SELACO: Preview of a shooter in the spirit f.E.A.R.

The authors of the shooters love to send their audience to the safari by exotic worlds. Gamers made a rustle on Mars of Mars, in the underwater and airy cities, in Africa, in the Himalayas, on the neon island with bloody dragons in central roles. Nevertheless, the people, oddly enough, gravitate towards the battles in ordinary offices – all the same, where there are a lot of glass, computers are waiting for bullets to spark it beautifully, and it is so nice to color the walls in red colors. Thank you, Monolith Productions.

Nineteen years ago, the creators of Blood and No One Lives Forever released f.E.A.R. , Changing the idea of ​​the public about the militants from the first person. Today about a mystical thriller with elements “Matrices” and films John Wu (John Woo) legends are composed – not least because none of her heirs (including f.E.A.R. 2) never managed to repeat the success of a slightly monotonous, but such a delicious fps. In any case, until recently. At the end of May, for example, the retroexhen Selaco finally reached the early access, whose designers are as if on the covenants Monolith put destructive shootings with smart special forces at the forefront. Blood, explosions, parking lots, digging – it is immediately clear that fans did the new product! And although she is far from a full release, some experts have already recognized the child Alved Orbit Studios The brightest masterpiece of spring. Is it deserved?

Modest and ambitious

Before answering, it is necessary to figure out where the culprit of the celebration drew from and how at first glance the ordinary Indie Shuther attracted the attention of the public. This story began in a familiar way – with non -binding dreams.

Wesley de Vart (Wesley de Waart) was born in Amsterdam and, like millions of gamers, fell in love with young nails from young nails – all thanks to the father who introduced the boy to the world of demons and shotgun. De vart I gave it to the great game for many years: I went through it over and over again, created its own levels for it, and even drove the E1M1 countless times. However, at some point, the guy decided to move on-to leave behind someone else and do something of his.

The original plan Wesley He was quite modest: he just wanted to make a fashion processing (Total Conversion) masterpiece ID Software. Powering your brainchild Project Ominous, Game designer in 2017 began to work on the table. But the work went not as smoothly as the newcomer wanted. Over time, aplomb and enthusiasm were replaced by horror, self -digging, uncertainty in the project – it turned out to program modifications from scratch, and even in complete solitude, not very fun.

Fortunately, in 2020 de vart I met the writer Kennet Koggan (Kenneth Coghlan), and the word for the word has joined the development of a terrible FPS. Under the guidance of the screenwriter, the shooter transformed-lost elements of a tense horror, got rid of the clumsy title and eventually turned into a science fiction action about an underground city. Everything, except, perhaps, of the central element, went under the knife: exciting shootings inspired by the thriller F.E.A.R. – Another favorite of the duet.

Deciding on a vision, Wesley And Ken founded Alved Orbit Studios (abbreviated AOS). Like-minded people began to join the development, not only lovers, but also industry professionals (in the person of voice acting actors), ready to sacrifice time to create something beautiful. Their efforts, the modest modification of a self-taught craftsman grew into an independent work, whose impressive announcement was stirred up by the community of the Oldskul fans.

Seven years after the start of development SELACO finally came out-however, only in Early Access. The project was still far from completion (one episode from the planned three is presented in the current build), so it is too early for it to assess – and at the same time there is enough content in it to draw certain conclusions. It is not worth a hurry with recommendations, but the early version of the early version provided a lot – and, running forward, not every element works as well as we would like.

The attack of clones

In the distant future, humanity went to conquer the cosmos, colonize and equip distant worlds for a comfortable life. In the bowels of one of these celestial bodies, the best minds of the planet built “Selako”-a high-tech utopia city, the second house for earthlings. Instead, the metropolis was destined to become the last refuge for them: in 2248, a fatal flash in the sun caused a cataclysm, which quickly destroyed almost the entire surface of the earth. Most people left there died, the survivors began to slowly build the future among the stars, leaving no hope sooner or later return to their native lands.

A sudden invasion prevented the dreams of a better life: seven years after the great outcome, unknown people attacked a futuristic anthill, in a matter of hours turning his usually calm streets in the battlefield. And now, when the defenders of civilization fell, and the civilians scattered where, to stop the aliens can only be able to do the girl-Supercop Done Collins.

The appearance of the heroine varies from the artist to the artist, how can you see the arts in Steam, the main menu, the campaign itself and ..

… on the screen with the results that is shown after passing.

Remembered? Now throw it all out of your head, because the two previous paragraphs do not matter. Outside of the synopsis, the authors do not give any introductory, no textual background – the game simply begins. Dounced wakes up in the hospital, while some kind of turmoil is heard outside the door, and mysterious soldiers (judging by the voices) are systematically cleaned by the district from all living things. 30 seconds do not pass, the building shakes the explosion – and then, after leaving the chamber, more and more. The wiring sparkles on the ceiling, everywhere devastation, in the waiting room after the next cotton, people are burning and dying. Welcome to SELACO.

All this chaos serves as a prologue for the shooter, quickly introducing us with the basics of gameplay and the essence of the action movie. The first room is breaking from interactive objects: on a chest of drawers, a senwitch lies on the bed, which can be eaten;Two circuit breakers hang on the wall on the wall, responsible outside the window and lighting;Nearby is Mishka Wilson, whom nothing prevents me from picking up and carrying through half the campaign for one particularly boring achievement. The registry is allowed to poison the keyboards, poke in an automatic machine with soda, drink soda from the jar, having previously opened it with a delicious hiss. De vart And AOS They know that you need to make an impression right away.

Rooms are replete with an incredible amount of unique asses.

Opponents have a lot of death animations one more brutal than the other. The heads fall off, the insides fly apart, sometimes you can notice a torso crawling somewhere.

Dynamic lighting beautifully emphasizes the key elements of the decorations.

In the sauna, Vizza Douns fogs (for a moment we forget that the girl, actually, runs without a headgear).

By running a couple of minutes of wandering according to the hospital and running around from the villains in search of weapons, it comes to action, and Alved Orbit Studios goes against the traditions of the genre, instead of the usual pistol, the uninterge is handing the machine gun-and then he immediately throws a gamer into the thick of events, not even allowing to reload the find. How else to hint to the user that the battles are waiting for him in front?

The developers, however, do not give time to think about the game design. The explosion – and the door of the chamber bursts heavily into the room;From due to the smoke curtain, screams are reported that quickly drown in the sounds of shooting, and then dying moans. Dust scatter, exposing a couple of corpses and many, many pinkish-violet blood. This small skirmish is only a prelude, and after moments in the vastness of the destroyed hospital (and then the entire metropolis), cat mouse with the army of well-trained soldiers begins.

SELACO From the very announcement, compared with F.E.A.R., And now, in version 0.83, team AOS it was possible to strictly accurately recreate the spirit of the hit of 19 years ago. And the point is by no means in the delightful destruction of the environment that you can’t find in AAA-releases now-it adds charm, but only the second violin play the crumbling glasses and the paper flying away from bullets. Everything is simpler: from the first to the last action scene enemies behave cunningly and dangerous. Here they are trying to surround, relying on numerical superiority, and then, after the death of a couple of comrades, they begin to panic and slightly change the approach. Sensing that the heroine is injured, they are going on a counterattack, just to prevent her to catch her breath (she knows how to regenerate health, if it is below 35). When it smells fried, grenades and smoke bombs are used. Each battle is drawn to recall, and each time the events go according to a unique scenario, which, I admit, you do not wait for a shooter in 2024.

You can find a lot of information in the portable computer, but most often you have to look there for reading letters and studying new enemy tactics.

Shields that are interesting, remain hanging until the very end of the episode.

The tackle sends enemies to flight to the nearest wall and sometimes allows you to dodge the bullets.

Substates from f.E.A.R. it is right there – it pinns the villains to the wall, as in a classic. Plus, he now shoots at the speed of the machine gun.

Of course, de vart He did not dwell on the usual reconstruction of one of the main releases of the 2000s-he also decided to correct obvious shortcomings. For example, in order to compensate for the identity of the vast majority of opponents, the Invasion Tires mechanics was added to the new product: from time to time, the villains get special equipment, forcing to adapt, act a little different. Shields, assistant robots, leaders who strengthen their wards-every conceivable help is used, if only the fights are not bored closer to the finale.

Dounced is also not a defenseless sheep: the heroine has a whole arsenal at hand with many upgrades and types of alternative fire. Plus a girl dexterous and strong in itself. In other words, balance in SELACO quite curious – there are many enemies, they are dangerous and quickly “melt” health, if you act recklessly, but at the same time Gamer has so many chances to change the course of any fight in your favor that you never feel weak. This is partly why the battles are breathtaking: I want to take risks in them, and if you know how, then you will not be difficult to prevail over any detachment.

In addition to Steam-appropriations, the game has its own acerification, for the implementation of which they awarded with materials for craft. The tasks, however, are ingenuous and come down to “kill” yes “gather”.

In addition to a gentleman’s set of complexity levels in Selaco there are unique modifiers. Hardcore mode, for example, allows you to persist only in Gwen machine guns, where you can usually buy first -aid kit or take up a fist upgrade.

Almost every detail of the shooter can be configured for yourself. I don’t like Hud, miss ADS-filing, annoying the cross that means entering enemies? Everything is allowed to turn on-shutdown.

Simply put, as a shooter, as a collection of interactive rental, to clarify relations with aliens, the game causes genuine admiration. But, as is often the case with projects of small teams, Alved Orbit Studios I wanted more. In pursuit of an unattainable ideal, she added a lot of a mechanic, mini-games, content of different laddings to her creation … And on the way to perfection, she forgot that the best is the enemy of the good.

Busting

One of the most common problems of independent developers is that they poorly control their impulses: designers lose their heads, and in the hope of delighting gifted people begin to graphomaniacs in vain. SELACO – Illustration of what happens when the studio forgets to press the brakes.

Take, for example, the structure of the narrative: unlike F.E.A.R. or Doom With their clear division of levels and chapters, the campaign is arranged as Half-Life-the heroine moves along a linear route with loads in isolated corridors, spectacular scenes of the rooms destroying in the eyes and the mood of an interactive film-catastrophe. The move is logical, because the masterpiece of 1998 is famous for the dynamic narrative;Yes, there are enough hollows in the spirit of On a Rail, but Gordon Freeman is constantly walking forward, does not look back, falls into new situations-the path through the scientific and research complex “Black Meta” to the measurement of Zen is felt as a large, rich adventure. AOS I met the format meticarly … and then spoiled it, adding a back -bar and a secret counter to the equation.

There is an invasion to the city, but no one is in a hurry – Doon may return almost anywhere. The exception is one zone closer to the final, where there are no secrets. Of course, this is the best fragment of the action movie.

So that the search for hidden supplies does not drag out, a special cache sensor was added to the game. He does not make the weather.

Lutboxes! Since the currency is almost useless outside the hardcore regime, the game designers scattered according to the locations of the heels of such chests with accidentally generated supplies.

Epohereal work Valve For a quarter of a century, they dismantled from different sides – this is not just a spectacular action, but a powerful attraction. And in order to maintain the necessary pace, its authors used a number of tricks, one of which might seem in our time unobvious: the gamer, among other things, deliberately does not allow to move in the opposite direction too far. Although Gabe Newell (Gabe Newll) and his subordinates put household credibility at the forefront, they understood that there are no benefits from traveling back in a linear adventure without respawn. As well as they knew that an action movie with an accent on the plot, where the score goes on the watch, the search for secrets a la Doom It is not particularly needed – that is why no statistics of hiding places in Half-Life No. In other words, the method of trial and error Newell and to find out that in the name of integrity from other ideas and traditions, one should refuse.

IN Alved Orbit Studios This wisdom did not understand. Or they decided to sit on a dozen chairs – to pay tribute to both Duke Nukem 3D, and Half-Life, And F.E.A.R., and deus ex, although these are completely different works, the ideas of which are poorly combined with each other. The result was a clumorless shooter, which is playfully played at key points, but stubbornly contradicts itself.

This paradoxicality is easy to notice if you take your eyes off the enchanting shootings and throw it on anything – even to the structure of the campaign. How, you wanted to run and shoot at the special forces, that is, something in the spirit F.E.A.R.? In vain, please slow down and turn back every five minutes, scan every corner in search of a habar – you do not want to miss a precious upgrade! What is happening if you try to squeeze everything out of the episode, vividly evokes gag from the memory “Simpsons”.

Similarly awkwardly, things are with the script. The page in Steam pathetically promises the plot FPS, but without a hint of the existence of the narrative you will not guess: a barn -pound story without intelligible characters, conflicts and even a hint of drama is exposed only through the PPC lying under the feet. It is clear that AOS I hoped to make curtsy towards the System Shock dilogy, but, alas, it stepped on the same rake as the authors of Doom 3: I exchanged rare but important messages to a ton of meaningless rubbish from working correspondence. However, the comparison is slightly unjust: in the contradictory horror ID At least there is a central antagonist.

Trouble with the world SELACO. The metropolis was clearly planned to be made plausible, bright, intriguing. But in this case, what the hell on every third wall there are references to everything in a row, from the Trash-Kino of the 90s to modern YouTube bloggers and long-dried memes-T. e. foreign elements that interfere with immersion and only emphasize the artificiality of the scenery? Oh yes, because Caleb in Blood quoted horror tapes and visited the hotel from “Shine”, And Duke Nyukem every now and then rushed from phrases from “Empterian dead”. De vart And his colleagues then scribble dozens of dull letters with a claim to authenticity, then shems as a kid who had gone to the Internet.

There are a lot of mail in the game, but there is not enough good use from it. Apart from the codes from locks, they are conveniently allocated to save us from the need to leaf through another correspondence about a defective bear with the voice of YouTubeer Civvivie11.

An example of inconsistent attention to details: in the hospital you can turn beds, creating impromptu shelters. Cool, but there is nothing like this anywhere else – the tables and the like utensils are bolted to the floor. Even in f.E.A.R. 2 mechanics at least applied to refrigerators and cabinets.

And if individual elements from the classics can still be understood and accepted, attributed to a tribute to respect, then some ideas seemed to get out of the hat – such as, for example, preservations from Resident Evil . Why are they here is generally incomprehensible: to see, for the implementation of the backing, it was necessary to somehow issue a descent in the subway. I wish the designers would still have realized to put there chests for teleportation of objects, so that they did not have to personally carry objects through a straight line, like a gut, a campaign.

The interactive environment, which at first is seen by an indisputable dignity, also loses its effect and begins to seem frankly superfluous-yes, the paintings can be corrected, the light is given to turn on, but there is no sense from most of such details. It is nice that many objects function as appropriate, but there would be some kind of meaning in them: let’s say, darkness would have affected the accuracy of opponents. At some point, a strange suspicion is growing, as if a lot in SELACO conceived for likes and memes, as a poses for connoisseurs of beautiful little things. “Wow, here you can not only shoot your heads, but also arrange matches in a crooked air chocolate, there is pizza and save fish from aquarium, which is leaking according to the laws of physics!”

It is worth making a reservation that in the masterpieces on the Build engine there were also similar things – but there they simply created the illusion of the world and never pulled the blanket over themselves. Here the situation is exactly the opposite: Like everydays from Duke Nukem Forever, all this dust does not add strokes to the picture of the besieged city, but only distracts from the battle for it. Distracts no less than secrets that are reduced to dull construction of towers from office utensils in the hope of jumping to the next cache. Looks like this is also a reference – in this case, to immersive simulators like Deus Ex Or PREY .

At a secret level, the sequence of cleaning locations affects the number of obstacles in the remaining zones. Great idea, but sometimes the difference should be sought with a magnifier.

The vast majority of upgrades are direct improvements, so spending resources on rare disputed body kit does not make sense.

From time to time, opponents can be found by surprise, but about any likeness of stealth, even taking into account the muffler for sniper, there is no question. The blow with a fist in the back of the head, by the way, does not kill aliens.

There are very few memorable secrets in Selaco. Out of 150 pieces you can throw about a third and not lose anything.

The craving for adding unnecessary details was reflected, including on a sniper rifle, which mows the sentries without ordinary opponents and a shot and a shot does not take his head. The gun is already extremely useless for FPS with a lack of open spaces and dynamics F.E.A.R., But the authors went further and for some reason attached her to the mechanics of the bipods, which are activated if you stand in place near the shelter to the waist. What is the logic, how they complement the game design and the fighting sandbox?

It is sad that the Invasion Tier has been implemented-the game designers for some reason report an upgrade of enemies shortly before a direct meeting with them. It would seem that in this kind of thriller the surprises would be very useful, but no, each time before the shootout on the PDA comes the form “The engineers have a turrets, be ready!”. And if you do not read it, then it remains with an annoying red triangle hanging in the corner of the screen, hinting that there is some kind of setup again ahead. And this is all SELACO -The game first pleasantly surprises with the ideas and level of study of each little thing, and then it turns out that much is either done through a stump-column, or only a cornfield. Someone (for example, Civvie11) calls this approach “perfectionism”. But actually for creators with an absent sense of proportion, there is another term. Slightly less flattering, but eloquent.

You come to the finals of the first (and so far) episode of the “best shooter of 2024” with mixed feelings. It is difficult to lay them out on the shelves, because at first the novelty is impressive-the action scenes in it are absolutely luxurious and pull the campaign on their shoulders. Yes, with a balance of weapons, they took off in some places (a shotgun is unreliable and too slow by the standards F.E.A.R.), and the difficulty must be edited (the difference between Commander and Admiral is unexpectedly small), but to arrange a bloody ballet according to the second, third, hundredth time, even if you simply reboot the same long -cleaned segment. It is regrettable that everything else raises questions one way or another.

Tired of click on enemies? Click on the burgers!

In the current form, Selaco is like the work of a talented graphomaniac, who knows how to beautifully express thoughts, but does not know when he put an end to. It is better to wind up the revolutions and unreadable metaphors, scatter the impenetrable field of commas! Of course, the authors can still polish side mechanics, fill the back -river with meaning (or abandon it at all), turn a good action with the sea of ​​”water” into a whole action – early access for that exists.

In recent years, this is the third shooter in bluish-violet tones with a clever girl in the title role and a distinct raid of cyberpan. It’s a pity that far from the best. Despite the many technical bells and whistles, the ability to lower toilet paper into the toilet and jam burgers on the CPC, the project of the studio AOS inferior to the laconic Ion Fury and Siedered Steel, because it no longer means better.

A month after launch in “early access” AOS Pressed SELACO to version 0.84 (build 0.83E is still available in Steam settings). The team thoroughly overdue the campaign-in particular, a little strengthened the armor at the highest levels of complexity so that it did not “mel” too quickly during the shootings, moves some objects for the sake of the dynamics of the narrative, and also processed AI opponents (for example, ordinary soldiers now a littlemove more actively in battle, although the difference is hardly noticeable during bustle). Separate secrets, the existence of which used to be guessed only with the help of a special sensor, was redone, and now they are calmly “pairing” without third -party objects. And as a compensation for the temporary absence of New Game +, the Hard-Bilad modifier was added to the militant-it can be unlocked after passing the first chapter (retroactively, which is interesting, they do not give it).

The team also heard community claims to a shotgun and a sniper rifle. The first was supplied with a pair of upgrades that compensate for his slowness, the second can now calm the ordinary enemies with a shot in the head – for this, however, it is necessary to move away from the villains, t. To. Damage is calculated depending on the distance (no 360 No Scope!). Other types of weapons also acquired new modifications, and Dash of the main character equipped I-Frame’s, with whom it is much easier to dodge the hail of bullets.

The density of smoke can now be adjusted in the graphics settings.

Thanks to the patch, the discovered secrets and not yet selected upgrades can be seen on the map – they have their own icons.

There are a lot of amendments, and different ones (in some aspects, the game has become a little more difficult), but the global problems indicated in the material did not disappear. Yes, SELACO It became more convenient, a little more honest, a couple of extra “mutants” were brought in it for connoisseurs of hardcore, but this is still a slightly slurred shooter from the certainly talented, but confused in their own ambitions of the fans of the genre. We continue observation.https://betfredcasino.es/