GRIMWAR

A lovely and exciting fast paced game. Movement is satisfying and fluid, aesthetic is on point and it all really comes together nicely. It does what it wants to do very well

This game has great music. That is the first and last nice thing I have to say about Grimwar. There is no separate how to play section where one is uninterrupted by text you aren't shown how to dismiss, nor can you rebind your controls. A problem when your use key is right next to the button that restarts a level. For the record, I have cleared the Dungeon and the Lab, and, frankly, I can't even [i] start [/i] the Core, because there is one major problem: [h2] [b] THE DEATH PLANE IS LEVEL WITH THE BOTTOM OF THE STARTING WALL RUN GAUNTLET. [/b][/h2] So let's get into the meat and potatoes on why I think this game has neither, just the gravy. [list] [*] The hitscanners are way too damn strong. [*] The floating books(?) are way too fast to the point where your (as far as I'm aware) [i] only [/i] hitscan doesn't do anything [*] Your base jump height simply is not enough to clear most basic obstacles; and before you say "well you should wall run to get more height, you can climb up the walls", that doesn't get you enough height either, and that strategy is foiled by lipped ledges. Of which there are many. [*] The speed mechanic is... horribly, horribly botched. Never mind that you have one run speed and no sprint button (Locking the player into a direction in one static speed dependent on your momentum [i] isn't a sprint, [/i] mind you.), you cannot clear the Lab unless you are Speed 2 minimum at the end. The Dungeon requires you to be Speed 3. [*] The wall climbing. This needs to be fixed as soon as humanly possible, because this [i] doesn't work. [/i] I can deal with holding towards the wall to stay on the wall, but while you are on the wall you can fire, sure, but forget aiming away from the wall; you can barely dodge, and even if you [i] could, [/i] it's not like you'd be able to hit anything afterwards anyway, because: [*] The autoaim doesn't turn off! And this one grinds my gears quite a bit because when you're playing a boomshoot, especially on PC, autoaim only does so much. Firstly, turning it off should be a binary, and secondly, turning autoaim off should turn it [i] off, [/i] because the attacks do not go where the crosshair is, even though I have those hitscanners dead center in my crosshair and somehow hit the wall behind them. [*] And of course, the most [i] obvious [/i] issue I can think of in a game where levels take 15+ minutes to complete and hitscanners shave off 1/4 of your health if they get lucky. [i][b] Where are the health pickups?! [/b][/i] These levels are way too long and way too fraught with encounters to not only not get health pickups, but finish on only half health upon respawning. Which in itself is a travesty. [/list] Do let me know if I'm going in too hard on a beta, but as is, there are glaring issues that need fixed before this game receives a price tag.