Hatred: review
Throughout the world there has developed a rather ambiguous attitude to violence in video games. Someone believes that unnecessarily cruel scenes are indulging in the darkest desires of human nature, allowing them to go out, which can result in a very real bloody tragedy (newspaper headings like “Son killed his father because Postal!»They will not let you lie). Someone, on the contrary, believes that, having splashed out all the accumulated negative on the characters drawn on the screen, breaking a couple of limbs and taking several virtual lives, a person becomes only kinder and more tolerant of others.
Whose point of view is actually true, we don’t take it (probably, as always, truth somewhere in the middle, with separate exceptions), but much more interesting is the third look at this problem-from the side of individual developers who put violence in their games at the forefront. For what? Yes for the sake of money, of course!
Each such execution restores the health of the protagonist and gives another attack of yawn to the player.
Business approach
Hatred From the Poles from Destructive Creations clearly shows how important it is to have a good marketer in the state. Apparently, having discovered in time that there is a demand for “blood slying”, but there are no intelligible offers on the horizon, the developers quickly began to create their first product and in October last year they rolled out the announcing trailer. The video, designed in gloomy colors, showed the viewer of a certain citizen who is slowly gathering to walk at the ready with an automaton and a couple of grenades behind the bosom, and then the “walk” itself. The spectacle is still – the crowds of people who are distraught with fear, falling under the flurry of shots, rivers of blood, explosions, and in the center – the main character, dashingly dealing with defenseless victims. A special emphasis was made on a close -up of finishing with the help of a knife or “Scotgan” – with the indispensable prayers of the poor about mercy and pathos phrases of the executioner.
The audience reacted. And how I reacted! Discussions at all possible sites, a couple of scandals on a hackneyed topic “Again cruel toys teach children to kill” – Hatred For a while, it suddenly turned into one of the hottest topics. Expecting Steam GreenLight in the shortest possible time, the creation of the Poles suddenly disappeared from the lists of approved on the next day-some of the service employees considered that it was not good to help the spread of such indecent. But under the pressure of the public, throwing Valve thousands of requests to “do everything as it were”, I had to intervene yourself Gaibu Newell (Gabe Newll), who apologized to the authors and put an end to all possible disputes on this score: to play Steam – to be.
Is it an accident or not, but the best advertising for a novice and unknown studio could hardly have come up with. The excitement around Hatred it drove a little and gained previous turns only just before the release. As usual, again it was not without a small scandal – Destructive Creations promised to reward everyone who pre -ordered, access to the game three days earlier than her official exit, but could not restrain her words. It turns out that the developers simply forgot to check whether such a trick is possible from a technical point of view-and only at the last moment they found out that there was no. However, no one was particularly offended.
Fun with fire is pretty fun: by falling the house from all sides, you can fry alive everyone who is in it. It is a pity that ammunition for flamethrower is always in short supply.
Stew @ kill
The main character, whose name is not called, tells about his hatred for the whole world and to every person that inhabits him, simultaneously equipping him for the upcoming massacre: ak, grenades, knife – all in place. Human life is a useless thing, and a healthy man with long black patches does not cost it in the name of what exactly, we will not find out, because the starting video of the answer to this question does not give. Having finished my pathetic speech, the armed one can’t leave the villain out of the house, straight to the bus stop, and the game itself begins.
Night, rain, city, full of the most ordinary people. They walk the streets, watch TV at home or visiting, sitting in a cafe. It’s a pity to break such an idyll-but not our hero. After the first stage, for unsuspecting people in the city, real chaos begins. The first murdered, second, survivors scatter in a panic, the wounded ask for mercy, and some are even trying to resist.
Когда число жертв идет на десятки, наконец-то просыпается полиция, которая, впрочем, не может оказать хоть сколько-нибудь серьезного сопротивления. Ordinary people – meat, police officers – the same meat, only with weapons, which immediately replenishes the arsenal of the protagonist. Special forces – the guys are already more serious, but you can cope with them, despite strong body armor and massive armored cars. The army will deliver the most problems – a lot of soldiers, they have Hammers with machine guns and powerful bazuki.
The second level, the third, fourth … flight on sewage from special forces, passenger train, city, military base … machine guns, shotgun, flamethrower, knife;shot limbs and burned alive, finished off in the head or abandoned to die from wounds;The pursuit of loners who run away in horror and massive battle with dozens of victims per second … locations are replaced by one another, and suddenly, barely thinking that it would be time to take a break a little from the endless extermination of all the living things, you find that the game has already ended. With proper zeal, it can be completely passing in 4-5 hours, of which most will have to at the last two levels, where a distraught maniac under our control will begin to provide a truly serious resistance. Few? Yes, but, to be honest, it cannot be said that you are very sorry about it.
For, truly!
The very cruelty thanks to which Hatred gained fame, is boring much earlier than the passage of the campaign ends. The “meat” scenes are not impressive – they are made too wretched from a technical point of view. There are few various options for spectacular finishing up a close-up, soon they begin to annoy with their monotonism (fortunately, they can be completely turned off), and when you notice that the endless fingertips through the crowds of unarmed people does not carry at least some sense, interest comes to nor does not come to nor. No one explains why our patlach suddenly decided to kill right and left. As Little Arkasha said from the story Vladimir Elistratov, “For, truly!”So the local hero has about the same motivation:” I will kill everyone because I can “. He is not a madman among madmen, like Dude from Postal 2, does not possess the devilish charisma of Trevor Philips from GTAV, His cruelty is not forced to answer the established circumstances (series Manhunt). Compared to these butchers, the hero Hatred It looks no better than the very “faceless human mass” that he hates so much.
It is completely incomprehensible where the highest age rating “only for adults” came from, assigned to the game ESRB. You can call several products a rating below that can easily surpass Hatred In terms of naturalism – if not in quantity, so as exactly. Of course, the ADULTS Only dick attracts the attention of a certain part of the audience, but it is obtained with an advance (here you involuntarily suspect ESRB in working for an advertising campaign Hatred). The same cruelty is not felt here, largely due to which the classic already mentioned has become popular.
Having shot fifty gathered for the sale of a new model of a smartphone of hipsters, you can get a special “Achivka”. It must be funny.
Not soared
And the point is not only in the absence of at least some intelligible history or in the absolutely flat personality of the main character. If you were going to “relax after a hard day”, having fought on defenseless people, then we are in a hurry to disappoint-everything is in order with shooting, but it’s better to contact some kind of “relaxation” Alien Shooter. The gameplay is almost the same, but the management and interface are thought out there noticeably better. Play Hatred It is simply inconvenient. Black and white tones, among which sometimes there are no enemies, nor victims, nor the hero himself, constantly lost from the field of view of the sight, a naughty camera, a weak optimization … The management deserves a separate “praise”-it cannot be called intuitive, and the hero that stuck in interior objects will become the cause of sudden death.
Together with a very strange conservation system (in the case of death, we either spend the resurrection points received for the performance of optional tasks, or start the level again) all this turns Hatred in entertainment on a very rare amateur. Since such an interesting plot does not lie behind such clumsy gameplay, and the gameplay itself is in no hurry to delight with variety, you meet the quick ending of the campaign even with some relief.
Perhaps the only thing that is difficult to complain about is the system of destruction of buildings and objects. Furniture breaks into pieces, doors and windows shoot through and through, and the explosion of a grenade or gas cylinder is completely capable of spreading the wall into chips. Molotov cocktails and flamethrower allow you to amuse yourself with fire – for example, we set fire to the front door, and we ourselves go through the window and observe how people who are distraught with fear run straight into the bead, where they burn alive.
Yes, the local population does not differ in excessive quick wits – passers -by can smell our maniac behind the wall of the house, and they can calmly walk right along the corpses, not paying attention to shooting and explosions nearby. The police and soldiers are slightly smarter, but they sometimes lack gray matter: “friendly fire” or shots from the bazuka point blank range – a common thing.
Brave special forces are preparing to wet the terrorist in the toilet. In such a situation, there is only one way out – to run away to hell.
Despite the vigorous, it would seem, start, the debut of a young Polish studio is unlikely to call a great success. Yes, she correctly felt the mood of the audience who missed the “meat” with the lack of any framework of political correctness, but this is not enough to create a good game. It is necessary to think through some plot, to take care of the creation of the corresponding atmosphere, not forgetting, of course, about the gameplay and a picture pleasant to the eye. It turns out that sensible programmers and game designers are no less important than marketers. Glory “New Postal” Hatred not to see – the scandals in the press are not enough for this.
Pros: destruction system;The first mission allows you to feel like a real maniac.
Cons: inconvenient management and interface;The absolute absence of the plot;Due to graphic effects, it is sometimes difficult to understand what is happening on the screen.