Necrovision is the first relatively large project of the Polish studio The Farm 51. These same guys later released the not-so-successful Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, the mediocre shooter Deadfall Adventures, and last year’s Get Even, which I didn’t get to play. The studio also helped with the development of the first Witcher and Two Worlds II, although I didn’t even try to figure out what exactly their work was. Still, today I would like to talk specifically about “Necro-vision”.
I remember quite well the advertising campaign and the first Necrovision ratings. The developers promised a classic hardcore shooter: fast-paced, brutal, not shy about “meat” and making the player suffer with pleasure. At the same time, the game was going to combine the “good old” with the amenities of modernity in the form of beautiful graphics and, suddenly, a well-developed script. She even showed an awesome video where the main character is preparing to confront an unknown demon who controls the animated barbed wire. Then the release happened, and critics, for the most part, received the new product quite warmly. Although the story of Simon Buckner’s adventures turned out to be predictably mediocre. Inspired, I really wanted to join the general feast. But at that time there was no such opportunity, and after a couple of years everyone forgot about the game. I forgot too. Until the sale on GOG, which happened all the way in 2019.
If you have a sufficiently perverted imagination, in the company logo you can see difficult-to-combine things: a village house, a UFO and an erect penis. In fact, the studio’s debut shines with similar contrasts. The House – harsh, almost realistic sketches from the fields of the First World War. UFO – paranormal: vampires, demons, wunderwaffles and a talking demonic hand. Well, the member – shortcomings and problems.
Chapter one, house in the village
At first glance, Necrovision doesn’t look a bit like the hair-raising devil shooter I was expecting. Rather, there is an association with Call of Duty, Vietcong, or any other military shoot-em-up of the early 2000s. In the first-person cutscene (which, by the way, I can’t stand), we are briefly told the plot: “We are here, the enemies are there, urraa, na stuurm, oh fuck, everyone except you is dead, but it doesn’t give a fuck, urraa, na stuurm, you’re the main character after all.”!». Although, despite the banal premise, the game is still trying to show the plot.
In one place a cowardly soldier awaits us, who betrayed his allies in the name of saving his own skin. In the other – a wounded warrior who would rather die than surrender into the hands of his enemies. Quite quickly, all sorts of paranormal things begin to appear: either corpses will begin to come to life, or you will be able to overhear a conversation about monsters drinking blood. At the same time, zombies are increasingly taking the place of ordinary soldiers, who, with the support of the first “bosses,” are trying to gnaw on everything that has not yet been gnawed to death. At some point, something resembling a fantasy troll even appears.
To counteract living and https://bingovillagecasino.co.uk/ not-so-living monsters, Simon can find the following means at his disposal:.
— Two types of pistols, between which I was able to discern only an aesthetic and “patriotic” difference (one pistol is “my own”, the second is a captured one);
— Rifle with bayonet, rifle with telescopic sight and rifle-grenade launcher. The first is a standard weapon in case the ammo from the normal one runs out. The second and third are good, albeit situational weapons.
– Impressive shotgun, great weapon for close range.
— An extremely useful machine gun, which, along with a shotgun, has become one of the main weapons of human, zombie, vampire and demon warfare.
— Machine gun. A cool thing that runs out of ammo faster than the enemies can shit themselves out of fear.
— Auxiliary items, including a knife, a sapper shovel, dynamite, grenades and gas lamps. If you don’t really want to get into close combat, you can throw away the knife and spatula. Straight into the head of a gaping enemy. Explosives are explosives. And you can burn especially “fat” enemies with gas lamps. Fat burns well, so they are afraid of fire.
In addition to the above, there is a rather interesting “combo” system. If you don’t just kill enemies, but do it quickly and beautifully, the accumulated adrenaline will allow you to do it even faster and more beautifully. In addition, “rage” will accumulate, the correct use of which will greatly facilitate battles. There’s also a gas mask here. Although I don’t quite understand why I decided to mention it at all.
The situation throughout the First World War with zombie vampires and other evil spirits is constantly heating up, so interest does not subside. Here’s a tank, here’s a new boss, and here, shoot a little with a stationary machine gun. But the enemies themselves are a little disappointing: there are only a few types of them and they always behave the same. At some point I even started to get tired of shooting at the same type of targets. But the locations do not disappoint, and change quite dynamically: from the trenches to the city, from the city to the sewer, from the sewer to the fortress, from the fortress to the ass.
Chapter Two: Nyashki, Thighs – Absent
About halfway through, Necrovision makes a sudden “feint with his ears”. Imagine that you are having sex with a beautiful Asian woman, who in the middle of the process turns into… but no, not into a “ladder”. This will be in the third chapter. So far, instead of an Asian woman, a beautiful black woman appears before us.
Because despite the presence of all the basic components, starting from the sixth chapter (there are twelve in total), the game begins to look and feel different. Firstly, the main character has a talking demonic hand at his disposal, which helps Simon cope with loneliness (conversations) and enemies. You can shred the latter in melee combat, throw fireballs at them, do something incomprehensible (I really didn’t understand what one of the magic modes does), and freeze everything you can reach.
There is no choice between magic and bullets, as outdated rifles from the First World War give way to a vampire arsenal. Globally, the changes are not that big: over several levels the main character is given a rapid-fire machine gun, a rapid-fire shotgun, a rapid-fire rocket launcher and a flamethrower. You can just hold it all with one hand. The second is occupied by a magic glove, which opens up new opportunities for enemy destruction and increases the dynamics as much as the main mechanics can allow. The flamethrower, however, seemed useless to me, but the rest served faithfully until the very end. At the same time, the game periodically tries to throw up something new. Here you will find simple tasks, rides on a big robot, and even flights on an ancient dragon.
Of course, by this point you can forget about the presence of a plot, but the local views still attract the eye. Yes, the other world cannot boast of a variety of landscapes, but this does not seem to be a problem. The locations look nice, and I didn’t experience any attacks of claustrophobia due to the too narrow corridors. True, over time, other problems begin to become apparent, for which I have reserved the last chapter.
Chapter Three: What the Lazy Ones Finally Cocked
I’ll say right away: the game doesn’t have many shortcomings, and they’re not so serious as to spoil the impression and prevent you from getting legitimate pleasure. But these things still leave a residue. First of all, I would like to mention the insufficient variety of enemies. At first it seems that everything is cool: the Germans are replaced by zombies, zombies by vampires, vampires by demons. At the same time, something like infernal spiders or flying gargoyles is occasionally encountered. But if you look closely, the same fights await us. That the German Soldaten, that the vampire, that the demon, will stand at a distance and shoot at the main character. And zombies, spiders and something like dogs attack en masse and try to gnaw. Of course, one could hardly expect more. But the battle tactics always remain the same, and it gets tiring. Even the difference in the number of “lives” from the first to the last enemy is practically not felt, since the increased survivability of the adversaries is compensated by the increased firepower of Simon. Of course, there is also a glove..
The love of developers for self-repetition is also disappointing. Killed the troll? Well done, here’s another one. Did it again? Come on, repeat it. You say it’s too easy to kill trolls? So here’s two for you at once! Still managed it?! Ooh, well, now we’ll ask you. Here are three trolls for you at once! Yes, the game does get more difficult towards the end. But personally, I would like to see an increase in difficulty as a result of the appearance of new, more dangerous enemies. And not additional copying of models. After all, when a lazy developer simply exchanges one enemy for two, even the goblins begin to feel sad. But they are famous for their love of the “we’ll crush the crowd” tactics.
There is another problem associated with repetition. And this is backtracking. Several times the game forced me to go back through empty corridors almost half a level back. Several times I was completely “stupid” for several minutes, simply not believing that I needed to walk along the same road so far. A good example is one of the first levels. The main character needs to blow up the rubble; to do this, you first need to find two sticks of dynamite. The first one is nearby, everything is fine with her. But for the second one you have to go back to the very beginning. Why this was done – I don’t know. But I got the impression that for some reason they were trying to stretch out the game. Just think about it: artificially slowing down the pace to stretch out a game that promised a high pace.
Well, the last quibble will be the design of the final “boss”. You see, you expect something cool from the last level. Moreover, I have actually met interesting opponents before. Even the phantom that revives the dead, which appears almost at the very beginning, is interesting. But after that you have to fight a giant robotic scorpion and arrange an air battle with Azazel. And at first it seems that the final battle should continue a series of curious decisions. Simon climbs into a war golem to challenge Mephistopheles, represented by a giant demon… Sounds fun, but plays so-so. The golem moves slowly, Mephistopheles moves even slower, in the end the whole tactic comes down to holding down two buttons: one to walk in circles, thereby dodging attacks, and the second to shoot. And having received enough damage and falling out of my “armor”, I completely went crazy. Mephistopheles can’t catch up with Simon running in sprint mode, but the damage he receives from the biped is negligible. Terribly slow, drawn out, boring combat. And this is the finale of a furious action movie?! And anyway, where is the “boss” with the barbed wire that was promoted during the advertising campaign??!
Necrovision is a good project, albeit far from great. What we have here is a typical category B shooter, which will be good entertainment for an evening or two, but is unlikely to be remembered for a long time. Due to the above-mentioned disadvantages, if the desire to return arises, it will be “someday later”. At the same time, dynamic battles, beautiful locations, the presence of events that diversify the game and the absence of technical problems allow us to recommend Necrovosion to those who fondly remember post-shooting games from the early 2000s.