Hellforces (PC CD)

I ended the game with a sense of ' phew !....that was actually very good !! '

What starts out as a rather tacky slash fest on hordes of mindless zombies turns into a surprisingly good FPS.

The latter half of the game is simply superb. This is one 'blast everything in sight ' game where the person being blasted is more likely to be you ! Unlike many such games, where you can simply jump out and mow everything down, you stick your head round a corner in Hellforces and you are likely to lose half your health. There are many areas where you have to use all your wits to survive.

And all your wits to find the next level, as this game has some of the least obvious exits imaginable. I confess that I got stuck on the first level....and several others.....and had to visit a forum, only to find that it was full of people stuck on various levels. And full of people who had expressed displeasure at the game to start with, only to become addicted to it later on in the game.

The AI is...well....non existent in the sense of anyone actively tracking you down. But it is good in the sense of enemies turning up when you least expect. Reload your weapons often !

The graphics are overall pretty good. The rendition of things like fire is top class. The non player characters in the game are not quite such high quality, and I've noticed certain effects such as mist are a little tacky if you have the 'gamma' correction above a certain level.

No, this game is not ever going to match Half Life 2, or Doom 3. But it has a sheer enjoyability factor that to my mind is the hallmark of a good game.

The over-riding question in anyone's mind is ' is this game worth buying '. My response after buying it and playing it is most certainly yes. It is not perfect, but it is a lot of fun.

However, I stuck with it and I'm very glad I did. After a streets level, a maze level and a sewers level, things begin to look up and we are into top notch FPS territory. Immense levels, beautifully designed, and enough enemies to make it interesting but not an arcade-style gore-fest. By now the enemies are mainly military, so no more decapitating hundreds of the undead with just a meat cleaver - it's more a question of finding and using cover, selecting the appropriate weapon, and using your reflexes. There are some nice puzzles too, and plenty of exploration is possible. This is usually rewarded with goodies such as the usual armour, health, weapons and ammo - but there is also occasionally the completely bizarre, like Beethoven's collar or a tin soldier with only one leg. These confer special powers such as extra speed or health.

The story is pretty sketchy but the game play makes up for this shortcoming very well. One area that lets it down a little is the AI - this is a game where you can shoot someone from cover repeatedly in the leg until they're dead, because if they can't see you they won't react. Graphics are superb but extremely demanding - my 2.6GHz AMD FX-55, 2GB RAM and Radeon X850XT could not cope with the highest settings.

All in all, it's no Half Life 2, but if you're a first-person shooter fan then I thoroughly recommend Hellforces. Just don't let the first couple of levels put you off.