UnMetal, tried
UnMetal
Francisco Tellez de Meneses is a video game author that perhaps not very many know, but who from sunny Barcelona has managed to churn out two successful indie titles, all supported exclusively by a handful of collaborators and a lot of passion for the classics. And ok, Unepic and Ghost 1.0 will certainly not be the most aesthetically impressive video games around, yet they are extremely competent metroidvania, not to mention that it is certainly not easy to create titles of that type with a level design that lives up to the expectations of fans.Now the good Unepic Fran (the name by which the good Francisco is normally known) has however decided to move away from the genre that has consecrated him in the niche of good independent authors, to pursue another of his passions: the MSX titles. And, predictably, ours did not choose a random game from that historic library, but one of the best known in the world, that Metal Gear from which the entire Kojimian epic started.
The name of his new child is UnMetal, and is in effect a clone of the two "two-dimensional" Metal Gears, albeit clearly much more evolved and peculiar. We recently tried a demo of UnMetal on Steam and, whether you are nostalgic for the original titles or not, we assure you that you should keep an eye on it.
Foxes are better than snakes
UnMetal, a guard with bladder problems The first thing you notice about UnMetal is the crystalline will to field a narrative far from witty mixture of political fiction and intrigue that is the basis of the Kojima saga. Fran's work is, to all intents and purposes, a parody, which starts from absurd premises and develops in an increasingly demented way, exploiting the fact that it is in all respects a story lived through the memories of the protagonist. And your alter ego, Jesse Fox, is not what one might call "an ordinary individual", and not just because of the mix of military clothing and a hoarse voice that closely resembles another much more well-known protagonist. Jesse is in fact captured while piloting a Russian military helicopter and randomly accused of crimes he didn't commit, all while claiming to be a civilian and not knowing why he was there.You don't think so. particularly weird? Then you will have no problem accepting his ability to retrieve cheap toilet paper from a bathroom by punching pottery, talking over the radio with a colonel who has apparently been dead for months, or coming up with a myriad of other absurd events. led to his capture. In a nutshell, the entire Unmetal plot is based on the ravings of some sort of crazed Solid Snake cosplayer, who tries in his own way to explain how he got into an interrogation room after ransacking a huge military base. br>
UnMetal, a suspicious helicopter Honestly, we found this solution very clever. Avoiding dealing with particularly heavy or profound issues, Unmetal focuses on humor and, even if the jokes do not always hit the center, it is frequently hilarious to listen to the follies of Jesse as you advance around the map. In addition, its narrator function is not just a side dish: it modifies the gameplay in a sensitive way, with map transformations and absurd situations that change the pace of the game without warning.
Little metal , a lot of gear
UnMetal, this radio looks familiar Yeah, because if at first glance the gameplay of UnMetal seems to have been borrowed in all respects from the works of Kojima for MSX, it takes very little to realize how the system is based of those games has been reworked to be more modern, and the narrator is just one of several added elements that "refresh" the experience.The voices of Jesse and his mysterious interlocutor, in fact, not only lead you to face unexpected events such as additional boss fights - including a curious man armed with grenades to be eliminated beyond an apparently impassable moat - or they help by giving you direct advice, but sometimes they intervene directly to emphasize the player's atypical behaviors. To give you an example, stealing the glass eye of a newly stunned poor fellow with his fists can provoke a rather hilarious reaction during the interrogation (complete with multiple choices to the answers), while randomly filling inanimate and indestructible objects with fists could result in several doubts in the room on the sanity of the protagonist (who is certainly not a stable individual, it should be specified).
UnMetal, exploring the basis This curious management of the narrator also represents in some ways the tutorial of the title , which offers a basic combat system built around close combat attacks (three attacks stun enemies) and ranged weapons to retrieve for the map, but requires some ingenuity in inventory management - capable of holding a myriad of combinable items to progress through the campaign. In the latter case, then, perhaps the "aid from the public" is even too preponderant, and we would have preferred a little more freedom in the experiments, but it is very likely that the complete game will offer many more puzzles related to the objects found, with a significantly smaller amount of background advice.
For the rest, the title contains classic stealth mechanics, with a rather advanced field of view of the enemies and a reactivity to the sound, and the possibility both to rummage in the pockets of the defeated guards, and to transport their body in more hidden places. Not that artificial intelligence is brilliant: eliminating guards in series by exploiting the corners of buildings is quite simple, and they lose sight of them easily, however there is still a mix of significantly more modern systems than the titles from which UnMetal draws inspiration. .
UnMetal, sewers Overall, the new game from Unepic Fran has convinced us. The opening lines are fun, and there seems to be potential for a really well-constructed homage, with a noticeable evolution of the mechanics in the later stages. However, it is a very different experiment from the other creatures of the Spanish developer, so it is very fair to have a few more doubts than usual.
Full of humor and also very fun to play, despite its mechanical simplicity , UnMetal could reserve several surprises even for those who don't care about its nature as a parody of Metal Gear MSX. Unepic Fran, on the other hand, is a valid author of the indie scene, and his competence is noticeable even from the first bars that we have had the opportunity to try in the demo. In short, even if this is a new experiment for this developer, the chances of having a memorable title on his hands are considerable.
