Bloodbath Kavkaz review

A little more than a month has passed since the release of Hotline Miami 2. Almost at the same time it became known that Bloodbath Kavkaz will be released in Steam. The first impressions of the videos were strong, because the warm memories of the adventures in MAMI were still alive, and the video was full of tons of unique chips. Whether the developers did everything, or something remained only in the production? Let’s See ..
If you are not familiar with the mechanics and gameplay of the Hotline Miami series, then the reviews of the first part and the sequel. Here I will try to figure out the differences of this game from the originals.

The first thing that meets us is the menu, which was actually absolutely copied from the Western original. It would seem that everything is not so bad – even the music obeys as something painful and close to the pain, albeit with the Soviet flavor. However, I was just lucky. Many players were faced with an unforeseen problem in the form of an incomprehensible mistake. The developers are actively fixed all the problems, so that during the first two days they got rid of this error.

The settings menu allows you to turn on/off some graphic buns (many thanks to them for this. Why? Look for the answer below), turn on/off the sound. It cannot be made louder or quieter, only turn on or off (the patch of the third day added a volume slider).

We launch the game … For about five minutes gameplay are occupied by “videos”, which show the plot tie: you are attempted, and almost successful, then you are kidnapped by people in uniform and with shockers and deliver to your home, where the mysterious employer is already waiting for the mysterious employer. However, his personality is revealed in a second – this.IN. Putin (President of the Russian Federation, if that) with his own person. And now, you are standing in a hostel, and someone in a bear mask offers a training session. Thanks to him, we will learn that there is a key to “remove the camera”. Due to the fact that there is no extremely useful viewing function here (the patch of the third day added it), then without this button some people simply could not play (how do I love people who do not undergo training and do not dig in the settings before climbing on the forums and chasing the developers that something is wrong in their game).

After training, we are introduced to the local analogue of masks. In principle, nothing has changed anything here, except that most “masks” are hats, but there are two really masks and a couple of glasses. True, the effects of all this “splendor” almost do not give alternatives in choosing a favorite, so that I ran the whole game under the guise of Guy Fox, since it gives a bonus to the points of life (yes, there was a hat that allows you to slow down, but only you slow down with the outside world, so that the useful effect is at least). Yes, yes, you did not rush. One or two bullets were replaced by three difficulty levels and HP, which are easily restored if you find the jaguar and shawarma can at the levels of the banks, which looks more like. Only now I have not noticed a strip of health to be displayed on the screen so that you can know when there are “first -aid kits”, and when there is no. However, I deceive you. Once it was displayed. But there were no first -aid kits at that level, and these were the points of life not the main character, but his car.

But back to the first level. Already here we can see all the pros and cons of adaptation. What’s new? Enemies can not only beat your hands, but also kick the leg (I can’t say with “foot”, because the animation of this action is as comical as possible). And you know what? If the blow cut off the opponents, and they need to be finished off, then you immediately kill any enemies, of which there … well, probably three types. The enemy is ordinary (there are two subspecies – exploding with close contact and there are no), the enemy is armored (the fighters of the squad Golden Eagle) and the enemy is peaceful (you can kill, but you can not kill. Are found on the same level).

And here the problem arises. The very enemies who explode in contact almost do not differ from the shooters, so that nearby weapons immediately become senseless, which is sad. However, it is quite small here, and there is only one boss, which must be killed precisely in hand-to-hand (yes, yes. There are bosses here. They are almost like ordinary opponents, just have stripes of life, disgusting outwardly (almost all) and require more time to eliminate).

With a firearm, everything is not so bad. There are a pair of pistols, several machines that differ in the sound of shooting and the volume of the store (sometimes you will find containers with cartridges where you can fill the store again, but you can’t take the second horn), shotgun, RPG (the walls do not pierce, the missile flies slowly), flush (give once once. And thank you, because the level is specially created for this stump, the flame of which is spreading very slowly, but it sets it off except your character) and a six -barrel machine gun (give twice, and when this monster gets into your hands for the first time, you also become immortal (like)).

Everyone except fists can knock out the doors. They Casinosnogamstop.co.uk fly beautifully into chips, but the benefits of this is a minimum. Sometimes it even threatens with excess danger, because you can hide behind the doors. Local AI allows you to escape to the next room and sit there while it makes the enemies rush anywhere, except near you.

It seems that I told about everything except the gameplay itself, the plot and the technical side of the project.

The fact is that in the original we had a clear task – to kill everyone and move on. Now it is not necessary to kill everyone on the map. Sometimes it is enough to find a laptop and a password from the door to the exit. Moreover, passwords do not change, which makes it possible to go through some levels and without murders at all. And I stupidly ran one level at the first passage, because this damn special forces loves to hide behind shields, and you can kill them only when they jump out because of them to kill you (and for this you need to come very close). But I hasten to please you. There are still levels where you need to kill everything and everything. And even the counter of enemies is. Sometimes there will be unusual levels, such as a trip to a car, or a cooperative with a partner under the control of AI, or a battle with bosses, but these are 5-6 levels of thirty. By the way! To continue the game (if you suddenly came out), you need to click on the level of level selection menu. Only here in this menu all levels are open immediately. So no one prevents you from slipping into the final itself, without coming all the hell through which I went through. And this is not hell, which is characteristic of the series, but something unique. But more on that later.

Previously, the gameplay changed if you choose another mask. Here – no. Why? Yes, because the masks are meaningless here. One makes the world black and white. Another – gives you a shotgun at the start. Third-AK-47 will immediately give me a way at the start. Fourth – will give more HP. Another will allow you to slow down, but I have already painted the reasons for its meaninglessness. The latter seems to reduce the chance of death in hand -to -hand … Whatever it means. After all, an enemy who did not shoot me, I met only once. And he is the boss.

And now I will tell you about the most painful blow that the game has undergone when adaptation. The fact is that many complained about the camera in Hotline Miami 2. Huge levels, but no review. I haven’t seen a problem in this. And here, with the scale of location as in Hotline Miami 1, I suffered due to a lack of review. The fact is that even in a “distant” state, the camera gives such a small overview that the only way to survive is to shoot at random always. And this is how I moved. Wherever it went-stupidly watered the border of the screen with lead (and all the same I was so often killed).

You remember the early videos, where the character rode on corpses and tables, shot from machine guns in Macedonian? Most of all this “splendor” is the production. Critical videos. Unless two machine guns can be taken in your hands anyway, but only a certain model must be found twice for the level and not spent all the cartridges while you are looking for. I was lucky once, but I did not find much sense in all this.

I can’t say that the plot is bad. In fact, a pretty good story about a political conspiracy with a rather pleasant plot. But here are dialogs, characters, quests … All this does not just contain “memes”, but fully consists of them. There are almost no unique characters who would not be a meme or a heavy and unpleasant satire on a raging reality. You play a revived meme that waters you accumulated over all the years of the term of the term garbage. And I really thought the whole game was thinking that well, adults and adequate people could not do something so terrible. Well, you can’t praise all those horrors that have accumulated on the Internet in one game. And I was almost right. The finale is turning inside out everything, making it clear that the authors themselves treated all this with such an irony. That everything that happens is precisely the irony, and not the worldview of four ends frozen in amber of the end of zero people. And probably thanks to them for that. If not for the finale, if the game had really been made for the sake of “memes”, then I would consider the Gomunkul the resulting emergency burning. And so – a rather deep project, where the main goal is to show all the horrors of the modern Internet in one place and hint that this, it turns out, is bad! How was I naive ..

But there is one moment in the game, which is pretty good so much before the finals that all this is a caustic topical satire. There was a level in the middle of the game where we get to the bar. There are quite famous gaming reviewers – Madison and Loginov. And from dialogues with their participation, it becomes clear that the developers are trying to make fun of the technical condition of the game at the time of the release, and the design, and local humor.

The technical side of the project.

• Even at the first level, you can encounter the fact that the game periodically hangs for a few seconds even on a powerful gland. In the middle of the game in the dialogue with Loginov, they say that this is an author’s idea and a feature in general.

• sound accompaniment (not music, namely sounds) cut hearing and consciousness. If it is ridiculous or useful for gameplay, then okay, but here I did not find either one or the other in these terrible screams of imbecilia. This is no longer a satire. This is already unnecessary garbage.

• Integration in Steam is terrible. There is no way to enter the chat play with Shift+Tab or even just take a screenshot on F12! I had to use a third-party program (thanks IXY that he once shared it with me).

• Patches do not want to load even with forced settings Steam.

• departures and inability to enter the game. I had the only flight in 6 hours. But if other people had a problem, then this should be mentioned.

• I have never been stated that the game would be released incomplete. At the moment, there is nothing in it except the campaign. In the section with a multiplayer, survival and an open world, so far here is such a thing:

• Graphics are quite specific. The impression is that everything was done at all on Flash. But that is not the problem. The whole nightmare is that I first encountered a game that really sets itself the goal of killing all those suffering from epilepsy. It was damn difficult to play until I turned off all the graphic chips such as shadows, glare and shakes of the camera. But this does not save from the first quarter of the game and the first boss, where you have to survive in the conditions of a total graphic nightmare, where everything shines, sparkles, shimmers and explodes. I suffered. Honestly.

• The hero loves to get stuck in the irregularities of the location. And sometimes you can not predict where you can go and where you get stuck. Enemies do not suffer. However, they know how to get stuck in the doorway and spin on the spot. And the doors can completely turn into a propeller, which is spinning without stopping and restrictions. There is no harm from this, but this is a problem.

I don’t know which audience this project is aimed at. Hample for HM fans is clearly rather weak, humor is generally unclear for who, because under U *** the bottom essence of the game is almost impossible to find irony. And was she there? Technical problems will be cured, the promised regimes will bring at the end of the month, but how to cure the gameplay, which was presented to us with a hook is incomprehensible. If you want a story, you are not here. She carries nothing unique, with the exception of the contents. But if you are a fan of all this, then I can’t deny that the love with which all this is presented is preserved and collected, just goes off scale. It is possible that the gameplay in the open world will be different, it is possible that the multiplayer will be hurricane, but the values ​​of at least one category, except, of course, the humor “about U *** dings – for *** dings” does not have. This is not Postal 2, where the real problems of society in the form brought to the absolute were precisely satire. This is a clean, undiluted mass *Aries, which the developer himself despises.