Arc Wars review

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Idontknow
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Arc Wars review

Post by Idontknow »

A game about mechas and stuff is a neat concept. Some guy in a suit breifed me about a mission, and I was hype. But then the game began and I was on a map with gridlines, flat trees, and gray fields populated by forlorn gray tetris blocks. All of this with a sad midi playing in the background like a dollar-store funeral dirge. You and your friends go around murdering defenseless scrublords by the bagful, destroy the factory (which looks the same afterwards?) and leave.

However, what follows is probably one of the best twists I've seen in an ohr game. A freaky monster kills you in the next map and... Surprise! You die and this becomes a game about hell! I'm really glad I played this game as soon as I saw mention of it, because the twist was totally out of left field.

From then on you play as Jeneth running and gunning through hell in an extremely surrealist Dante's inferno, but Virgil is replaced by the late Gene Ray. There's no real mechanical difference between this and the mechs, other than you don't have any bombs and there's no hero battle sprite anymore. The game is mostly a grindfest, which I suppose could be taken as either noobish design or intentionally making it grindy to make the player feel the agony of hell, but I have no idea whether it was one or the other. The actual maps of the seven layers of hell are big, sprawling labyrinths, and at least one person has had their game crash after viewing the minimap. The visuals of this game are pretty lousy for the most part, but they enhance the surreal feeling of the game.

If you like surrealism, reading letters from schizophrenics (Like this one dude who keeps sending letters to my workplace about how he's Hitler but like, a chill hitler, the father of Lakshimi, and I'm the President. He's awesome.) and conspiracy websites like Timecube, this game will be right up your alley. It's pretty nasty, but it was so bizarre and shocking it pulled me in and gave me an unforgettable experience. I mean, did you expect hell would be anything but nasty? I wanted to give this a 1 because it honestly isn't very fun to play but it's just so strange and memorable I had to give it at LEAST a 2. It's bad, but it's unlike anything I've ever played before, and after just the first session I was staring at my computer in total confusion, trying to make sense of what I just saw. Also the music is sorta cool.

Don't get me wrong, this game isn't any actual fun to play at all, and the debug keys are pretty much required. But it's an extremely memorable game, and an interesting experience at the very least.
Attachments
I love this monster's design
I love this monster's design
skotos0007.png (12.79 KiB) Viewed 2883 times
this line made me laugh a bit
this line made me laugh a bit
skotos0015.png (16.4 KiB) Viewed 2883 times
Is this a shrek reference?
Is this a shrek reference?
skotos0020.png (19.41 KiB) Viewed 2883 times
Good to see that even in hell there are girls willing to go all natural
Good to see that even in hell there are girls willing to go all natural
skotos0033.png (14.6 KiB) Viewed 2883 times
Working as intended!
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