As someone who just a couple months ago played through Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which originally released for the MSX back in 1990, seeing this in the most recent Humble Choice Bundle (November 22) was the cherry on top of what I found to be a great group of games.
Unmetal doesn't hide the inspiration it takes from that game, just look at the name of the game, but it also has references to other media, such as the TV shows "The A Team" and "MacGyver". As far as its presentation goes however, this game is all Metal Gear. The game tries to stand out by injecting a lot of humor into its storytelling. Does it work? Most of the time, it does.
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STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS
You play Jesse Fox, a simple man who gets arrested and put into a high-security prison for a crime he didn't commit. The story is told through narration by Jesse Fox, who is said to have escaped from imprisonment by the Soviets using a helicopter. He is shot down once he reaches Allied territory due to the fact that his helicopter belongs to the Soviets. He finds himself in an interrogation room and has to explain how he got into the situation he was in. And thus starts 8 hours of narrating the occurrences, which you as the player get to play through.
In the middle of your escape, you also uncover classified information about an "Operation Jerico" (sic), a terrorist plan involving nuclear warheads. You uncover more and more about it and have to aid a certain Colonel Harris in stopping certain disaster for all of humanity.
Now the important part to keep in mind about all of this is that every bit of storytelling is drenched in humor.
I'd say, in a positive way, that the game fails a lot, but it succeeds just as often. And that's where you will probably find out whether this game is for you or not. The game certainly won't hit everyone's humor, and definitely not on a regular basis. Yet, the gameplay is regularly interrupted by the narration by Jesse Fox, making it an essential part of the playthrough.
While the game is unapologetically Metal Gear, these two points is where it differentiates itself, for better and worse: A ridiculous storyline that is not to be taken too seriously, and a higher ratio of storytelling to gameplay.
Jesse Fox narrates the whole thing, and the way he remembers the events is not always going to be realistic. For example, every guard in the game is called "Mike", probably because Jesse is bad at remembering names.
Or for the boss fights, Jesse Fox has to fight a tank, a submarine and an octopus of sorts.
I thought this kind of exaggeration was fine and humorous, but some might of you will not be as lenient as me with the sort of edgy humor this game upholds for its entirety, though some of the repetitive jokes never landed at best and got slightly annoying at worst.
What the game does really well however is incorporate the player into its jokes. For example, on one level you need to pass through an area where fire comes up from the ground for a few seconds at a time. When you go through the area slowly but surely and reach the end, Jesse revels in his zen-like patience and great skill, only for the sergeant who interviews him to ask "couldn't you just have put on your thermal suit and run through the fire?". This is the player's fault for not figuring out, but makes Jesse look bad.
There are also a bunch of sections where the player can choose what kind of obstacles Jesse will face. Were there "no rats" or "a ton of rats" in the sewers? Does the octopus have 2, 4 or 6 tentacles? The answers don't always are what they seem to be and funny scenarios play out depending on what you choose.
The game is much more clever in its execution than I would have thought and despite its shortcomings as far as a lack of
a gripping storyline or a lack of interesting side characters goes, it does mix it up enough and is funny enough for me to have enjoyed it.
GAMEPLAY
In this pixelated 2D stealth game, you need to find a way to escape to freedom. This means using stealth, first off. This also means solving puzzles by using the correct items at the right places. If necessary, you need to combine the items in your inventory to create the correct one. For example, a circuit and an unencrypted radio make an encrypted radio.
And finally, this means getting into fist or gun fights, especially with bosses, of which there are plenty in the games 10 chapters.
The game does a good job of introducing new gameplay elements constantly, like different weapons, different gadgets, different means of traversal etc.
As far as stealth mechanics go, the game leaves a bit to be desired, as there aren't a lot of ways you can approach stealth. You mainly hide and try to stay out of the guards view, but really, the only way to do that is to simply stay behind a wall. Apart from coins there aren't any meaningful ways to distract enemies, there is no crouching, no moving stuff around to block enemy vision, no ability to turn off cameras and alarms (unless the story requires it) and no reliable way to hide after triggering an alarm. About a dozen enemies quickly circle you in, all doors get locked and 3 shots kill you, so your best chance is to find a wall that hides from all angles and then just beat up all enemies one by one as they approach your hiding spot.
So while it says "stealth" in the description, it does fall flat here.
On the other hand, you do have the puzzles, but you also are incentivized to explore the entire maps to find reusable equipment like medkits, and one time use gear to get past certain sections. You will for example need night vision goggles to enter a dark dungeon.
Then there is the combat, which the game mostly discourages because Jesse Fox doesn't kill, but it becomes useful against machines and bosses, as mentioned.
Boss fights themselves are aplenty and most of them are pretty simple to figure out, at least on Normal difficulty. Instead of their difficulty, it's the absurdity that these boss fights would exist within the framework of the story that Jesse Fox tells, that make them notable.
One boss fight is also just simply a dialogue where you have to choose the correct options. This one took a lot of trial and error and whether you're happy with the outcome (if it takes you 5 tries like it did for me) depends on your style of humor. If you enjoyed the humor up to this point, you should like the outcome though.
Overall, I'd say the gameplay is OK to solid. As I mentioned in the Storytelling part, there is a lot of back and forth between narrative and gameplay parts, so whether you enjoy your time here will depend on whether you like the humor just as much, if not more so. If you do, the gameplay does just enough to keep you invested.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Voice acting is good, though most enemies have the same voice actor. I'm guessing for budgetary reasons? They've done a good job of making a joke out of it by calling all guards Mike.
I'm listening the OST right now and there are some good tracks in here. Some feel inspired by Metal Gear as well. It sounds like your typical stealth game soundtrack, though I feel like a bit more timid than it needs to be. Some of the tracks could have definitely been more aggressive to increase tension.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
As someone who played Metal Gear 2 from 1990 before this, I can obviously appreciate the jump in graphical quality where others would say that the game is a simple, pixelated 2D game. I'd say it looks relatively good graphically for the type of game it wants to be. Technological advancements obviously allow it to standout just in its color use compared to a game like Metal Gear 2. As far as creativity goes, I enjoyed how the devs decided to drop Jesse Fox into an empty level and then have Jesse talk all the details into existence. The level would be filled with everything Jesse would say.
ATMOSPHERE
This game feels like a less serious Metal Gear game, so mission accomplished in that regard. It doesn't stand out in this regard otherwise.
CONTENT
10 Chapters, 8-12 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough depending on difficulty, enough content to have you find new things in a second playthrough. There are a couple chapters that drag on, but all provide something new and aren't there for filler reasons. The length of the game is also very suitable for a game of its style, an hour or two could have easily been shaved off to make it a more tight experience.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The game mixes things up by having multiple boss fights in a single chapter, while foregoing any boss fight in others. All chapters introduce new gameplay features and stay fresh enough to warrant their place in the game. Some levels and sections do become annoying at certain points though.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Very clever with some of the jokes and how it incorporates the player, plus a "choose your own adventure" style of giving options that do actually alter the outlook of levels are the two things the game does that make me want to call it "innovative" the most. Other than that, a bunch of stuff you've seen before and done better.
REPLAYABILITY
Definitely worth a second playthrough if you enjoyed your time with it. The game lets you change levels at multiple stages and seeing what the other options do should make a second playthrough viable. You can change the difficulty and hunt some optional challenges the game offers as well. The narrative as a whole doesn't change however.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I think you figured out where I stand on this game overall and to whom I'd recommend it. It has fine gameplay that was very fun at times, enjoyable enough for the most part and dragged on here and there. Whether you have the motivation to stick with it however will depend on how funny you find the game, or how much of its humor you can tolerate. There have been games that I have abandoned because the gameplay wasn't enough to keep me through bad humor in my opinion (Borderlands series) but this wasn't one of them.
I didn't laugh out loud a lot, but I did a few times, which is more than I can say for most games that incorporate jokes, and it got me exhaling out of my nose a few times. I'd say check out the Announcement Trailer and go from there. As long as the humor works for you, the rest of the game will as well.
Unmetal doesn't hide the inspiration it takes from that game, just look at the name of the game, but it also has references to other media, such as the TV shows "The A Team" and "MacGyver". As far as its presentation goes however, this game is all Metal Gear. The game tries to stand out by injecting a lot of humor into its storytelling. Does it work? Most of the time, it does.
____________
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS
You play Jesse Fox, a simple man who gets arrested and put into a high-security prison for a crime he didn't commit. The story is told through narration by Jesse Fox, who is said to have escaped from imprisonment by the Soviets using a helicopter. He is shot down once he reaches Allied territory due to the fact that his helicopter belongs to the Soviets. He finds himself in an interrogation room and has to explain how he got into the situation he was in. And thus starts 8 hours of narrating the occurrences, which you as the player get to play through.
In the middle of your escape, you also uncover classified information about an "Operation Jerico" (sic), a terrorist plan involving nuclear warheads. You uncover more and more about it and have to aid a certain Colonel Harris in stopping certain disaster for all of humanity.
Now the important part to keep in mind about all of this is that every bit of storytelling is drenched in humor.
I'd say, in a positive way, that the game fails a lot, but it succeeds just as often. And that's where you will probably find out whether this game is for you or not. The game certainly won't hit everyone's humor, and definitely not on a regular basis. Yet, the gameplay is regularly interrupted by the narration by Jesse Fox, making it an essential part of the playthrough.
While the game is unapologetically Metal Gear, these two points is where it differentiates itself, for better and worse: A ridiculous storyline that is not to be taken too seriously, and a higher ratio of storytelling to gameplay.
Jesse Fox narrates the whole thing, and the way he remembers the events is not always going to be realistic. For example, every guard in the game is called "Mike", probably because Jesse is bad at remembering names.
Or for the boss fights, Jesse Fox has to fight a tank, a submarine and an octopus of sorts.
I thought this kind of exaggeration was fine and humorous, but some might of you will not be as lenient as me with the sort of edgy humor this game upholds for its entirety, though some of the repetitive jokes never landed at best and got slightly annoying at worst.
What the game does really well however is incorporate the player into its jokes. For example, on one level you need to pass through an area where fire comes up from the ground for a few seconds at a time. When you go through the area slowly but surely and reach the end, Jesse revels in his zen-like patience and great skill, only for the sergeant who interviews him to ask "couldn't you just have put on your thermal suit and run through the fire?". This is the player's fault for not figuring out, but makes Jesse look bad.
There are also a bunch of sections where the player can choose what kind of obstacles Jesse will face. Were there "no rats" or "a ton of rats" in the sewers? Does the octopus have 2, 4 or 6 tentacles? The answers don't always are what they seem to be and funny scenarios play out depending on what you choose.
The game is much more clever in its execution than I would have thought and despite its shortcomings as far as a lack of
a gripping storyline or a lack of interesting side characters goes, it does mix it up enough and is funny enough for me to have enjoyed it.
GAMEPLAY
In this pixelated 2D stealth game, you need to find a way to escape to freedom. This means using stealth, first off. This also means solving puzzles by using the correct items at the right places. If necessary, you need to combine the items in your inventory to create the correct one. For example, a circuit and an unencrypted radio make an encrypted radio.
And finally, this means getting into fist or gun fights, especially with bosses, of which there are plenty in the games 10 chapters.
The game does a good job of introducing new gameplay elements constantly, like different weapons, different gadgets, different means of traversal etc.
As far as stealth mechanics go, the game leaves a bit to be desired, as there aren't a lot of ways you can approach stealth. You mainly hide and try to stay out of the guards view, but really, the only way to do that is to simply stay behind a wall. Apart from coins there aren't any meaningful ways to distract enemies, there is no crouching, no moving stuff around to block enemy vision, no ability to turn off cameras and alarms (unless the story requires it) and no reliable way to hide after triggering an alarm. About a dozen enemies quickly circle you in, all doors get locked and 3 shots kill you, so your best chance is to find a wall that hides from all angles and then just beat up all enemies one by one as they approach your hiding spot.
So while it says "stealth" in the description, it does fall flat here.
On the other hand, you do have the puzzles, but you also are incentivized to explore the entire maps to find reusable equipment like medkits, and one time use gear to get past certain sections. You will for example need night vision goggles to enter a dark dungeon.
Then there is the combat, which the game mostly discourages because Jesse Fox doesn't kill, but it becomes useful against machines and bosses, as mentioned.
Boss fights themselves are aplenty and most of them are pretty simple to figure out, at least on Normal difficulty. Instead of their difficulty, it's the absurdity that these boss fights would exist within the framework of the story that Jesse Fox tells, that make them notable.
One boss fight is also just simply a dialogue where you have to choose the correct options. This one took a lot of trial and error and whether you're happy with the outcome (if it takes you 5 tries like it did for me) depends on your style of humor. If you enjoyed the humor up to this point, you should like the outcome though.
Overall, I'd say the gameplay is OK to solid. As I mentioned in the Storytelling part, there is a lot of back and forth between narrative and gameplay parts, so whether you enjoy your time here will depend on whether you like the humor just as much, if not more so. If you do, the gameplay does just enough to keep you invested.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Voice acting is good, though most enemies have the same voice actor. I'm guessing for budgetary reasons? They've done a good job of making a joke out of it by calling all guards Mike.
I'm listening the OST right now and there are some good tracks in here. Some feel inspired by Metal Gear as well. It sounds like your typical stealth game soundtrack, though I feel like a bit more timid than it needs to be. Some of the tracks could have definitely been more aggressive to increase tension.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
As someone who played Metal Gear 2 from 1990 before this, I can obviously appreciate the jump in graphical quality where others would say that the game is a simple, pixelated 2D game. I'd say it looks relatively good graphically for the type of game it wants to be. Technological advancements obviously allow it to standout just in its color use compared to a game like Metal Gear 2. As far as creativity goes, I enjoyed how the devs decided to drop Jesse Fox into an empty level and then have Jesse talk all the details into existence. The level would be filled with everything Jesse would say.
ATMOSPHERE
This game feels like a less serious Metal Gear game, so mission accomplished in that regard. It doesn't stand out in this regard otherwise.
CONTENT
10 Chapters, 8-12 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough depending on difficulty, enough content to have you find new things in a second playthrough. There are a couple chapters that drag on, but all provide something new and aren't there for filler reasons. The length of the game is also very suitable for a game of its style, an hour or two could have easily been shaved off to make it a more tight experience.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The game mixes things up by having multiple boss fights in a single chapter, while foregoing any boss fight in others. All chapters introduce new gameplay features and stay fresh enough to warrant their place in the game. Some levels and sections do become annoying at certain points though.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Very clever with some of the jokes and how it incorporates the player, plus a "choose your own adventure" style of giving options that do actually alter the outlook of levels are the two things the game does that make me want to call it "innovative" the most. Other than that, a bunch of stuff you've seen before and done better.
REPLAYABILITY
Definitely worth a second playthrough if you enjoyed your time with it. The game lets you change levels at multiple stages and seeing what the other options do should make a second playthrough viable. You can change the difficulty and hunt some optional challenges the game offers as well. The narrative as a whole doesn't change however.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I think you figured out where I stand on this game overall and to whom I'd recommend it. It has fine gameplay that was very fun at times, enjoyable enough for the most part and dragged on here and there. Whether you have the motivation to stick with it however will depend on how funny you find the game, or how much of its humor you can tolerate. There have been games that I have abandoned because the gameplay wasn't enough to keep me through bad humor in my opinion (Borderlands series) but this wasn't one of them.
I didn't laugh out loud a lot, but I did a few times, which is more than I can say for most games that incorporate jokes, and it got me exhaling out of my nose a few times. I'd say check out the Announcement Trailer and go from there. As long as the humor works for you, the rest of the game will as well.