[b] Hot Brass [/b] is what I can best describe as a top-down [b] Rainbow Six Vegas [/b]. In this game, you take control of a SWAT team that is called in on a variety of missions. The missions that your team will deal with range from robberies to hostage situations to gang takeovers. Your goal is to pacify the area in any means you deem necessary.
[h1] Gameplay [/h1]
[b] Hot Brass [/b] follows a mission structure like [b] Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker [/b], but without all the annoying base building segments of [b] Peacewalker [/b]. The game brings you to a screen, you select your mission, the game gives you your objectives, you can choose your loadout, and you're off. Each mission has certain objectives you are required to achieve. These objectives will be things like: “Detain the VIP,” or “Secure all hostile weapons.” In addition to these objectives, each mission has five “badges” you can earn too. The first two are mandatory to proceed to the next level, “Complete all objectives” and “No officer infractions.” The remaining three are more challenging objectives for you and your team to achieve. These challenging objectives will be, “Obtain all collectibles,” “Complete all optional objectives,” and “No casualties.” These don’t sound difficult in theory, but when you get to missions involving 20+ hostiles, it can get intense.
Before you get to the playing field, you can choose your loadout. You have your primary weapons, secondaries, tactical gear, and the consumables. All the gear allows you to approach the game either lethally or non-lethally. You are completely free to play and strategize in any method you so choose. You wanna go in guns-blazing and take out all aggressors? Go for it, we don’t negotiate with criminals here. How about going about it non-lethally so that you can apprehend everyone in the building? Not a problem, put ‘em all in handcuffs. You’re able to make an entry into a building by picking the locks, jumping through the windows, or even using a thermal charge to blast a hole in the wall. Maybe you want to take the hostiles off-guard and cut the power to the building. Hope you have your night-vision goggles, because you’re in complete darkness now Replaying the same mission has endless different variations and approaches you can try.
The gameplay isn’t infallible though, it does have some cracks that leave you feeling frustrated or thinking, “That’s it?” Occasionally, the game will throw in an interesting mechanic in a mission like “Defuse the IED,” or “The hostiles have called for back-up. They’ll arrive later in the mission.” But this mechanic is only used for a singular mission. Don’t get me wrong, the IED mission is completely random with where it will be located, keeping it interesting. But I wish they explored the concept further in more missions. Maybe you have to find the IED hidden inside the building, maybe a hostile has it on their person, something like that. With the reinforcements concept, that is at least featured in the arcade mode as an option you can select. But that still could have been explored further in the mission mode like, “The VIP will be on-site soon, apprehend him when he arrives.”
[h1] Multiplayer [/h1]
Now the main reason I bought this game is to play this with my friends, and this is where I the game really shines. I prefer multiplayer games that encourage cooperative play, rather than competitive play (too many rounds of [b] Duck Game [/b]), so this was the perfect multiplayer game for me. You can get a squad of you and three others together to load-up and tackle any of the in-game missions.
The function for multiplayer allows for even more ways to strategize and approach the mission. Maybe you and your team will decide to split up and each take a floor to pacify. Hey, everyone has a wife with dinner ready, they want to get home fast! Maybe you’ll stick together and move methodically as a squad. Have one guy take the riot shield and go in first, he’ll block the damage and allow someone else to throw a flash at the hostiles.
My friends and I got a lot of enjoyment out of trying out each piece of equipment we unlocked and trying to find the most optimal way to complete each mission.
[h1] Gamefeel [/h1]
The graphics aren’t really anything to write home about. Your characters, and by extension the hostiles, look like checker pieces displaying their current weapon, navigating around a DnD board.
The level of detail in the environments is cool though. The developers could have just made generic looking buildings and houses to place the enemies in. But they really went the extra mile and added some neat details. In all the environments, you can tell that there was a struggle here. Sometimes the beds will be messed up, the couches turned, papers on the floor in the offices, things tipped over. Little things like that really add to the experience and make you think, “oh ♥♥♥♥, something went down here.”
I won’t lie to you, the music didn’t particularly stick out to me. It just sounded like Generic, Action Movie Soundtrack #04. I do have a problem with locking in too hard and tuning the music out in games like these, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. The soundtrack is for sale on Steam though, so it was either a high demand or the team felt confident enough in it.
I’m not going to write a big dissertation about the controls. I had no problems with how the game played, it felt nice. I used a keyboard and mouse; you can use a controller too if you’d like. I think that keyboard and mouse might be the optimal choice here though.
[h1] Conclusion [/h1]
Hot Brass is a game that I personally enjoyed a lot. I don’t think that there is any specific taste required for this game. As a solo experience, I would recommend to anyone to pick it up and give it a shot. If you and your friends are in the market for a new co-op game though, I couldn’t recommend this game more. I think it would make for a great experience to test your team skills with.
