A bizarre, funny, well acted story in an interesting setting, with some of the best writing in the medium, mechanically and visually feels like playing a mixture of Max Payne and Control except with frequently boring repetitive gameplay and a length that has it stay long past its welcome.
El Paso, Elsewhere is visually similar to a Playstation era title with the movement and controls of the first two Max Payne titles with some of the colors and environment styles that can feel like you are playing Control. The story involves your character entering a motel to stop his ex, the lord of vampires, from destroying the world. He believes his addictions as well as the battles themselves will lead to his death. As you enter an elevator you are transported to the void and are slowly lowered down where floor after floor you must fight through an area while attempting to rescue people who have been captured to be used as sacrifices. As you your journey goes on the environments shift from the motel to areas that were important to your ex's life and some by extension important to your life. Memories of both your lives are discussed with entities you meet, each other, and can be further expanded on by finding projectors in stages themselves. Radios are also scattered around with often humorous stories or references to noir style monologue filled with increasingly ridiculous metaphors. The visual style and writing are the highlights of the game and can make it worth playing on their own merits. Though another issue is that it takes about 1/3 of the game for that writing to go beyond just being entertaining to reaching that next level.
The problems with the game come from the dull enemies that don't fit with the Max Payne bullet time style gameplay. That there are 50 stages and you only start to see more interesting things around 20 stages in. You are only given enough enemy variety for combat to be interesting and a bit varied, if the enemies were even fun to fight (which they typically aren't), around stage 26. Nothing interesting is ever done with the hostages you want to save, they are just sitting around waiting to be saved, there is no threat to them, no timed deaths, no real issue even if they do die from you killing them other than a slightly different ending. Even when the enemy variety is better and the stages become more interesting you are still doing the same thing over and over and with how long it took to get to the second half of the game I was just wanting it to end, keeping the slightly higher quality of the gameplay from making much of a difference at that point. As there can often be points where something narrative wise might only happen over other level it would have felt like a much better experience if about 1/3 of the stages had been cut.
There is a dull weightlessness to the combat where bullets hit enemies until they die and rarely feel like they did anything until that moment, you can take a massive hit that takes off 60+% of your health and not even know you got hit unless you look at your healthbar, the stake melee attacks are powerful damage wise but there is no visceral satisfaction for hitting an enemy with one. The entire Max Payne style gameplay of using a slow-motion toggle, diving, rolling, etc is almost entirely pointless due to the boring melee focused enemies and how you move with where the reticle is in relation to your body always makes aiming a bit awkward. Rolling becomes more useful about 27 stages in when there are some enemies with AoE attacks you can try to roll out of the way off but you never really want to dive into a room in slow motion shooting things because it isn't practical with these kinds of enemies and isn't even fun due to lack of any real response to your shots and lack of things like the killcam Max Payne games had. The only positive thing I can say for the gameplay is that there are great difficulty settings where you can alter anytime you start a new game or continue your current one, you can give yourself infinite ammo and stakes, change the speed, change how much slow motion time you have, change enemy and weapon damage, enemy health, etc and from playing on the base settings for 35 stages when I realized it was never going to become remotely enjoyable and I gave myself infinite stakes and ammo so I at least wouldn't be bothered with picking up supplies or needing to melee objects to try to find more stakes.
It's a game that I am glad that I played and will continue to think of in the future, especially now that the gameplay is over.
Has the annoying frequently found problem in PC titles where it doesn't disable your controller when using a keyboard and has no ability to turn off controller rumble, so if you keep a controller plugged in you will likely want to unplug it.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1784465308822237639
El Paso, Elsewhere is visually similar to a Playstation era title with the movement and controls of the first two Max Payne titles with some of the colors and environment styles that can feel like you are playing Control. The story involves your character entering a motel to stop his ex, the lord of vampires, from destroying the world. He believes his addictions as well as the battles themselves will lead to his death. As you enter an elevator you are transported to the void and are slowly lowered down where floor after floor you must fight through an area while attempting to rescue people who have been captured to be used as sacrifices. As you your journey goes on the environments shift from the motel to areas that were important to your ex's life and some by extension important to your life. Memories of both your lives are discussed with entities you meet, each other, and can be further expanded on by finding projectors in stages themselves. Radios are also scattered around with often humorous stories or references to noir style monologue filled with increasingly ridiculous metaphors. The visual style and writing are the highlights of the game and can make it worth playing on their own merits. Though another issue is that it takes about 1/3 of the game for that writing to go beyond just being entertaining to reaching that next level.
The problems with the game come from the dull enemies that don't fit with the Max Payne bullet time style gameplay. That there are 50 stages and you only start to see more interesting things around 20 stages in. You are only given enough enemy variety for combat to be interesting and a bit varied, if the enemies were even fun to fight (which they typically aren't), around stage 26. Nothing interesting is ever done with the hostages you want to save, they are just sitting around waiting to be saved, there is no threat to them, no timed deaths, no real issue even if they do die from you killing them other than a slightly different ending. Even when the enemy variety is better and the stages become more interesting you are still doing the same thing over and over and with how long it took to get to the second half of the game I was just wanting it to end, keeping the slightly higher quality of the gameplay from making much of a difference at that point. As there can often be points where something narrative wise might only happen over other level it would have felt like a much better experience if about 1/3 of the stages had been cut.
There is a dull weightlessness to the combat where bullets hit enemies until they die and rarely feel like they did anything until that moment, you can take a massive hit that takes off 60+% of your health and not even know you got hit unless you look at your healthbar, the stake melee attacks are powerful damage wise but there is no visceral satisfaction for hitting an enemy with one. The entire Max Payne style gameplay of using a slow-motion toggle, diving, rolling, etc is almost entirely pointless due to the boring melee focused enemies and how you move with where the reticle is in relation to your body always makes aiming a bit awkward. Rolling becomes more useful about 27 stages in when there are some enemies with AoE attacks you can try to roll out of the way off but you never really want to dive into a room in slow motion shooting things because it isn't practical with these kinds of enemies and isn't even fun due to lack of any real response to your shots and lack of things like the killcam Max Payne games had. The only positive thing I can say for the gameplay is that there are great difficulty settings where you can alter anytime you start a new game or continue your current one, you can give yourself infinite ammo and stakes, change the speed, change how much slow motion time you have, change enemy and weapon damage, enemy health, etc and from playing on the base settings for 35 stages when I realized it was never going to become remotely enjoyable and I gave myself infinite stakes and ammo so I at least wouldn't be bothered with picking up supplies or needing to melee objects to try to find more stakes.
It's a game that I am glad that I played and will continue to think of in the future, especially now that the gameplay is over.
Has the annoying frequently found problem in PC titles where it doesn't disable your controller when using a keyboard and has no ability to turn off controller rumble, so if you keep a controller plugged in you will likely want to unplug it.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1784465308822237639
Within the first ten minutes of this game I thought wow, this is gonna break my top 10, which is kind of insane. I think that was 60% 'right game right time' and 40% the game itself.
The real strengths of this game are the voice acting, story and pacing. The writing is incredibly compelling and the drip feeding of story works really well, just enough at each interval. I've seen some critique that the levels were a little repetitive, I can see why but didn't find this myself (maybe another case of right game right time).
My main issues with the game were the lack of difficulty progression throughout the game and the ending itself. I know you can change the difficulty (to an intense degree) but there seemed to be no development of difficulty once you'd started which was frustrating as the last few levels didn't really build to the ending. The ending itself was a little lacking for me, perhaps that was intended.
Ultimately a solid 4* from me but I diagnose a highly probable case of timing. Definitely worth playing, maybe when you're going through something.
The real strengths of this game are the voice acting, story and pacing. The writing is incredibly compelling and the drip feeding of story works really well, just enough at each interval. I've seen some critique that the levels were a little repetitive, I can see why but didn't find this myself (maybe another case of right game right time).
My main issues with the game were the lack of difficulty progression throughout the game and the ending itself. I know you can change the difficulty (to an intense degree) but there seemed to be no development of difficulty once you'd started which was frustrating as the last few levels didn't really build to the ending. The ending itself was a little lacking for me, perhaps that was intended.
Ultimately a solid 4* from me but I diagnose a highly probable case of timing. Definitely worth playing, maybe when you're going through something.
Too much wasted potential on a repetitive and boring Max Payne inspired game that i had to leave because it wasnt well optimized. Even though, the story and voice acting is incredible and its the only thing that made me keep playing it.
why does the rap music portion of the soundtrack mostly sound like the trying to fuck megatron song
played this through for the distinct locales and stylishly framed between-level-cutscenes
nails a couple of scenes relating to abusive relationships that could have easily whiffed entirely
ultimately, i'd much rather play stuff like this; that tries new stuff, even if it (imo) misses more than it lands
because gameplay is flat and fails to convince me that max payne / hotline miami (clear influences) works vs mainly melee enemies
a typical level (there are 50) consists of: enter room; slow down time; click enemy heads with pistols (rarely need to bother with anything else other than a few rifle shots) before it aggros/attacks; end level. something like this https://streamable.com/vjyhz5, with bosses also struggling to shake things up https://streamable.com/50g1lg
difficulty emerges in the form of placing enemies behind blind corners, where they'll chunk your health while you wrestle the janky reticle into working up close
i feel like there's a game half as long, taking itself half as seriously, that really gets at what made it's inspirations tick: each room is a puzzle, you have limited but meaningful tools - how will you solve this room?
nails a couple of scenes relating to abusive relationships that could have easily whiffed entirely
ultimately, i'd much rather play stuff like this; that tries new stuff, even if it (imo) misses more than it lands
because gameplay is flat and fails to convince me that max payne / hotline miami (clear influences) works vs mainly melee enemies
a typical level (there are 50) consists of: enter room; slow down time; click enemy heads with pistols (rarely need to bother with anything else other than a few rifle shots) before it aggros/attacks; end level. something like this https://streamable.com/vjyhz5, with bosses also struggling to shake things up https://streamable.com/50g1lg
difficulty emerges in the form of placing enemies behind blind corners, where they'll chunk your health while you wrestle the janky reticle into working up close
i feel like there's a game half as long, taking itself half as seriously, that really gets at what made it's inspirations tick: each room is a puzzle, you have limited but meaningful tools - how will you solve this room?
Combat can be occasionally frustrating, but this game has a great, impactful story about toxic and abusive relationships.
The problem this game has is that it doesn't understand why the things it's aping are cool.
It claims to have been inspired by Hotline Miami for its combat, and these types of retro graphics games usually give up visual fidelity for gameplay, but you spend 80% of the game shooting the same basic enemy and the gameplay never reaches the frenetic highs of something like Hotline.
It clearly also takes inspiration from the noir genre and the hardboiled detective films of the 80s, but the writing here is so bad it sounds like parody. Every disgruntled word out of the protagonist sounds like sophomoric nonsense. It's like the writer didn't understand that Max Payne's name wasn't chosen because it sounded badass.
Finally, the music here is inspired by someone who likes to listen to rap for the beats. It's actually almost impressive how badly this game misinterprets the art it tries to emulate. It's a painfully long seven or eight hours to finish, and it's a functional product, but it's not worth playing for anyone outside of a Max Payne diehard who is curious about trying the dollar store version.
In summary,
"He's the one who likes all our pretty songs, and he
Likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun, but he
Knows not what it means"
It claims to have been inspired by Hotline Miami for its combat, and these types of retro graphics games usually give up visual fidelity for gameplay, but you spend 80% of the game shooting the same basic enemy and the gameplay never reaches the frenetic highs of something like Hotline.
It clearly also takes inspiration from the noir genre and the hardboiled detective films of the 80s, but the writing here is so bad it sounds like parody. Every disgruntled word out of the protagonist sounds like sophomoric nonsense. It's like the writer didn't understand that Max Payne's name wasn't chosen because it sounded badass.
Finally, the music here is inspired by someone who likes to listen to rap for the beats. It's actually almost impressive how badly this game misinterprets the art it tries to emulate. It's a painfully long seven or eight hours to finish, and it's a functional product, but it's not worth playing for anyone outside of a Max Payne diehard who is curious about trying the dollar store version.
In summary,
"He's the one who likes all our pretty songs, and he
Likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun, but he
Knows not what it means"
Incredible narrative and fun Max Payne-like gameplay. I just found myself disappointed if I finished a level and there was no cutscene to flesh out these characters more. Excited to see what Strange Scaffold does going forward!
De alguna manera, esto es una historia de amor. Un amor cruel, amargo, frío y abusivo. Uno que te arrastra a un infierno de recuerdos y autoconsciencia.
Y si vas a meterte en ese jardín, qué menos que aprender de los mejores, que para algo está ahí Remedy. No ha habido caras con texturas planas tan expresivas desde MGS ni bandas sonoras mejores desde Hotline Miami.
Y si vas a meterte en ese jardín, qué menos que aprender de los mejores, que para algo está ahí Remedy. No ha habido caras con texturas planas tan expresivas desde MGS ni bandas sonoras mejores desde Hotline Miami.
This is one of those games where I find putting a star rating on it feels... inaccurate? Incomplete. Much like my time with the game I suppose.
I've taught myself not to just power through and finish a game as maybe I would have a decade or more ago. So when my interest started to wane and I looked up how many chapters were left, it didn't help to learn I was only half way through. I pushed ahead a little more but hitting a brick wall of a boss fight, I decided to cut my losses. The gameplay is good, the story is good, and the music is great. Honestly, it's a good game and the people who are good at it will love it. It just is long without justifying that length and odd difficulty spikes on the "intended" settings.
I've taught myself not to just power through and finish a game as maybe I would have a decade or more ago. So when my interest started to wane and I looked up how many chapters were left, it didn't help to learn I was only half way through. I pushed ahead a little more but hitting a brick wall of a boss fight, I decided to cut my losses. The gameplay is good, the story is good, and the music is great. Honestly, it's a good game and the people who are good at it will love it. It just is long without justifying that length and odd difficulty spikes on the "intended" settings.
A simple and effective game with a not-so-simple and riveting story. More games like this, please.
EVERYBODY PUT YOUR HANDS UP
CAUSE THIS ICE CREAM MAN'S GONNA INSTRUCT
EVERYBODY GOOD EVERY DAY'S A FUN DAY
WHEN YOU GOT YOURSELF A
hUmAn SuNdAe
CAUSE THIS ICE CREAM MAN'S GONNA INSTRUCT
EVERYBODY GOOD EVERY DAY'S A FUN DAY
WHEN YOU GOT YOURSELF A
hUmAn SuNdAe
I was really unsure on whether I was liking the game or not. The combat felt fine, but the enemy design was not in line with its mechanics at all. Bullet time is damn near useless because every projectile enemy shoots explosives anyway so dodging those is a hail mary. Everything deals half your health or more so you either pick things off at a distance or circle strafe and get hit by jank collision damage anyway. Despite those issues I was still having fun enough. It felt like a roblox remake of Max Payne but it was still Max Payne and I like those games.
The story is weird. I don't like the protagonist. He's a sadboy drug addict like Max Payne but he's constantly giving reddit quips and talking about how good he is at killing things. Maybe my memory is fuzzy but Max Payne never said "Hell Yeaaaah!" after killing someone that was involved in murdering his entire family.
It was starting to work for me, the further it went. There's a really long cutscene about staying in an abusive relationship despite knowing it was bad for you because of the memory of a good time and it was starting to all come together. There's a cool intro to a boss fight, and then the fight was awful. Just a terrible, poorly thought out fight with telegraphs that are basically nonexistent. It was a fight so bad that it made me look back on the rest of the game and realize that if a game made me ask myself constantly if I was having fun or not, I wasn't having fun.
Also having your main char's VA narrate over the game constantly while the soundtrack is sung by the same VA and the sound effects from the monsters are also the same VA is one of the dumbest moves I think I've ever seen.
The story is weird. I don't like the protagonist. He's a sadboy drug addict like Max Payne but he's constantly giving reddit quips and talking about how good he is at killing things. Maybe my memory is fuzzy but Max Payne never said "Hell Yeaaaah!" after killing someone that was involved in murdering his entire family.
It was starting to work for me, the further it went. There's a really long cutscene about staying in an abusive relationship despite knowing it was bad for you because of the memory of a good time and it was starting to all come together. There's a cool intro to a boss fight, and then the fight was awful. Just a terrible, poorly thought out fight with telegraphs that are basically nonexistent. It was a fight so bad that it made me look back on the rest of the game and realize that if a game made me ask myself constantly if I was having fun or not, I wasn't having fun.
Also having your main char's VA narrate over the game constantly while the soundtrack is sung by the same VA and the sound effects from the monsters are also the same VA is one of the dumbest moves I think I've ever seen.
This game is literal perfection. The gameplay, inspired by Max Payne, merges everything perfectly. Every weapon has a utility. Every enemy is different enough to change your strategies and try different thing. Every level is a masterpiece. Every song kicks in at the perfect moments to create the perfect combat encounters to create the perfect experience. The story is top-tier and covers topics I haven't seen before in another game. Every single aspect of this game just lands so, so well. The characters, especially Savage, is just... Amazing. The performances are amazing. The writing and humor is amazing. It is scary how amazingly good this game is. I'm going to follow this company closely, because this game left me wanting so, so much more. Everyone should play this game.
El Paso, Elsewhere is a third-person dungeon-crawling shooter featuring a vampire hunter that chased his ex-girlfriend (who happens to be a vampire) into a void. The game's style, story, and characters are the absolute highlights and were able to carry me to the end. A gripping story of love, trauma, and the scars left behind. James as a character was especially great. The snippets of him reflecting in the elevator between levels were a great reward pairing nicely with the rather short in-and-out level design. Watching him slowly grow more restless the longer he spends in the void and seeing him forced to face the trauma of his past was fantastic stuff. The surreal aesthetic that the void conjures works well with the experience. Additionally, the gunplay is fun, with the slow-mo ability and head-shot damage doing a lot of heavy lifting in creating a satisfying loop.
My personal biggest issue with this game is the enemy variety and environments. The enemies that were there were solid, but there just wasn't enough variety for the length of the game. Shooting the same werewolves and shambling vampires gets pretty dull by the end. While I generally enjoyed the level design itself, the environments leaned heavily on reusing assets. While the reuse is explained and justified story-wise, it results in a rather large number of levels being visually indistinguishable from one another. That coupled with a lack of verticality in level design made many levels play out very similarly. Either rescue civilians or find the colored keys to progress. I think both of these issues would have had less impact if the game itself was tightened up in length. As much as I loved the story, the levels just didn't always do it for me and I was forcing myself to finish by the end.
Overall, this was a good time and the game's story and style charmed me. Just need some more variety and a tightened experience.
My personal biggest issue with this game is the enemy variety and environments. The enemies that were there were solid, but there just wasn't enough variety for the length of the game. Shooting the same werewolves and shambling vampires gets pretty dull by the end. While I generally enjoyed the level design itself, the environments leaned heavily on reusing assets. While the reuse is explained and justified story-wise, it results in a rather large number of levels being visually indistinguishable from one another. That coupled with a lack of verticality in level design made many levels play out very similarly. Either rescue civilians or find the colored keys to progress. I think both of these issues would have had less impact if the game itself was tightened up in length. As much as I loved the story, the levels just didn't always do it for me and I was forcing myself to finish by the end.
Overall, this was a good time and the game's story and style charmed me. Just need some more variety and a tightened experience.
A game heavily inspired by max payne that punishes the player when you dive (shootdodge).
I only played the first 4 or 5 levels, but it became clear that the easiest way to kill your enemies is to simply tap slow mo and pop them in head.
Trying to be flashier and diving while using slow mo is uneffective because it actually makes it harder to hit your enemies. Not to mention that the levels are quite small and if you dive, you will often hit a wall.
The enemies seem to lack attack animations, they just get close to you and you lose health.
The voice acting, soundtrack and mood of the game seemed quite interesting but the gameplay is highly disappointing for me
If you're looking for max payne 4, this is not it
I only played the first 4 or 5 levels, but it became clear that the easiest way to kill your enemies is to simply tap slow mo and pop them in head.
Trying to be flashier and diving while using slow mo is uneffective because it actually makes it harder to hit your enemies. Not to mention that the levels are quite small and if you dive, you will often hit a wall.
The enemies seem to lack attack animations, they just get close to you and you lose health.
The voice acting, soundtrack and mood of the game seemed quite interesting but the gameplay is highly disappointing for me
If you're looking for max payne 4, this is not it
When I started playing the game I read some of the reviews here and a lot of them point out how incredibly repetetive this game gets. I thought "but the game is super fun, how could this possibly get repetetive"
I had no idea just how repetetive this can get
I had no idea just how repetetive this can get
El Paso Elsewhere nails it's story, soundtrack, and tone with grace uncommon to an indie production. The game is a little too long, and the combat is a little stiff compared to it's obvious Max Payne inspirations, but it's quality shines through.
El Paso is a different kind of boomer shooter. Instead of taking Doom, Quake or Half-Life as inspiration it is a Max Payne clone with a twist. Instead of shooting gangsters and drug addicts in New York the player is put into the role of a guy that fell in love with a vampire queen. Too bad for him that his ex-girlfriend now wants to end the world with a dark ritual. So he has to descend into 50 dream-like levels and fight vampires and werewolves to save humanity.
The graphics are simple, even worse than Max Payne 1, but the artstyle is on point. The bizarre color palette and surroundings make for a great atmosphere. Regular ingame-cutscenes with fantastic voice acting and heavy-hearted writing add to the strong vibes of the game just as much as the original hip-hop soundtrack.
The gameplay is simple. There are 50 levels to go through, each of them built as a small labyrinth where the player has to find keys, rescue hostages and escape to an elevator to the next level. Most of the levels are easy enough to navigate. Don’t expect to get lost often or lose track of where to go. Visual clues and light pillars in the distance are easy to follow.
The game is played in a third-person-perspective and heavily relies on using bullet-time mechanics to quickly shoot enemies before they hit the player. Lost health can be replenished by painkillers. Enemy variety is quite solid with good encounter design. There are also plenty of weapons to choose from and the game features a unique melee mechanic. Melee is limited by wooden stakes which can be replenished by destroying furniture.
I agree with everyone saying that the game can be repetitive. But I think the playtime of around eight hours is still completely fine. Just don’t expect to do that in two or three sittings. I preferred playing the game over several weeks in short bursts but enjoyed every minute of it.
The graphics are simple, even worse than Max Payne 1, but the artstyle is on point. The bizarre color palette and surroundings make for a great atmosphere. Regular ingame-cutscenes with fantastic voice acting and heavy-hearted writing add to the strong vibes of the game just as much as the original hip-hop soundtrack.
The gameplay is simple. There are 50 levels to go through, each of them built as a small labyrinth where the player has to find keys, rescue hostages and escape to an elevator to the next level. Most of the levels are easy enough to navigate. Don’t expect to get lost often or lose track of where to go. Visual clues and light pillars in the distance are easy to follow.
The game is played in a third-person-perspective and heavily relies on using bullet-time mechanics to quickly shoot enemies before they hit the player. Lost health can be replenished by painkillers. Enemy variety is quite solid with good encounter design. There are also plenty of weapons to choose from and the game features a unique melee mechanic. Melee is limited by wooden stakes which can be replenished by destroying furniture.
I agree with everyone saying that the game can be repetitive. But I think the playtime of around eight hours is still completely fine. Just don’t expect to do that in two or three sittings. I preferred playing the game over several weeks in short bursts but enjoyed every minute of it.
I came for the Max Payne style gunplay. Stayed for the raw emotional story about abuse and the trauma that comes with it.
I'm incredibly impressed with what is for offer here. The writing, voice acting and visual design all adds a sort of texture to the story. A human tale of one miserable breakup between two people coated in an end of the world style flair. The real shine comes from the impressive camera direction in cutscenes. Most of them take place in the same location but the level of creativity on display make that location feel rich, constantly shifting the tone from safety to suffering.
The gunplay is strong but does have some content pacing problems. New enemies and weapons show up at odd intervals leading to long stretches without anything new to offer. However, due to the short length of the game it's less of a deal breaker and more of a noticeable blemish. The enemies all showcase specific weapon weaknesses, which is good to keep the players switching from old reliable. It's likely not going to be the thing you remember this game for but it is still incredibly entertaining to bullet time dive through a window. Just this time it will involve werewolves in a bathroom.
I really recommend you check this one out. It's another great example that we don't need photorealistic AAA graphics to tell an impactful and moving story.
I'm incredibly impressed with what is for offer here. The writing, voice acting and visual design all adds a sort of texture to the story. A human tale of one miserable breakup between two people coated in an end of the world style flair. The real shine comes from the impressive camera direction in cutscenes. Most of them take place in the same location but the level of creativity on display make that location feel rich, constantly shifting the tone from safety to suffering.
The gunplay is strong but does have some content pacing problems. New enemies and weapons show up at odd intervals leading to long stretches without anything new to offer. However, due to the short length of the game it's less of a deal breaker and more of a noticeable blemish. The enemies all showcase specific weapon weaknesses, which is good to keep the players switching from old reliable. It's likely not going to be the thing you remember this game for but it is still incredibly entertaining to bullet time dive through a window. Just this time it will involve werewolves in a bathroom.
I really recommend you check this one out. It's another great example that we don't need photorealistic AAA graphics to tell an impactful and moving story.
cool story and aesthetic but everything else is lackluster
This review contains spoilers
"the thing that i am is broken"
I love this line, despite being surrounded by monsters and vampires, James can't accept his humanity, despite being the only human he's come close to in years...
the writing is incredibly, fantastic music and genuinely a scarily deep story surrounding abusive relationships and vampires...
I love this line, despite being surrounded by monsters and vampires, James can't accept his humanity, despite being the only human he's come close to in years...
the writing is incredibly, fantastic music and genuinely a scarily deep story surrounding abusive relationships and vampires...
Um jogo interessantíssimo que leva muita bagagem de Max Payne, porém com vampiros, lobisomens e fantoches. Mas por trás desse tiroteio massivo, esconde uma história sobre abusos, toxicidade e más escolhas.
O gameplay e combate são simples, porém são eficazes dentro da construção do jogo. Entretanto, por ele ter essa simplicidade, o jogo deveria ser bem menor. Eu terminei com umas 7 horas, e realmente me pareceu esticado, com alguns capítulos que não avançavam na história e pareciam só encher linguiça. O jogo também não possui muitos tipos de inimigos diferentes, acredito que uns 6, mas com suas variações vai pra uns 10, o que é bem curto para um jogo que tu faz basicamente a mesma coisa o tempo inteiro.
O que acaba criando esse gap grande pra mim entre ele e Max Payne, é que no jogo da Remedy, você está seguindo uma narrativa condensada, com um esqueleto pré-estabelecido. Aqui, seu personagem tem o objetivo principal, mas vão acontecendo coisas que não parecem ter muito impacto na história, acabando não te deixando tão empolgado para dar sequência e descobrir mais; com isso, sobra somente seu gameplay. Que repito, é divertido e funcional, porém acaba ficando nisso pelo seu tamanho alongado.
De qualquer forma, El Paso, Elsewhere cumpre seu papel como um shooter divertido, mas com uma temática super pesada (e bem atuada!) de sua narrativa principal.
Nota: 3,7/5.0
O gameplay e combate são simples, porém são eficazes dentro da construção do jogo. Entretanto, por ele ter essa simplicidade, o jogo deveria ser bem menor. Eu terminei com umas 7 horas, e realmente me pareceu esticado, com alguns capítulos que não avançavam na história e pareciam só encher linguiça. O jogo também não possui muitos tipos de inimigos diferentes, acredito que uns 6, mas com suas variações vai pra uns 10, o que é bem curto para um jogo que tu faz basicamente a mesma coisa o tempo inteiro.
O que acaba criando esse gap grande pra mim entre ele e Max Payne, é que no jogo da Remedy, você está seguindo uma narrativa condensada, com um esqueleto pré-estabelecido. Aqui, seu personagem tem o objetivo principal, mas vão acontecendo coisas que não parecem ter muito impacto na história, acabando não te deixando tão empolgado para dar sequência e descobrir mais; com isso, sobra somente seu gameplay. Que repito, é divertido e funcional, porém acaba ficando nisso pelo seu tamanho alongado.
De qualquer forma, El Paso, Elsewhere cumpre seu papel como um shooter divertido, mas com uma temática super pesada (e bem atuada!) de sua narrativa principal.
Nota: 3,7/5.0
A pretty fun throwback to Max Payne, with some great voice acting and an intriguing story. Unfortunately, the enemy variety is really lacking and the game needed to be about half as long as it is because it is just a slog to get through after like 20 levels.
Really wanted to like this one, and there are some parts of it I do like - the broad brush strokes of the narrative, the soundtrack (sans the rapping; lyrics were too cringe for me lol) - but ultimately it felt easy, repetitive, hollow, and boring. Making most of the enemies in a Max Payne homage melee was not a good move, and there's way too many levels. You don't have to slo-mo or dive-dodge basically at all in this game, and in fact will actively hurt you in the boss fights as the roll-dodge is how you get away from the boss tracking. A strong effort for sure, but a weak outcome.
very fun but too long and repetitve, oh yeah and hard
A Max Payne inspired shooter with a gripping story told through artsy cutscenes with incredible voice acting, an absolute banger of a soundtrack and a creative PS1 inspired look? Count me the heck in.
The only issues are the performance on Xbox which makes outside areas play in 10 to 15 fps and the camera which isn't exactly made for the narrow spaces but obstructing things behind corners seems to be design decision, so it's not too bad.
The only issues are the performance on Xbox which makes outside areas play in 10 to 15 fps and the camera which isn't exactly made for the narrow spaces but obstructing things behind corners seems to be design decision, so it's not too bad.
A great game that should have been about a third shorter than it was.
"But here we are. At a hole in the fabric of everything that is. A hole I get to close. I don't have to wake up tomorrow, and wonder if I'm going to do the right thing again. James Savage, drug addict, gets to die good. What a mercy."
Dripping with Max Payne influence, El Paso, Elsewhere does maybe too good of an homage to that style game.
The constant motion abilities with gunplay and movement are good. It gets a bit dragged down by aiming mechanics that just feel slightly off though. Where the reticle is in relation to the camera placement just feels slightly off, so whenever I was aiming, I found it unnatural and like I was going to miss.
The game is a bit rough around the edges in a few places. Some of this is charming and really works for the style of game its going for. It's not able to overcome all of those rough spots, especially in regards to hit detection and clipping.
I found myself a few times getting stuck on something or getting stuck inside something. These of course would always happen in a wave of enemies, so I'd end up dying or in pretty rough shape when this would occur, making the whole experience a bit frustrating at times. Especially with the more common hit detection issues.
To just finish the bad stuff and get it all out of the way, the game is also way too long. The environments, the gunplay, the weapon and enemy variety, these are all pretty good in El Paso, Elsewhere, but because the game feels like it drags, some of these good factors get less impressive as the game goes on. Especially once the game stop introducing new enemies, new weapons and new environments.
There are good to great things with this game too. The music is fantastic, the weapon variety is nice, the enemy variety is as well, and the story is pretty good on top of it. The voiceover of our main character is also done very well.
El Paso, Elsewhere does a great job standing apart from its inspiration while feeling so similar to that Max Payne style gunplay and vibe. Some of the design choices from those games probably should've been left to that era. Minor frustrations and bigger ones drag the overall creative and interesting experience down which is a shame but this is a game worth trying if Max Payne style mechanics is something you enjoy. The story, the music, and overall experience should be enough to push through some of the issues.
The constant motion abilities with gunplay and movement are good. It gets a bit dragged down by aiming mechanics that just feel slightly off though. Where the reticle is in relation to the camera placement just feels slightly off, so whenever I was aiming, I found it unnatural and like I was going to miss.
The game is a bit rough around the edges in a few places. Some of this is charming and really works for the style of game its going for. It's not able to overcome all of those rough spots, especially in regards to hit detection and clipping.
I found myself a few times getting stuck on something or getting stuck inside something. These of course would always happen in a wave of enemies, so I'd end up dying or in pretty rough shape when this would occur, making the whole experience a bit frustrating at times. Especially with the more common hit detection issues.
To just finish the bad stuff and get it all out of the way, the game is also way too long. The environments, the gunplay, the weapon and enemy variety, these are all pretty good in El Paso, Elsewhere, but because the game feels like it drags, some of these good factors get less impressive as the game goes on. Especially once the game stop introducing new enemies, new weapons and new environments.
There are good to great things with this game too. The music is fantastic, the weapon variety is nice, the enemy variety is as well, and the story is pretty good on top of it. The voiceover of our main character is also done very well.
El Paso, Elsewhere does a great job standing apart from its inspiration while feeling so similar to that Max Payne style gunplay and vibe. Some of the design choices from those games probably should've been left to that era. Minor frustrations and bigger ones drag the overall creative and interesting experience down which is a shame but this is a game worth trying if Max Payne style mechanics is something you enjoy. The story, the music, and overall experience should be enough to push through some of the issues.