For months now, indie publisher 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:New Blood Interactive has been teasing a game called Ultrakill. With only a few screenshots and concept art to go off of, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was yet another retro throwback shooter. It most certainly is an FPS with old-school graphics, but Ultrakill is more than just a rehash of DUSK or Amid Evil. This is a marriage of hardcore action games like Devil May Cry with the style and speed of Quake.
I could keep drawing comparisons to other titles, but that doesn't do a good job of painting the picture for anyone unfamiliar with action games. Let's start with a brief recap of how Ultrakill begins. When you boot up the demo (which should be available right now on Steam), you'll be greeted to a splash screen that mimics an old DOS prompt. Once you configure a few settings and click play, you'll be dropped into a short tutorial of sorts that explains everything you need to know in less ⛄than a minute.
Ultrakill is all about moving fast, being stylish, and making things bleed. Set in a future where humanity is extinct, I'm not exactly sure why the robot you play as is killing stuff, but he does a damn good job of making things dead. This feeds into the frenetic nature of the game in that regaining health is done by splattering blood all over the arena. It's metal as heꩵll.
It really should be noted how awesome that quick tutorial is. It gives you a gun, explains the boosting/jumping mechanics, and clues you into how to melee things witho🎉ut requiring you to confirm with a button press or read a pace breaking pop-up box. Replaying the demo, you can blitz this thing in under 20 seconds.
All of that would be for naught if the main game wasn't any fun, but what do you expect from New Blood Interactive? Having basically mastered the art of creating an FPS, I shouldn't have been surprised that Ultrakill ticked off every box for me. The lightning-fast speed 🔯tickles the retro FPS craving I just can't seem to kick, but the radical shift in design philosophy makes this feel entirely different.
Take the first level as an example. In this, you'll be action hero sliding under cracks, breaking glass panes to drop enemies into grinders, wall jumping to reach higher ledges, reflecting projectiles back at enemies with well-timed punches, and facing off against a Tron reject looking boss. This is all within the span of roughly♏ three minutes, too. Did I mention how fast this was?
You'll initially have access to only a single weapon, but the points you earn during your first massacre will grant you the ability to upgrade its functionality. Now you have some different options for increasing your score and dealing with deadlier foes. The prologue chapter consists of five different levels that build on concepts introduced at the start before Ultrakill gives up the gho꧙st and grants you ꧂a shotgun. That is when the game becomes ridiculous.
The shotgun has access to a secondary grenade fire that explodes in a massive circle near the point of impact. This can be used to kill several enemies at once while you then switch to your pistol and snipe a projectile tossing bastard. Making kills simultaneously jettisons your combo higher, which then makes you want to get even crazier and attempt new things. With secondary modes simply a button press away, fiddling with weapon selection is very elegant and plays into the Devil May Cry nature that Ultrakill wants you to feel.
It can be tough in certain rooms, but immediate respawns and frequent checkpoints could draw some comparisons to Hotline Miami. Death won't result in you losing any substantial progress and everything can be conquered with proper planning and creative weapon utilizati🦋on. Some of the bosses might feel a little overly tough, but they all eventually go down.
The demo ends with a new chapter set in an entirely different locale. It could almost pass for a Serious Sam level, but things abruptly end. That's to be expected f🐬rom an early-access demo, but I really just want to play more. I expected the same old, same old, and was met with something wildly different. That mixture of character-driven action with first-person combat is something I didn't even know I wanted u💦ntil I got a little taste of it.
There's no word on when Ultrakill will actually release, but I'd easily recommend anyone interested give the demo a shot. New Blood could release the game as is and simply add more levels and I'd be fine. That the company has a stellar track record of creating interesting and worthwhile games just fills with confidence that the end product✃ won't suck.