Review: God Mode

The cheat codes in modern games have completely gone out of fashion - simply because they turned out to be useless to nobody. In projects like Dark Souls the presence of "immortality" would spoil all the fun, and action games designed for a wide audience are equipped with everything necessary so as not to distract the player with unnecessary deaths. And along with the codes have departed and the once familiar concepts - for example, god mode, the "regime of God." 

That's why I decided to play Old School Games , only by the name of my project attracting potential buyers. God Mode promised to be a classic "meat" shooter, whose canons were asked by Serious Sam n 2001 year. Trailers showed a lot of opponents, unusual weapons and the epic scope of what is happening; all that puppy pleasure for the spinal cord, which is so lacking in the market in recent years.

A malicious voice greets the person who launched the game and solemnly reports that he died - in a more or less stupid way, always described in colors. Fortunately, the genealogy of the deceased goes back to the ancient Greek gods, and therefore hell or paradise was avoided, having got into purgatory. The way out of it is only one - with a machine gun at the ready to break through to Olympus through crowds of creatures of varying degrees of mythology.

Purgatory, called in the game labyrinths, there are only five, and they, despite the name, are strictly linear. Go through several arenas, the exits from which open only after the killing of all the opponents present, and at the end waiting for the "boss", a room with gifts and return to the main menu. There is no need to talk about any plot campaign - the game session is always limited to a single card. Contrary to expectations, God Modeturns out to be a cooperative action movie for four people - which is not too "classically" looks.

In this case, the locations differ from each other stylistically, carefully worked out visually and are saturated with some kind of background action. In the background, giant cyclops appear, ancient temples crumble above the player's head, and a further path opens up from nowhere to the incoming ram. Alas, this has no effect on the gameplay and is quickly bored.

But the gameplay is made "as promised." Players run around the area, fighting off the minotaurs and skeletons that appear on all sides. Shooting goes on incessant lines, you have to maneuver a lot, constantly collect bonuses and get away from especially big opponents. Playing alone on multiplayer maps is very boring and inconvenient - all living things are seeded by an unfortunate demigod, and we just have time to click the mouse. No subtleties can not be imagined - aiming at slow-moving enemies is simple, they die quickly and take only quantity. Like the good old days.

The developers, however, are trying in their own way to improve the classical scheme. A small number of levels is compensated by the presence of one and a half dozen modifiers for each room, which are selected randomly. One arena is covered by a dense fog, on the other players have a reduced level of health, the third start to walk two huge minotaurs, which need to be killed at the same time. In the appendage to this before the test can be sworn: to impose a little self-restraint such as a reduced number of "lives" or lack of armor. The reward for successful execution will be a bonus to the gold received and experience.

Yes, gold and experience. The duration of God Mode is increased by the most primitive method - the need to get an "expo" and buy items. In the in-game store, you can sparingly customize your character, open special possibilities (like shield, treatment or a huge hammer for 30 seconds) and buy weapons, which are slightly more than a dozen kinds. Carry with you will allow only two "trunks", as much will be given out initially, and everything else will have to be opened gradually. To achieve a developmental ceiling, this will take slightly more than 20 hours - depending on the level of complexity and frequency of using "prayers." 

The game is exhausted in a few hours. Bestiary numbers a dozen not too different in the behavior of opponents, the beauty of scenery quickly ceases to pay attention, and "pumping" in fact is more irritating than motivating factor. Therefore, the salvation in God Mode is one - multiplayer. 

Of course, no complex interaction between the players is involved - the entire cooperative is limited to the fact that the comrades are physically in the same location and are killing the same monsters. In addition, for each of those present, three lives are dumped into the common piggy bank - and one can be spent by a particularly inept player.

Soon it turns out that the same player can collect all the bonuses, leaving nothing to his colleagues - the help at the levels is always not enough, and therefore gets its fastest. The cleverest meanwhile will stuff the "frags": the murder along with all the rewards is counted only by the control shot. And the culmination of egocentrism is the final part of the level in which the team is in full composition in the middle of the treasure chest. The moderator at the same time declares: "friendly fire" is switched on, and hence, now because of gold, everyone will shit.

It turns out a rather unusual cooperative, which by all means spurs the participants to mutual enmity. Murder of "mobs" is a completely thoughtless process, however, with the emergence of competition for the cherished experience points, there is a need for tactics. From a player with a powerful weapon, for example, all run up, because most of the murders, obviously, will be credited to him. And if someone gets involved in a fight with the "semi-boss", then the others glance from the side, hoping to inflict the same control and assign all the labors. 

In this sense, the potential of the project is revealed only in a fast game or a noisy company. Running God Modemethodical lovers of the cooperative will democratically distribute all the proposed first-aid kits, run to the exit and collect for a solid handful of gold, without even thinking of why they kill each other for some reason. And missing all the fun.

God Mode is a very revealing example of an unsuccessful attempt to keep up with two rabbits. The developers wanted to create an arcade of the "old school", but they replaced the possibility of carrying a dozen types of weapons with "pumping" (because most of the "trunks" players will never see), instead of a long single-player campaign they offered newfangled tests, incomprehensible reasons, they moved to the third-person view.

Rate: 7/10