The idea behind Steel: Hellsinger is straightforward sufficient: marry the traditional shooter gunplay of DOOM with a rhythm sport. And developer The Outsiders completely nail this aspect of its sport: the gunplay feels implausible. Capturing, dodging, biking weapons, all of it feels nice. You are able to do nearly every thing within the sport to the rhythm of every degree’s music, and also you get bonus factors, in addition to bonus harm, for retaining in time to the music.
The entire music has a definite drum beat that’s straightforward to maintain monitor of whereas within the warmth of battle, and every degree includes a visitor vocalist from some fairly well-known bands, reminiscent of Trivium and System of a Down. The songs begin with primary drum beats, including layers of vocals, guitars, and so forth as your combo meter goes up. It’s a very nice contact, and the implementation is seamless. The music is the actual star, because the threadbare narrative is tucked into bland cutscenes that bookend every degree.
The cracks begin to present up if you look past the core gameplay. The title doesn’t do something poorly per se, however every thing comes throughout as barebones. The environments throughout all eight ranges blur collectively and have comparable color grading with uninteresting degree design. Every degree quantities to a sequence of arenas linked by hallways ending in a boss, and so they do little in the best way to encourage inventive or differing fight approaches. You possibly can efficiently beat the sport with solely the shotgun in case you so select.
The encounter design virtually stops evolving after the second degree, solely sometimes introducing variations of enemies thereafter. Lots of the enemies aren’t terribly enjoyable to struggle, which is one other huge drawback. As enjoyable because the weapons could also be to make use of — each weapon is satisfying, and a blast to mess around with — every thing begins to stale rapidly. Finishing torments — mini-dungeons that unlock and improve perks — add some selection to the affair, however these are transient distractions at greatest. You possibly can 100 per cent the sport in about 6-7 hours, too, making the $39.99 price ticket astonishingly steep.
In the end, you will have a sport with one masterfully designed core aspect — the rhythm gunplay — surrounded by quite a few parts that, whereas not horrible, are mediocre at greatest.