At the time of E3 2010, Konami announced a new game based on an idea rather original: an immortal hero whose dismemberment serves the gameplay. On paper, the concept has appeal ... But when one considers that the project is assigned to Rebellion, although Shinta Nojiri oversees everything, and we know the liability of the studio, it necessarily makes some reservations. Remains to be seen if the developers have managed to excel, or if their good ideas ended up by making a poor copy...
In the skin of Bryce Boltzmann, the player is quickly brought to cooperate with a charming young lady, named Arcadia, to eliminate a certain threat. This is especially qualified for this position he has held since 500 years. At the time, with her sweet and tender Cypher, he already hunted demons. Things went wrong and he was doomed to become an immortal. The scenario is not the most advanced, but the staging was worked.
Without saying too much, we appreciate the cutscenes that punctuate the game alternating between the present and the past. If the charm works, it is also especially because this dear Bryce does not take anything seriously. Replicas fuse, and humor is the hero, sarcastic and flippant, becomes endearing. The publisher has increasingly had the good sense to keep the English dubbing, rather convincing, while providing subtitles in French. We only regret that they have not benefited from proofreading errors and other shells really doing spots. More generally, the soundtrack is well made and there is even a piece of Megadeth (the main theme, no less). If the "heroes" of the game took advantage of special care, we cannot necessarily be said of the wicked.
Indeed, in addition to the character design that surely will divide the players, some are simply duds, we regret that developers have fallen into the facility by applying almost every cliché possible. While the game does not take itself seriously and we laugh even the first few minutes, but there was clearly better to do, as some characters are simply unbearable. Many arrive still to be done to enjoy the adventure during the seven to eight hours needed to shut up. This makes it necessary to speak from the heart of the game, the gameplay. This is based on an original idea instead allowing the app to stand out from other action games in the third person.
Our demon hunter can be dismembered. Two cases occur then. The first are the unwanted dismemberments that occur after the attacks of enemies, to a significant fall or other impact. Bryce may lose one or more of its members. To attach them to the body, just pass on by a roll. The beheading is not excluded. It then takes control of the head and try to roll to the bust, before trying to move back to its members. This leads to awkward situations, like when we see our character hopping on one leg while pulling with his one arm. It should also be wary of a particular type of creatures, just trying to revel detached pieces. This can cause the loss of a limb, or a Game Over (one of the few ways to end the game) when it is the head that is provided to miss the only action that allows contextual to get by. The second case is voluntary for the dismemberment of the game needs and can tear an arm to send it to the mercy of a monster or to head off to progress through a duct or to reach some places otherwise inaccessible. Some of the simplest puzzles attempting to use this power, without really fully exploited.
In both cases, Bryce has the power to instantly regenerate as long as his evil eye permits (measurement system). On paper, the idea is extremely interesting and suggests a multitude of possibilities. Unfortunately, Rebellion has stuck to a strict minimum operator time and again the same mechanics, and necessarily varied somewhat redundant. Admittedly, some subtleties are noteworthy, like the ability to ignite to see in the dark or to inflict more damage, that can also do this by electrocuting. In the same vein, an ability allows its members to blow and Bryce can continue to use firearms, even when his arms were ripped off (useful for attacking the stomach of an enemy within ... ). However, developers use and abuse of the same strings and, to make matters worse, the level design is summarized in the hallways and rooms to clean. There is nothing more basic, linear and prescriptive.
Worse, the framework approach of each zone was modeled at a time. There are two rough spots ahead. The first is to defeat enemies acting as generators of monsters. The second is to finish the job with the opponents still alive. Needless to say, artificial intelligence aptly misnamed, not to mention that every enemy is constantly reproduced two or three movements they have at their disposal. Unfortunately, this is also true of bosses, who are simply painful to face, simply asking again and again to apply a basic technique. The gameplay is no stranger to all this since he, who from a very good intention, turns out to be unbalanced.
In fact, we can use the fly firearms, one for each arm, each with its own viewfinder, and a sword. For the handling of the latter, you must associate a trigger with right stick. On paper, it's really good, but in fact, that's another story. Why? Simply because the sword is so efficient that eventually abandon the guns, they are mostly ineffective against certain opponents, even if the use of the shotgun and machine gun is more pleasant . Like any good game with similar self-respecting, developers have built a system including XP-based elements to collect. Then we consider a few combos to unlock, which is sorely lacking in basic gameplay, and we are back to unlock a ton of capabilities focused primarily on increasing the speed of execution of an action, on increasing damage to be imposed, etc.. The idea is good and we appreciate the fact that it is coupled to a system based equipment slots to avoid having a hero on steroids.
Unfortunately, the gameplay becomes more diverse and little sense of repetitiveness is increasingly present. Add to that an extremely mismanaged camera (even when not directed at the head), often making the arch action messy, and a ton of bugs and various rough (especially the collisions) and you get a beat them all look basic, repetitive and sloppy arch. This is unfortunate, because with better calibration and further exploitation of the concept, you could have a little gem. As it stands, NeverDead is just letting off steam, thanks to the possibility of destroying much of the scenery and the use of the sword, quite enjoyable despite the worries of targeting and camera. Some may even become frustrated when Bryce was beheaded, they laboriously replenish the body and that just when he gets back on foot, he is decapitated again.
We take this opportunity to point out that the second way to get a Game Over (in addition to the head that is swallowed), is to let our teammate die. Actually, this situation is extremely rare as the beautiful Arcadia is doing very well alone and, when grounded, the time allotted for the meeting is more than enough. Paradoxically, it turns out even stronger than Bryce, who all too easily loses its members. Towards the achievement, the results are lackluster. Some environments are rather significant, with a decent job on the lights and others are much more bland, with textures of poor quality. The models are fairly accurate but with some aliasing here and there everything is finally in the middle, not necessarily more. We are far from heavyweights as such, but it's still sufficient. The universe may in any case certain to seduce a frame-rate, although staggering, does not necessarily interfere with the progress of the action.
Finally, just to be like the others, Rebellion has an absolute obligation to offer a multiplayer mode, attempting to justify passage of the high price given the applied life a bit low. Again, there are good ideas as said, playable online only, that provides both competitive and cooperative parties. Specifically, players have a dozen challenges available. Some asked to cooperate to save the innocent or destroy waves of enemies, others offer to compete against three other players, either for the harvest of eggs, with the ability to sting those of opponents, either for the transition checkpoint, with the goal of being the fastest, with areas to clean. Friendly within two or three parts, this online mode quickly reaches its limits. Besides the fact that there are not many people online (which need not be blamed on the game), we regret that some proposed maps, which can be counted on the fingers of one hand, are directly copied / pasted the single player campaign. Worse, the crash bugs seem even more and the next draft of combat can quickly grow. Basically, again, was the bare minimum union. This is too trivial to be a real selling point, the replayability of the title is almost zero.
CONCLUSION:
Having ideas is very good, to exploit talent is much better. Unfortunately for players, this is exactly what emerges from this NeverDead episode. We find a very promising concept based dismemberments which is simply sealed by a camera atrociously managed by bugs galore, by targeting a crappy little depth and gameplay unbalanced (we quickly abandoned the gun in favor of the sword). Instead of digging the meninges, the developers went to the most basic, providing a wobbly action game that rehashing the same game mechanics simply exploiting a handful of mini-ideas about the dismemberment. If we add to this uneven achievement, rough fights quickly, with little variety to the enemies of shots limited to, annoying boss and a distressing lack of finishing, we get a huge disappointment.
Fortunately, not everything is disposable. The app is proving even letting off steam, to destroy with its decorations and its dynamic handling of the sword, and fun to browse through its staging work and omnipresent humor. But that's not enough to mask the fact that Rebellion has simply botched development. This is felt also in the online multiplayer, nice in some parts with competitive and cooperative modes, but too anecdotal in content and execution to convince. Finally, we say simply that the project was great on paper and it should have been entrusted to a studio with talent...
NeverDead Walkthrough - Part 1 - HD Let's Play
GAME INFO: NeverDead
- Published by: Konami
- Developed by: Rebellion
- Genre: Action
- Release Date:
- US: January 31, 2012
- Japan: February 2, 2012
- MSRP: JPY ¥6,980.00
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
- Also Available On: PlayStation 3
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