I aim, but not too much, to everything that moves. Crazed demons, monsters of enormous tonnage and sad souls in pain. The class of beasts that inhabit Metal: Hellsinger. As I make my way through them, I reduce them to viscera with one bombshell, two or as many as it takes. If anyone is left trembling and breathing, I pounce on them and smash them without mercy. If possible, without missing a beat during the slaughter.
The best action game of Gamescom 2022 is everything that is promised and more. What a festival of chaos, rock and demonic viscera! Positioning itself based on ultraviolence and infernal themes such as the most brutal shooter of the year. The setting and the gunplay prove the good playable sensations that it transmits in each game. In each barbarity that invites us to commit acts of barbarism to the sound of its brand new soundtrack, performed -also- by Rock legends.
because the music in Metal: Hellsinger it is an absolutely essential element, fully integrated into the game and, as you will see in our gameplay, crown the set.
In many aspects, Metal: Hellsinger He is one of the most gifted students in DOOM. The one that blew our minds in 1993 and the one that has been reborn with redoubled forces through Bethesda. There is much of its essence and the rhythm of the great classics says present. In fact, add extra points.
Now, the brutal game that The Outsiders offers us It is not the umpteenth DOOM surrogate: Although it is very brazenly sought to replicate the emotion and barbarism of the iD Software saga, as well as its demonic theme and setting, it is in its control system where the new Funcom finds its own identity and convinces. It’s more, if you are passionate about rock, it may even give you a torticollis.
Because in Metal: Hellsinger having an aim helps, of course, despite the fact that the peephole is generous, but what will really allow us to reach the end of each level and, hopefully, overcome the boss on duty will be our reflexes. More specifically, our sense of rhythm.
A demonic gunplay to the sound of rock legends
the plot of Metal: Hellsinger could not be simpler: we are the stranger, a demonic creature without its own voice, and our task is to turn the Eight Hells upside down ruthlessly exterminating all the creatures that come our way. Between phase and phase we are slightly put in context with a cinematic scene that, for practical purposes, serves to present above the scene of the brutal ultraviolence show that we will star in. As merciless executioners if we have a little sense of rhythm, or as helpless victims if we lack it.
As soon as you start the game, and after adjusting the image and its contrasts, the PC version of Metal: Hellsinger asks you to calibrate the latency of your mouse. It is not about adapting to the mouse model you use, but to check your level of reflexes. It might seem like something relatively superficial, but in the Funcom game it is absolutely essential: our performance on the battlefield is closely linked to our ability to shoot or slash to the sound of the music that plays.
It’s not just about making successful combos or shooting streaks, that too, but the way in which rhythm affects the game itself: the greater our rhythmic streak, the more effective we will be and depending on how well we chain shots and takedowns, the more effective we will be. epicity wins the game in progress, introducing new nuances, textures and even voices to the song itself.
Resulting, finally, in a whole spectacle of demonic violence in the first person that emerges both from the action that takes place on the screen and from the music.
Said like this, it might seem like something complex facing the player, but once you get the rhythm and you let yourself go Metal Gunplay: Hellsinger it’s a delight. And beware, that is when a second factor to take into account comes into play: each of the Stranger’s weapons has its own characteristics, not only in terms of cadence and damage, but also when it comes to producing what we can define it as its own music and integrate it into the development of the combats and the game itself.
Getting lost in the rhythm is relatively common, especially given what happens on screen or when we receive a succession of unexpected blows. Luckily, The Outsiders have it and introduce two ways to get hooked again beyond the music itself:
- On the one hand, the pointers of all the sights of our weapon react to the rhythm of the music and indicate when it is the best moment to shoot or hit. Rewarding and rewarding when we make a perfect impact.
- On the other, we have the environmental elements, such as the frequency at which the fire that is born from the ground or the chandeliers emanates and other visual reinforcement factors that, without overshadowing the music, help us to recover the rhythm.
Thus, we can define without margin of error Metal: Hellsinger as a rhythmic FPS very inspired by the classic references of the genre. And like any game based on rhythms, the Soundtrack is a completely essential aspect. Luckily, from Funcom they have thrown the house out the window for the occasion.
In addition to the fact that each Hell has a piece of music created specifically to reinforce its setting, once we have reached an intense rhythm based on combos, power-ups or simply dispatching ourselves without measure, the voices of Heavy Rock legends will appear, such as Serj Tankian from system of a DownAlissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy, Michael Stanne of Dark Tranquillity, Randy Blythe from Lamb of God or Tatiana Shmailyuk from jinjer.
A luxury that brings more epicity to our deed. Especially when we are surrounded by enemies.
Eight infernal levels that are coffee for the very coffee lovers
The duration of Metal: Hellsinger, as a game, depends on three very well defined factors: our experience with classic shooters, our sense of rhythm and how creative we are when it comes to negotiating eight challenging levels. We have three levels of difficulty, but do not expect to run into labyrinthine and twisted scenarios, but rather combat zones designed to encourage dodges and covers that connect through sections corridors in which lesser enemies appear from time to time.
That yes, at the end of each one of these eight Hells awaits us a final boss like the ones before: In addition to sending us legions of enemies that will knock us down at the slightest carelessness, it is in charge of deploying huge bursts of projectiles or sequences of attacks that we will have to internalize. A whole festival of explosions and viscera in which we can afford to take a hit, but losing the rhythm can be very expensive.
The presentation and selection screen of each level evokes vinyl records, which is a welcome success, and once we have overcome hell we will be offered a succession of additional challenges set in it known as the Torments.
These additional phases, greatly reduced in size, are an essential element of the game, and not only because of the replayability itself: through them, and only if we manage to overcome them, will we unlock the sigilssome passive advantages that will gradually gain weight as the difficulty progresses from the first levels to the enormous challenge of the final stretch of the game.
In many respects, the length of Metal: Hellsinger It depends more on our ability than on the content of the game itself. We can adjust the degree of challenge manually so that the demons are a little less savvy or directly push our skill and patience to the limit. However, it is inevitable to think that some extra Hells or somewhat longer routes would have rounded the whole a little more.
Beyond the weapons that we find that there are no unlockables or collectibles beyond the Sigils themselves that we obtain by overcoming the Torments and the weapons that appear when reaching certain levels. The closest thing to some extras are the bestiary, the tutorials and, much more interesting, the game’s own Soundtrack.
And although offering the songs is a nice detail, because they are spectacular, surely there are more interesting options to enjoy them than starting the game expressly to listen to them.
For our analysis, we also tested Metal: Hellsinger both on PC with mouse and keyboard and with the traditional controls of an Xbox controller and, finally, from the Steam Deck. And in the last case something curious and noteworthy happened to us: at the moment in which the Valve machine is forced to automatically accommodate its resources when losing battery, the original fluidity is lost and with it it is time to acclimatize to the new rhythm. Something that, by the way, has cost us more than one game.
From this point it becomes inevitable to put Metal: Hellsinger in the mirror of DOOMand while comparisons tend to be odious (and Funcom’s game won’t unseat DOOM Eternal As the most brutal and gloriously savage FPS of all time, it manages to give fans of the iD Software saga and Heavy Rock a very worthy alternative that looks outrageous and feels even better at the controls.
VidaExtra’s opinion
Metal: Hellsinger is as much a love letter to the classic shooters that follow in the footsteps of DOOM like a Hard Rock show in video game form. A true delight when it comes to gunplay once we get the hang of it and get the groove on. And, at the same time, one of the most brutal FPS of recent times.
in the shadow of DOOM Eternal, perhaps, but retaining the pride of not resigning himself to being just another substitute. Aspiring to make his own mark among FPS fans.
If you are passionate about Rock, in addition, The Outsiders’ proposal will exceed your highest expectations: its powerful soundtrack It will meet your expectations by adding new and spectacular nuances to the development of the game. Making the defeats epic and the victories also feel tremendous.
And, although, Metal: Hellsinger plays in a very different league from the blockbusters of Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts or Xbox Game Studios in terms of budget, being a clear example of double Athe care put into genuinely fusing the greatness of classic shooters, demonic themes and the strength of Heavy Rock gives a result really spectacular.
Applying ultimately, and barring last-minute surprises, to Metal: Hellsinger What the wildest shooter of 2022 and a must-attend event for those who are passionate about DOOM classics. Those games where you face waves of demons about to turn into piñatas of meat and offal.
That glorious classic gunplay feel where the fire button carries so much more weight than the aim button. milestones that Metal: Hellsinger achieve without recourse to nostalgia, but to the strength of his music and from the most genuine barbarism.
Metal: Hellsinger
platforms | PC (reviewed version) Xbox Series X / S and PS5 |
---|---|
multiplayer | Nope |
developer | The Outsiders |
Company | funcom |
Launch | September 15, 2022 |
The best
- A spectacular gunplay whose emotion crosses the screen
- Its soundtrack is glorious: not only hard rock legends participate but it is integrated into the games
- Despite its duration, it knows how to be challenging and intense until the end
Worst
- More extensive and twisted levels are missing
- If you don’t have a sense of rhythm or Hard Rock makes you nervous, you’re going to have nightmares.