If you are one of the most concerned online critics about difficulty in games, then look no further. Metal: Hellsinger, when played properly, is a complicated game with a steep learning curve, and it has no qualms about throwing you into the mosh pit and knocking you down until you get back on track. Even the first level will embarrass you deeply if you have no sense of timing and rhythm. To succeed in Hell, you must keep an eye on it.
BPM: Bullets Per Minute, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Cadence of Hyrule, and Before the Echo have all been popularising the genre in the last few years, giving those who prefer to bob our heads and nod in time to indiscriminate video game murder plenty to chew on. But few games do it all as Metal: Hellsinger.
There''s a sense of flow you can easily activate when listening to the blast beats of 4/4 and manipulating your explosive abilities, empowering you and reshaping yourself into a world of debunked war. Even better, you keep your multiplier high by doing everything in time with the beat and going off-time, as well as earning the vocal tracks.
Bang. You kill a twisted dodge, dodge, shoot, jump, and reload. You get up to 16x, and your multiplier gets boosted by another everplaying beat and the layers of fuzzy guitar you gained by putting up to the 8x multiplier, cheering you on with his distinctive orange-wide warbling.
The ultimate aim of this game is to reach youre the eponymous Hellsinger, who has been stolen by one of the Hell judges for some reason. With a skull that talks with a deep Texas accent, you ascend through the Hells of Hell to reclaim your voice and fulfill an ancient prophecy. There are also tropes, and a paper-thin window dressing for the real point of the game: killing the shit in time to music.
That''s not a bad one: the seven major levels that you play through each have their own challenges: whether its enemies in specific formations, combat challenges you must overcome, or a cookie-cutter boss at the end of the level. If you have played (nu)Doom, or similar harcore shooters, here''s what you need to know: pistols, shotguns, some wild crossbow thing, and even a skull you can grab when you slaughter all of them. They''ll finish with
The challenges arise in how the game allows you to keep time; shooting off-beat will do less damage (practically zero damage at higher levels), and taking damage will restart all of your rewards and bonuses you gain from doing everything on beat. Rinse, repeat, and earn the vocals for the track youre on when it all comes together, which is certainly similar to Doom 2016 at its best.
There are some difficulties with Metal: Hellsinger, though. I can forgive the short content offering or the absence of meaningful gameplay beyond the seven core levels, but when user experience concerns begin to permeate your actual enjoyment of the game, things become frustrating. Youe had the option to set your visual and aural sync rates at the beginning of the game, but I (and others I have spoken to that are reviewing this game) have experienced issues with desync and calibration.
Sometimes, cocking your shotgun perfectly on-time and returning it to the beat will leave you losing out on your chain, simply because the ever-present rhythm reticle at the bottom of the screen is off, for some reason. I even played the game to a metronome (yes, I became that irritated by this) and noticed that playing to the white ticks often cost me my streak. Instead, you must defocus on it and listen to the music, at least!
