Metal: Hellsinger, the proven rhythmic FPS with an exceptional soundtrack
Metal
It is certainly not easy to innovate in an era in which almost everything has been tried and let alone how complicated it can be to do it in a popular genre like that of shooters. When it comes to shooter practically every idea has been tested: lack of gravity, portals, RPG elements, total destructibility, rainbow laser unicorns and an infinity of other founds applied more or less coarsely. However, among the hybridizations - and we are not surprised - one of the most successful was the one with rhythm games, which gave rise to rather popular titles such as BPM (Bullets per Minute).It is a truly union Natural: practically every quality FPS has a certain "rhythm", a specific flow to follow that causes the shootings to transform into a kind of dance of lead, blood and explosions. Getting the mechanics to forcibly tie into that rhythm or have to somehow follow it is pretty automatic if you have decent designers on hand. And this is the case of The Outsiders, a software house made up in part by veterans from DICE and Overkill, which has now decided to tackle this peculiar road with Metal: Hellsinger, a hellish shooter where demons must be killed in time for metal.
The difference from the rest? Well, a remarkable expertise in the field above all, but also an exceptional soundtrack with some of the most established artists of the genre. We tried Metal: Hellsinger thanks to a short but intense demo and today we are talking about it.
No one can destroy the metal
Metal: Hellsinger, the unknown has a dangerous aspect In Metal: Hellsinger as the unknown, a half-demon with a goal so simple to describe how difficult to carry out, that is to eliminate the red judge at the head of hell. Her reasons? As unknown as she is, yet told step by step by the well-known voice of Troy Baker, who plays the role of narrator during the various missions of the campaign. We, in particular, were only able to try the introductory framework, which still managed to surprise us thanks to a variety of genuinely unexpected enemies and weapons for the first few bars of a shooter.Of course, it could also be due to the its nature as a "demonstration demo" and in the completed campaign we would not be surprised by a smaller mass of content in the first picture, but everything flows naturally and could only be an indication of the willingness of the developers to field a product immediately capable of sending maximum adrenaline.
The unknown is, in fact, practically immediately in possession of various weapons starting from a demonic sword and, at the end of the level, has from her a magical skull with infinite bullets called Paz, a shotgun named Persephone and two powerful revolvers. As if all this were not enough, during the advancement you meet a handful of somewhat dangerous elite enemies, complete with a fairly difficult final boss at the end. In short, Metal: Hellsinger is not designed to do things gradually, but to throw in the player's face always different and very aggressive dangers from the very beginning. This is undoubtedly a philosophy in our strings.
But let's move on to the gameplay, because that's the core of the experience and it feels really well managed. In fact, Hellsinger immediately calibrates the controls by adjusting the timing of the player's click based first on the sound, and then on the visual clues. Once you have found a square, the game should not be managed like a classic shooter, but forces you to hit your opponents to the rhythm of the music, with a clear flash of the main viewfinder acting as the primary indicator.
Music to scream
Metal: Hellsinger, revolvers are a fabulous weapon, even if the shotgun is the one that won us over. single time to end up with negligible damage and little chance of survival. We assure you that, as difficult as it may seem, in reality it almost immediately becomes second nature and we found ourselves already at half level to alternate weapons, which also have different timing of the shots to be adjusted properly, and devastating secondary skills dodging in time. without too many problems. Doing so is almost mandatory, as even the weakest enemies are numerous and aggressive and the elite ones are equipped with teleporters, weapons with a devastating range, or a simple, very bloated life bar.The final boss has been particularly enjoyable: a winged demon with the ability to throw fireballs that has done us a lot of harm (a couple of fireballs is enough to greet a life) and is in our opinion perfectly positioned to give a grooming to the players who until then they never used the movement properly. We have not been able to try anything else, yet as a basis they seem quite solid, so much so that we are really curious to understand which weapons, enemies and variations on the theme will arrive in the next levels.
Metal: Hellsinger, do not underestimate the elites. They hit hard The best quality of the game, however, is paradoxically not its system, but the soundtrack, completely original and supported by the likes of Serj Tankian of System of a Down, or Alyssa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy (whose song, however, permeated the first level). For metal lovers this title is practically a must, and the soundtrack is even dynamic, considering that the sung parts only appear once a certain level of the fury multiplier has been reached. Play to the beat and with class and you will get huge scores as well as full songs; get it all wrong and you will barely have any background music to accompany you (as well as making things monstrously more difficult). There are also online rankings, so watch out for dying too many times: doing so lowers the final score tremendously, while not penalizing excessively the progression.
Metal: Hellsinger turned out to be a hilarious rhythmic FPS, with solid mechanics, one remarkable style, and an outstanding dynamic soundtrack. It's hard to say if the quality will stay at this level throughout the campaign, but if the first picture is an index, shooter and metal lovers will do well to keep an eye on it.
