after many hours may get a bit repetitive. Sound effects are good overall, the metallic clangs add to the sense of impact when you mercilessly strike down your foes.
In addition there are 3 other unlockable game modes: Grim, Hammerball, and Arena. Every time you finish a level of one of these modes they go up a notch in difficulty. Grim has you fight 3 rounds of monsters followed by a laughably easy boss, who drops items called “Singing Gems” that are inserted into weapons in order to give them certain properties. This is very reminiscent of games like Diablo II. The abilities these gems grant are varied. Some allow you to freeze an enemy with each consecutive strike until they're completely frozen and shatter. Others light enemies on fire. My personal favorite is one that allows you to turn into a ghostly, ethereal form and pass through objects like the albino twins from Matrix Reloaded. Hammerball is like the Hammerfight equivalent to Halo's Grifball. Two teams of two each battle each other and attempt to score points on one another by hitting a stone ball into each others' goals. The final game mode, Arena, is where you'll be spending most of your time after you complete the story mode. As you might expect, Arena has you face off against other fighters gladiator style. With each level their number increases and their equipment is better. In later levels the AI's use of firearms and particularly explosives gets so ridiculous you'd better be sure you're making good use of those Singing Gems you've acquired from either the story mode or Grim. The game also allows you to play multiplayer with up to four friends by plugging up to four mice into the same computer. Unfortunately you need a separate player profile for each additional player, so you can't just plug in four mice and go. If you want to battle your friends with the best weapons you'll have to finish the storyline at least for up to four profiles. Alternatively, if you're feeling savvy, you could modify your save file to make multiple copies of it, but that really shouldn't be required. No online multiplayer here, either. That's unfortunate, because this is a game that simply screams “online arena mode.”
I have a few other criticisms I haven't brought up yet, as well. You've heard me for the most part showering this game with praise, but it's definitely not perfect. For one, in virtually every level the screen only scrolls left and right, up and down just a little, if at all. This means that in particularly hairy fights against multiple enemies, if you're not careful, you can get swarmed into a corner of the screen and crushed to death without even an opportunity to fight back. This is mainly a problem for new players who don't have a sound grasp of how to control things and aren't aware of this danger, and it can make things very frustrating. The weapon types don't seem to be particularly balanced, whether this is by design or not is somewhat unclear. Maces and similar “chained” weapons are by far the best in most situations, especially in arena. Obviously some of the weapons are meant to be better than others, and maybe it's partly the fault of the predictable AI, but I can hardly recommend an axe or a hammer for anything. This imbalance feels wrong, considering the name of the game is Hammerfight. Along those same lines most of the firearms that you acquire over the course of the story are extremely difficult to use to the point that they're hardly ever practical. A weapon called the Siege Bomb, has the ability to hit everything on the screen with a single, huge blast. It gets used quite regularly by the AI in upper levels of Arena, and can result in a not very fun instant death if you're hit directly. Why they are included in the game at all is anyone's guess. Also against the game is it's high learning curve. The brief explanation of how the controls work in the beginning is not sufficient in the least. You are not told anything about the GUI, how to pick up/drop items, etc... You only receive more instructions once you get to the hall about 10 missions into the game, and even then not all is revealed. There's a lot that you have to find out on your own which is quite unnecessary and discouraging to new players. In addition to all this, the game has some bugs that you'll encounter from time to time, but they're hardly a deal breaker.
If you consider the fact that all this was created by a single person in his free time, however, it's an amazing achievement, despite any faults it may have. The sheer uniqueness of Hammerfight is like a breath of fresh air amidst the cloud of copycat titles that are everywhere these days. This game reminds me of a time when videogames didn't try to be your complete entertainment package. Hammerfight is all about the gameplay, and it shows. Big name franchises could learn a thing or two from a game like Hammerfight. If you're in the mood for something new, go get it! For $10.00 US it's quite a steal.
It's currently available only on Steam to my knowledge.
PROs
-Surprisingly deep and unique gameplay
-Good graphics
-$10.00 <--cheap!
-Did I mention FUN?
CONs
-Unnecessarily high learning curve
-No online multiplayer
-Explosives are ridiculous
-Storyline is confusing
Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:06 am
berzerker
A Winner is me!
Joined: Nov 01, 2006
Posts: 2350
Did Mihai submit it? It seems to have been ripped off the IGN Boards, and ripping of posts off the IGN board and posting or submitting them here is apparently one of his most popular passtimes.
Last edited by berzerker on Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:15 am, edited 5 times in total
Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:09 am
Suislide
VGS Admin
Joined: Aug 14, 2003
Posts: 509
berzerker wrote:
Did Mihai submit it? It seems to have been ripped of the IGN boards, and ripping of posts off the IGN board and posting or submitting them here is apparently one of his most popular passtimes.
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