Wow. This game goes on way too long with too much repetition. It was neat for a bit to see a Max Payne-like, but boy did that wear thin. The saving grace to this game though, you can set damage you take to 0 and have infinite ammo.
Throughout the entire game I wondered if the dive button was really only there because, well, Max Payne had a dive button and this game is clearly, unashamedly inspired by Max Payne. But the thing is, the dive button works when you dive between a hail of bullets fired at you by stereotypical mobsters yelling "IT'S PAAAAYYNE" and less so when you jump headfirst into a wall while 3 ghouls charge at you. 95% of the time diving just puts you at a severe disadvantage in a game that really isn't that challenging to begin with.
The writing and voice acting are well done but the "bit" gets a bit tiring after a while. I also feel like the whole "my ex girlfriend tries to end the world" part just really doesn't work with the actual personal story they want to tell. Something more small scale would've worked far better here for me. It's pretty hard to feel anything for her seeing how she kidnaps "innocents" to sacrifice them to end the world. So the whole "James, am I a monster" can really only be answered with an emphatic "yes, absolutely you are".
Overall the game is good, helped a lot by a great soundtrack that really carries a lot of the levels. It just gets repetitive after a while as the game clearly runs out of ideas.
The writing and voice acting are well done but the "bit" gets a bit tiring after a while. I also feel like the whole "my ex girlfriend tries to end the world" part just really doesn't work with the actual personal story they want to tell. Something more small scale would've worked far better here for me. It's pretty hard to feel anything for her seeing how she kidnaps "innocents" to sacrifice them to end the world. So the whole "James, am I a monster" can really only be answered with an emphatic "yes, absolutely you are".
Overall the game is good, helped a lot by a great soundtrack that really carries a lot of the levels. It just gets repetitive after a while as the game clearly runs out of ideas.
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
A sort of boomer shooter take on Max Payne, though actually the graphics are even more of a throwback than its inspiration. But the diving and slow motion mechanics are definitely from MP. However this game is much, much more focused on melee enemies, which means you never really need to dodge enemy projectiles. It's more that you slow down time so you can assess what kinds of enemies you're up against, prioritize accordingly and then select appropriate weapons. e.g., angels and witches/brides are a priority because they do ranged, area of effect damage. Automatic weapons or the rifle are good for the former, but a headshot with the handgun suffices for the latter. Then you want to deal with the werewolves, because their leap attack lets them swiftly close the distance. Then you deal with the ghoul/vampires, who will get into range much more slowly, and finally switch to the shotgun to dispatch the animated suits of armor, who do huge damage but often will stay perfectly still until you trigger them.
So all very fun, but finally not very difficult except for rare scenarios where you are up against large numbers of enemies. And even then, it's only challenging the first time, because the second time through you know the enemy placement and can prioritize better.
Still, the feeling of mastery from slowing down time and then efficiently dispatching a roomful of enemies with a half-dozed perfect headshots doesn't really get old. Also, kudos on good monster design that makes the enemy weakpoints easy to target, even in poor lighting. It also helps that the levels are so short, which keeps the pace fast and stops the game from dragging. And it's impressive that at 50 levels, the game doesn't quite outstay its welcome, though I was about done with it.
The visuals are extremely cool, and it's impressive what they can achieve with the low poly count and not excessive visual effects. The music works, too, getting your blood pumping for particularly exciting rooms.
The boss fights are a mixed bag. You repeatedly fight one enemy type where you have to shoot down 1/3 or 1/4 of their health bar and then stake them. That's clever, because it forces you to take some risks with melee combat, as staking is otherwise an "oh shit", get-out-of-jail-expensively card you play when you messed up and get cornered. But in practice, there's usually a narrow or low doorway nearby that the huge boss model will get stuck on, so it's easy to cheese about 3/4s of the Burned Man's appearances.
The boss midway through (on level 25 or 30 or so) is a HUGE difficulty spike (or maybe I'm just terrible and failed to learn its attack patterns). Even the endboss was not nearly as hard.
Last thing I'll note is that while I admire the game's commitment to its tone and themes, I did find that the slightly overwritten melodramatic style was wearing thin by the end. Also, the bulk of the game is about a bad relationship, and the theme of addiction that emerges in the last few cutscenes and levels is somewhat underdeveloped.
So all very fun, but finally not very difficult except for rare scenarios where you are up against large numbers of enemies. And even then, it's only challenging the first time, because the second time through you know the enemy placement and can prioritize better.
Still, the feeling of mastery from slowing down time and then efficiently dispatching a roomful of enemies with a half-dozed perfect headshots doesn't really get old. Also, kudos on good monster design that makes the enemy weakpoints easy to target, even in poor lighting. It also helps that the levels are so short, which keeps the pace fast and stops the game from dragging. And it's impressive that at 50 levels, the game doesn't quite outstay its welcome, though I was about done with it.
The visuals are extremely cool, and it's impressive what they can achieve with the low poly count and not excessive visual effects. The music works, too, getting your blood pumping for particularly exciting rooms.
The boss fights are a mixed bag. You repeatedly fight one enemy type where you have to shoot down 1/3 or 1/4 of their health bar and then stake them. That's clever, because it forces you to take some risks with melee combat, as staking is otherwise an "oh shit", get-out-of-jail-expensively card you play when you messed up and get cornered. But in practice, there's usually a narrow or low doorway nearby that the huge boss model will get stuck on, so it's easy to cheese about 3/4s of the Burned Man's appearances.
The boss midway through (on level 25 or 30 or so) is a HUGE difficulty spike (or maybe I'm just terrible and failed to learn its attack patterns). Even the endboss was not nearly as hard.
Last thing I'll note is that while I admire the game's commitment to its tone and themes, I did find that the slightly overwritten melodramatic style was wearing thin by the end. Also, the bulk of the game is about a bad relationship, and the theme of addiction that emerges in the last few cutscenes and levels is somewhat underdeveloped.
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