The idea behind Metal: Hellsinger is easy sufficient: marry the traditional shooter gunplay of DOOM with a rhythm sport. And developer The Outsiders completely nail this ingredient of its sport: the gunplay feels incredible. Shooting, dodging, biking weapons, all of it feels nice. You can do nearly every thing within the sport to the rhythm of every stage’s tune, and also you get bonus factors, in addition to bonus harm, for holding in time to the music.

All of the music has a definite drum beat that’s straightforward to maintain observe of whereas within the warmth of battle, and every stage encompasses a visitor vocalist from some fairly well-known bands, corresponding to Trivium and System of a Down. The songs begin with primary drum beats, including layers of vocals, guitars, and so forth as your combo meter goes up. It’s a very nice contact, and the implementation is seamless. The music is the actual star, because the threadbare narrative is tucked into bland cutscenes that bookend every stage.

The cracks begin to present up while you look past the core gameplay. The title doesn’t do something poorly per se, however every thing comes throughout as barebones. The environments throughout all eight ranges blur collectively and have comparable color grading with uninteresting stage design. Each stage quantities to a sequence of arenas related by hallways ending in a boss, they usually do little in the way in which to encourage inventive or differing fight approaches. You can efficiently beat the sport with solely the shotgun when you so select.

The encounter design virtually stops evolving after the second stage, solely often introducing variations of enemies thereafter. Many of the enemies aren’t terribly enjoyable to combat, which is one other huge downside. As enjoyable because the weapons could also be to make use of — each weapon is satisfying, and a blast to mess around with — every thing begins to stale shortly. Completing torments — mini-dungeons that unlock and improve perks — add some selection to the affair, however these are transient distractions at greatest. You can 100 per cent the sport in about 6-7 hours, too, making the $39.99 price ticket astonishingly steep.

Ultimately, you’ve got a sport with one masterfully designed core ingredient — the rhythm gunplay — surrounded by a variety of parts that, whereas not horrible, are mediocre at greatest.