Stilize ve aşırı akıcı FPS aksiyon oyunları son zamanlarda bağımsız oyun piyasasında fazlasıyla çoğaldı. Bu çoğalış galiba Doom serisinin yeni oyunlarıyla oluşmaya başlayıp New Blood Interactive'in oyunlarıyla popülaritesini arşa çıkardı. Bunları neden anlattım. Anlatmamın sebebi aslında bu tür FPS oyunlarının öncülerinin yapamadığı bir şeyi Severed Steel çok güzel şekilde yapıyor. Genel anlamda Doom (2016)'dan örnek vermem gerekirse oyun ilerledikçe size yeni yeni özellikler ile ödüllendiriyor. Bu ödüllendirme ile daha çok çeşitlilik ortaya çıkıyor. Çeşitlilik böyle oyunun sonuna kadar devam edeceğini düşündürürken oyunun bir noktasında tak diye duruyor ve oyunun akıcılığı gitmeye başlıyor. Doom (2016)'da bu akıcılığın gitmesindeki en büyük etmen bu tür bir FPS oyununa göre aşırı uzun olması. Oyunun uzunluğu yüzünden yeni özellikler kazansak bile bir tarafı boş kalıyordu. Severed Steel'de ise bu uzadığı için bunaltıcı olmaya başlama durumu hiç yok. Oyun o kadar rahat, zaman olarak iyi ayarlanmış ve akıcı ki türün diğer oyunlarının arasından sıyrılıp kendini gösteriyor. Severed Steel aksiyon anlamında beni fazlasıyla tatmin etti. İndirimler sırasında almaya tereddüt etsem de aldığım için gram pişman olmadım. John Wick tarzı akıcı bir aksiyon görmek istiyorsanız indirimlerde Severed Steel'i alıp denemelisiniz.

The underlying gameplay is Severed Steel is incredibly strong. The movement options are great, the shooting is punchy, and it never got boring through the kinetic albeit brief campaign. I'm fine with the length because any longer would either get too difficult or start to lose its enjoyment. The difficulty is all about slo-motion and ammo management. When you're shooting bad guys in the head in slo-mo it's some of the most satisfying gameplay you can imagine (especially when you're sliding, diving, wall-running at the same time), but the second you run out of slo-mo or ammo you're basically dead. The guns are borderline unsuable in normal speed, but thankfully the movement helps in getting away. You also get an arm cannon early on which helps to counter certain enemy types, provide some much needed backup shots, and there's some fun interactions to be had with the environment. Most levels are pretty fun and well-designed although they're quite samey (either shoot this, kill everyone, etc.), and I did get tilted quite a few times (probably my fault but there are some tricky moments where dying feels essential to understand the layout, similar to Hotline Miami or Superhot). There's one boss fight at the end, but it's nothing special. I know there's a level designer, but I think after 4 hours or so I'm ready to move on. Also the music is great overall, really fits well with the look of the game. There's some nitpicks I have (nothing dealbreaking), but a solid experience overall, even more so that Epic was giving this out for free. If you're paying, I'd say it's worth it if you like fast moving and slow shooting with a bit of challenge.

¿Sabéis el meme de "así sería el mundo si..." en el que aparece una imagen idílica de un lugar en el que la naturaleza y la tecnología se dan de la mano, una especie de futuro respirable y esperanzador? Pues así sería el mundo si todos los shooters fueran como Severed Steel. Se le puede hermanar con la intensidad de Doom, la pulcritud de Superhot o incluso la concreción de un Hotline Miami, aunque por encima de todo es una tesis (como ya lo era Vanquish) sobre por qué no hay nada más placentero en los juegos de acción que deslizarse por el suelo a cámara lenta mientras disparas a no sé cuántos enemigos. Un puñado de mecánicas transparentes desde el inicio, unos escenarios lo suficientemente funcionales como para dar juego en los tiroteos, una variedad de armas que da profundidad al asunto pero sin demasiadas florituras, y a funcionar. Y vaya si funciona.

Admittedly the slow motion mechanic makes this game pretty much trivial to complete, but honestly, I don't really care.

This game is fun. 'Cathartic escapism', the title of its last level, is probably the best way to describe it. Almost nothing can stop you - enemies have no collision, doors can be kicked open, and all walls are destructible by the player's arm cannon.

The moment that encapsulated the game for me was when I double-jumped onto another building, blew open the fucking wall with my fucking gun, slid behind the entire enemy barrage and proceeded to slow-mo headshot every enemy in that room.

Nowadays, I mostly play Severed Steel as a podcast game. Doing these stunts, breaking these walls... it's entrancing. Movement shooters tend to be fairly sweaty (which I appreciate!), but I'm actually glad this game goes a different direction.

It’s quite the fascinating task to trace Severed Steel’s mechanical identity, as it draws from an array of shooters to form an identity of its own. Of course there’s the bullet time of Max Payne, the emphasis on smooth movement and evasion from Titanfall, and the mission objective structure of SuperHot, and while the arm cannon visually homages Metroid its ability to carve straight through the level architecture is joyfully unique and provides the player with a profound sense of power and freedom. It adds up to being a thrilling experience, evading enemy fire while zipping all around the map and wrecking absolute havoc, although admittedly the fact that avoiding fire is tied to the slow mo mechanic makes the game feel much more slow paced than it actually is. There isn’t much to write home about outside of the gunplay either, with a story that technically exists and a minimalist neon aesthetic that neither quite gels together no matter how high you crank up the settings, but Severed Steel is just plain a good time at its core.

Tengo debilidad por cualquier movement shooter, pero servered steel me parece una propuesta bastante única dentro de todos ellos.

Mecánicamente me parece excepcional, te da muchas formas de movimiento, haciendo que no estés parado ni un segundo, además de tener la posibilidad de parar el tiempo, que lo vuelve muy frenético y divertido. Y si por si eso fuera apoco, el cañón que llevas en el brazo te da la posibilidad de agujerear el escenario y cambiarlo a tu antojo , dándole un toque de creatividad a cada batalla que le viene genial.

El diseño de niveles es bueno, dándote la posibilidad de usar sus mecánicas al completo, aunque creo que flojea en los niveles mas extensos , por la propia propuesta del juego, haciendo que se te atraganten un poco dichos niveles debido la facilidad al morir y tener que empezar de nuevo. Tampoco tiene casi progresión pero debido a su corta duración no es muy relevante.

Estéticamente luce bien y me gusta la banda sonora, aunque es algo genérico.

En general me parece un juego muy divertido y aunque es algo corto, creo que este concepto tiene posibilidades de ser explorado con más profundidad en un futuro por el estudio, lo cual me ilusiona a estar atento a cualquier nuevo proyecto del desarrollador.

i always wonder how Mirror's Edge would look like with great shooting mechanics

highly kinetic, the idea of having a hand cannon that lets you destroy walls and find new ways to explore and move during combat is fantastic

very light in terms of anything else, so that's a big bummer

I'm actually genuinely so pissed I somehow missed out on this game back when it released and only just now found out about it, but this is one of the most fluid, fun, and addictive movement shooters I've ever played. The gunplay is super solid with lots of really fun guns to use, the sound design and feedback on all your actions is super crunchy and satisfying, especially once you get in the game flow state and are going for high ranks and it all starts clicking! The main story is very simple and over and done in about 3 hours, but that just means its extremely succinct and replayable, and in a game this mechanically solid and absurdly good feeling and fun to play, I'll be replaying it on NG+ a good many times, and I can tell its roguelike mode & its time trial modes are going to sap my life away, as I'm already beginning to dunk a fair bit of time into them!

I might update this review as that extra playtime goes.

a lot of the levels are designed terribly in the first couple chapters, but it gets better as it goes on. it's a way better game when they focus on more open levels rather than tight corridors and small rooms
the screen can get really messy and annoying with how much shit is going on at once, the extremely bright neon lights do not help with this at all
i really liked the movement and gunplay and how you are invincible whenever you're doing any stunts. it's a fun enough gameplay loop to leave me with a generally positive feeling on the game as a whole despite my complaints
really good atmo d&b soundtrack

This is what Superhot should've been. The 'time only moves with you' idea was charming, but this is so much better and much more dynamic, getting bullet time under control with extreme precision feels great and it has enough variety to back it up. It really nails the movement and aiming mechanics, probably the best-feeling game since Source shooters but with many more movement options which also work well for stunts. And you can play more and more with different modifications - probably the best single player FPS you can play at the moment.

This is a game that hits directly at the nerve and spikes a hypodermic needle straight into an adrenal gland with its frenetic, stressful, and chaotic dance of blissful F.E.A.R. and Mirror's Edge-inspired gameplay. Severed Steel is a highly addictive parkour run-and-gun fps that serves its story straight with an immediacy and embellishing enough narrative to incentivize playing, almost like a deconstruction of an action narrative to an absolute minimal presentation while presenting a motivated aesthetic from the perspective of the protagonist. It's short, sweet, and an immediate cyberpunk game that begs for speed-runs and stacking combos as you wall run while shooting enemies in slo-mo to jump off the wall and perfectly headshot 3 goons as you fly overhead in a rainbow arc only to pick up a weapon mid-air and cap-off 3 more. It's a dream come true and handles as smoothly and gracefully in its John Woo fantasy.