This review contains spoilers
I wanted to like this game so much. I don't understand the praise for it, the gunplay is pretty good and the upgrade system is fun and interesting. The level design/art style is so bad though. There were plenty of times I was walking around with the map open because every corridor looks the same and every room looks similar. There were a handful of different enough areas in the 3 or so hours I played like the parking garage but my God the environments were boring. Lots of great concepts though and I can kinda see how people love it but this was definitely putting me to sleep.
This is what Phantom Fury should have been. The combat is phenomenal, the use of the gzdoom engine blows my mind. The best fps of the decade.
One last thing: 35.
One last thing: 35.
Takes all the important aspects of FEAR (enemy encounters that are unique with specific enemy callouts, Hong Kong shootout levels of environmental destruction/particle effects, and incredibly punchy weapons) and sticks it into levels a lot more reminiscent of Build Engine games with good progression flow, interaction, and interconnected to other levels in a way that doesn't (so far) make back tracking annoying.
A review already complained about the level design, so you know it's a great sign!
A review already complained about the level design, so you know it's a great sign!
Only played a few minutes of this celebrated "modernized" gzdoom shooter. Mechanically this is a much more vanilla doomlike than the presentation would have you believe, but it's tuned opposite of what makes doom gameplay interesting. Hitscan enemies slide around the map at random(?) and play audio barks, you keep up sustained hits with your chaingun to stun them and prevent damage. There's also an incredibly bad feeling quick slide kick maneuever, and some nice feeling knockback/knockdown behavior on enemies with melee.
In addition there's a lot of really bad fluff here -- at least in the first map, there are various interactables to flesh out the world but they do nothing and are placed unnaturally. There's no versimillitude in box colliders that play animations.
In addition there's a lot of really bad fluff here -- at least in the first map, there are various interactables to flesh out the world but they do nothing and are placed unnaturally. There's no versimillitude in box colliders that play animations.
boomer shooter sized maps, play like an idiot boomer and learn to check every room for resources/secrets and backtrack a bit, feel the fatigue. Made me miss the fun of constant action in f.e.a.r. arenas and corridors
Excited to see where this one goes but finding the current early access build more frustrating than fun. The gunplay feels incredible and is a blast to play though, but you only spend maybe a third of your time doing that. The other two thirds is spent wandering around samey looking environments looking for a button you didn't notice or doing very mediocre puzzles. Please let me enjoy the actual core of this game. Gonna check back in closer to 1.0.
It's good when you don't have to backtrack whole level sections.
The encounters themselves are really fun, the gunplay is one of the great things about Selaco.
Gun upgrading is interesting, but a bit stale imo, some of the upgrades are straight up unusable/not fun.
Still worth the playthrough!
The encounters themselves are really fun, the gunplay is one of the great things about Selaco.
Gun upgrading is interesting, but a bit stale imo, some of the upgrades are straight up unusable/not fun.
Still worth the playthrough!
maps can be a bit meandering at times, but when everything is working at it's best, this is almost assuredly one of the best boomer shooters in the genre
Still formulating my thoughts on this, but for a game that directly cites FEAR as an inspiration and has seemingly put sooooo much effort into "versimilitude" and emergent mechanics, playing it is pretty fucking boring.
Here's the problem, and why I love FEAR while games like this do nothing for me: FEAR is actually pretty straightforward, the enemies are dumb and easy to kill, and the environments often eerily absent of detail. It lives large in people's memory because of what it ~evokes~, not what it explicitly shows. It's constantly trying to surprise you with new room layouts and situations. As a result it's both sparse and memorable, two great qualities for a game to have.
Meanwhile, in this game you can press "Use" twice to open a can of soda and then drink it. Many objects can be picked up and thrown around but this does nothing interesting. The encounter spaces are full of all this detail, like turning off lights and closing windows and such, that plays pretend at a cool and theatrical sort of combat style, but which ultimately amounts to nothing because rooms are basically just boxes attached to other boxes without interesting vertical elements, unique layouts, etc. Enemies are bullet sponges even with headshots. And one of my biggest aggrieved nitpicks in games: it binds an important core function to Caps Lock.
Really disappointed, the promo stuff for this game actually caught my interest so to see how badly designed the levels are deeply frustrates me.
Here's the problem, and why I love FEAR while games like this do nothing for me: FEAR is actually pretty straightforward, the enemies are dumb and easy to kill, and the environments often eerily absent of detail. It lives large in people's memory because of what it ~evokes~, not what it explicitly shows. It's constantly trying to surprise you with new room layouts and situations. As a result it's both sparse and memorable, two great qualities for a game to have.
Meanwhile, in this game you can press "Use" twice to open a can of soda and then drink it. Many objects can be picked up and thrown around but this does nothing interesting. The encounter spaces are full of all this detail, like turning off lights and closing windows and such, that plays pretend at a cool and theatrical sort of combat style, but which ultimately amounts to nothing because rooms are basically just boxes attached to other boxes without interesting vertical elements, unique layouts, etc. Enemies are bullet sponges even with headshots. And one of my biggest aggrieved nitpicks in games: it binds an important core function to Caps Lock.
Really disappointed, the promo stuff for this game actually caught my interest so to see how badly designed the levels are deeply frustrates me.
I'm tempted to call Selaco a new boomer shooter, but that's not entirely fair. Selaco is a love letter to all kinds of FPS games, borrowing the best from a lot of different titles while doing its own thing.
Selaco is an arcadey FPS with levels and secrets, yet it takes a lot from shooters that came out after Half-Life, too. It has absolutely massive levels, yet it breaks them into chunks much like a Mario game would structure a world. One of the levels might be a massive mall, but it has clear chokepoints leading you into different areas with their own secret counts, which helps a lot if you're enjoying exploration like me.
Exploration is what got me hooked. The shooting is good, but it's been a while since I've seen an FPS game that understands how fun it is to find secrets. There are a TON of secrets in Selaco. What the game does best is give you the reason to seek them out to, as they feature upgrades to your health/guns/max grenade capacity, or something entirely new. It's a far cry from secrets which are fun to find but contain ammo you can't even pick up because you're full. There are surprises all over!
Visually, the game is a treat. Everything feels punchy and meaty, with quite a few props exploding, which makes the action feel so much more alive. Enemies explode into purple chunks, paper flies everywhere, it's a treat. That said, it's never too overbearing. The visual language of the game is quite simple, and despite levels being large, I've not gotten lost a single time thanks to pretty clear green visual indicators over progress. And even if I did get lost, there's a quest log along with a good mini-map. There's never a feeling of not finding a button you needed to use and wandering around.
The levels all feel unique and are even structured quite differently. Some feel more like arena shooters, while others let you breathe and explore, organically fighting any enemies you see. Some are puzzley levels, while others prioritize atmosphere. If there's one thing I don't like about this game is that so far there are a few too many office complex levels. It feels like each set of levels contains one pretty sizeable office space, and even if devs try to make them unique, it wears off its welcome. I get that the game tries to go for realism, and part of it is having offices for workers of various organizations, but I feel like at now they're way too prevalent while taking up a lot of their respective levels.
Oh yes, I completely forgot that this game is actually in Early Access, and only remembered it while typing out "so far"! That's because this is pretty much a full-length game already with around 10-15 hours of gameplay, yet it's only a third of the way done. I honestly can't say enough good about this title.
Every weapon is a joy to use and every battle felt pretty significant. The enemies are fairly smart and the game is quite hard even on the lower difficulties, at least for me. I have encountered some bugs (one secret broke, and the game would crash occasionally), but I don't even care. This rules. If you like Half-Life's often mundane enviroments, DOOM's secrets or Resident Evil 4's gun upgrading, pick this up. If you don't, still give it a try.
Selaco is an arcadey FPS with levels and secrets, yet it takes a lot from shooters that came out after Half-Life, too. It has absolutely massive levels, yet it breaks them into chunks much like a Mario game would structure a world. One of the levels might be a massive mall, but it has clear chokepoints leading you into different areas with their own secret counts, which helps a lot if you're enjoying exploration like me.
Exploration is what got me hooked. The shooting is good, but it's been a while since I've seen an FPS game that understands how fun it is to find secrets. There are a TON of secrets in Selaco. What the game does best is give you the reason to seek them out to, as they feature upgrades to your health/guns/max grenade capacity, or something entirely new. It's a far cry from secrets which are fun to find but contain ammo you can't even pick up because you're full. There are surprises all over!
Visually, the game is a treat. Everything feels punchy and meaty, with quite a few props exploding, which makes the action feel so much more alive. Enemies explode into purple chunks, paper flies everywhere, it's a treat. That said, it's never too overbearing. The visual language of the game is quite simple, and despite levels being large, I've not gotten lost a single time thanks to pretty clear green visual indicators over progress. And even if I did get lost, there's a quest log along with a good mini-map. There's never a feeling of not finding a button you needed to use and wandering around.
The levels all feel unique and are even structured quite differently. Some feel more like arena shooters, while others let you breathe and explore, organically fighting any enemies you see. Some are puzzley levels, while others prioritize atmosphere. If there's one thing I don't like about this game is that so far there are a few too many office complex levels. It feels like each set of levels contains one pretty sizeable office space, and even if devs try to make them unique, it wears off its welcome. I get that the game tries to go for realism, and part of it is having offices for workers of various organizations, but I feel like at now they're way too prevalent while taking up a lot of their respective levels.
Oh yes, I completely forgot that this game is actually in Early Access, and only remembered it while typing out "so far"! That's because this is pretty much a full-length game already with around 10-15 hours of gameplay, yet it's only a third of the way done. I honestly can't say enough good about this title.
Every weapon is a joy to use and every battle felt pretty significant. The enemies are fairly smart and the game is quite hard even on the lower difficulties, at least for me. I have encountered some bugs (one secret broke, and the game would crash occasionally), but I don't even care. This rules. If you like Half-Life's often mundane enviroments, DOOM's secrets or Resident Evil 4's gun upgrading, pick this up. If you don't, still give it a try.
Ótimo início de early access, estarei acompanhando o progresso deste aqui. Uma boa mistura de DOOM e FEAR, e ousaria dizer que possui até alguns elementos de Half-Life, como a progressão de níveis e puzzles de cenário. Cabe na categoria John Woo-like shooters!
Overall, Selaco's pretty fire. Fun, immersive, good gunplay and a gun design, banger soundtrack.
All of the guns look and feel great to use (or at least when you upgrade them) and they sound great, too.
The difficulty is a bit interesting. I was getting deleted on Captain difficulty (2nd higher) so I restarted on one difficulty lower and I was crushing.
Still, the game consistently ratchets up the difficulty and encounters so it continues to feel fresh while giving you new tools to play with.
The game is still in early access and I've only finished chapter 1 of ? and I still put 15 hours into it. I'm pretty comfortable with what I've played for now, though, but I'm excited to see what they add!
All of the guns look and feel great to use (or at least when you upgrade them) and they sound great, too.
The difficulty is a bit interesting. I was getting deleted on Captain difficulty (2nd higher) so I restarted on one difficulty lower and I was crushing.
Still, the game consistently ratchets up the difficulty and encounters so it continues to feel fresh while giving you new tools to play with.
The game is still in early access and I've only finished chapter 1 of ? and I still put 15 hours into it. I'm pretty comfortable with what I've played for now, though, but I'm excited to see what they add!
Ive been watching this project for years and im glad its finally coming out
however i have a lot of critque with this game, the enemies do way to much damage, maps are sometimes confusing and some of the weapons straight up suck
i want to like this game more, but i feel like more balancing is needed for me to rank this as a super banger game
however i have a lot of critque with this game, the enemies do way to much damage, maps are sometimes confusing and some of the weapons straight up suck
i want to like this game more, but i feel like more balancing is needed for me to rank this as a super banger game
"chapter 1 completed"
Y ya y me cago encima y me corro de paso
Y ya y me cago encima y me corro de paso
good when im not having gmanlives or other epic references to epic boomer shooter freaking legends put in front of me
i honestly think i would have liked it more if they cut the amount of various wall textures, interactable objects, and particle effects in the game in half. the visual design is incredibly murky, every engagement is a wash of pink blood spray and dust and the gunplay just wasn't enough to get me wanting to sit down and learn the visual rules of what is a meaningful interactable and what isn't. one of the first objectives you see in the game being a green switch that looks basically identical to the light switches you see in every other room is a very rough first impression.
i appreciate the idea trying to pull in the classic imsim idea of stacking objects, but i feel like it doesn't really work for me when the only real way of interacting with enemies is a shotgun to the face. i understand secrets hunting is a cornerstone of the genre, but i'm having a rough time appreciating how much it harms navigability and readability of the level design for the sake of those secrets.
which all feeds into my personal main problem problem, which was without the drive to learn the visual rules of their level design, there sure was a lot of aimless wandering around pressing use on random wall textures hoping the locker key i just found did something.
the ai is very impressive though and the gunplay feels impactful. it just wasn't enough for me to muddle through the rest of it. i do wish the devs the best though, because they absolutely have the core of something that could be very special.
i appreciate the idea trying to pull in the classic imsim idea of stacking objects, but i feel like it doesn't really work for me when the only real way of interacting with enemies is a shotgun to the face. i understand secrets hunting is a cornerstone of the genre, but i'm having a rough time appreciating how much it harms navigability and readability of the level design for the sake of those secrets.
which all feeds into my personal main problem problem, which was without the drive to learn the visual rules of their level design, there sure was a lot of aimless wandering around pressing use on random wall textures hoping the locker key i just found did something.
the ai is very impressive though and the gunplay feels impactful. it just wasn't enough for me to muddle through the rest of it. i do wish the devs the best though, because they absolutely have the core of something that could be very special.