NecroVisioN: Lost Company

NecrovisioN: Lost Company – это дополнение к оригинальной игре, где нам дают посмотреть события до начала полного хаоса и ада, то есть, играть будем за Цимермана. Плюсы игры: + 10 миссий, проходятся быстро, буквально 5 часов; + Добавили пару новых оружий, а также парочку врагов; + Разнообразили геймплей, будем управлять танком и самолётом. Ещё, добавили союзников, которые помогут в трудном бою. Минусы игры: - Вылеты и ошибки, пару раз, выдавала ошибку, зависала, пришлось выполнять манипуляции. Как, я понял, это у большинства! Заключение: Если ещё раз, хотите пострелять демонов, и расслабиться пару вечеров, то смело проходите дополнение, органично добавляет оригинал.

[h1][i]“A man's got to know his limitations.”[/i] ~Dirty Harry[/h1] NecroVisioN was anything but good. Funded by a publisher who didn't care 'bout quality at all (due to regional peculiarities) and developed by former People Can Fly employees, it was a complete disaster. Despite being released in 2009 – a year that gave us Left 4 Dead 2 and Battlefield 1943 – it wasn't even able to compete with People Can Fly's Painkiller, which was released five years prior. Not visually (technically, Painkiller's Pain Engine got lots of improvements), but quality and gameplay-wise. The thing is, after leaving People Can Fly, Wojciech Pazdur and Kamil Bilczyński decided to make something a bit more ambitious than a Serious Sam clone. Which... turned out to be a mistake. Why? Well, for starters, they went with that engine I mentioned. The Pain Engine was People Can Fly's in-house development, which was created [i]specifically[/i] for the Serious Sam formula that Painkiller followed. Which implied a series of arena-like encounters instead of a proper FPS experience with complicated levels and/or the advanced story. The Pain Engine was muscular and allowed a very impressive amount of enemies without the FPS drops (something it got lots of praise for), but at the exact same time, it was a dead end. And it was all on The Farm 51 (the company Wojciech and Kamil founded with the help of 3D Magazine's Robert Siejka), not their publisher (one can blame 1C for lots of things, but not this one; according to public info, they were just the money). Despite having experience working on Painkiller, The Farm 51 made the most noobish mistake you can ever think of – they went overambitious. They decided to make not one, but [i]two[/i] games. The first half of NecroVisioN was designed as a realistic WWI shooter with trenches, realistic weapons, and stuff like that, while the second half was all about that magical glove that was clearly a nod to Painkiller's... Painkiller (and yes, the default weapon in Painkiller was called the Painkiller. And it was all based on Judas Priest's song called “Painkiller.” Because Painkiller). And to make things even harder for themselves, The Farm 51 made NecroVisioN's multiplayer that way, too. Powered by GameSpy, it was all about duality, too. We had realistic maps and we had fantasy maps. All while the devs were supposed to work with an engine that did only one thing right – allowing lots of enemies with a stable FPS. No wonder NecroVisioN turned out to be a failure. It was clunky, it was buggy, and it didn't feel good enough even for a low-budget product. It didn't sell well either. For the exact same reasons. BUT. The thing is – it didn't really need to. Again, due to regional peculiarities I mentioned. It was pretty much guaranteed to generate enough income to pay for itself on publisher's local market, so... Yeah. Despite NecroVisioN being... whatever it was, 1C still wanted some more. The Farm 51 wasn't born yesterday, though. Clearly, they've noticed the mistakes they made and addressed them. [i]Right?[/i] Wrong. Because if anything? They made things even worse in the Lost Company. Remember those clunky dragon-riding sequences from the original game that felt like an alcoholic version of Drakan's Rynn and Arokh? Yeah, how about a godd*amn plane (Halberstadt CL.II to be precise)? Because clearly, Painkiller's engine (like I said, The Farm 51 modified it a bit, but their changes didn't fix any fundamental limitations) was made for such stuff. And it was 2010 already. Even Battlefield 1943 wasn't considered new anymore. And playing Lost Company's third level (there are only ten new single-player levels here, thanks goodness) after taking a break from Battlefield 1943? It was... something else, really. No, seriously, it was as close to the real deal as Snoopy and his doghouse were to the Red Baron and his Fokker. You needed to be seriously high in order to actually play that. Like, [i]high[/i] high. That certain level of highness when you start seeing Jesus in Pac-Man (What? You never thought that the ghosts in Pac-Man could represent the temptations? Think 'bout it; that sh*t is deep). Same thing goes for the FT-17 tank. Did you play Panzer Killer? That tank-oriented action game from the creators of Beach Head (what am I even doing with my life...) that was released two years prior? It was better. More advanced, too (as sad as it is). That's right, guys. Even though this game tries to have a serious tone while being released in 2010, not only can it not compete with the real deal, it feels worse than cheap-ass arcades from years prior. Holy Pac-Man on bicycle... But OK, maybe the story makes Lost Company worth it? I mean, they did try to do the advanced storytelling in the original NecroVisioN. Failed spectacularly, can't argue with that, but still, [i]they tried[/i]. So... anything good here? Well, technically, this here is a prequel. It was supposed to tell us 'bout how Jonas Zimmermann (no, you shouldn't know who he is; all the characters here are shallow nobodies) turned into that Castle Wolfenstein (wrong World War, I know, but trust me, it's hard not to feel that way here) dude we've seen in the original game (no, seriously, even if you've played NecroVisioN before, I bet you forgot about the f*cker right away). But it means close to nothing. I mean, we do play as Jonas and we do see some unbearably bad models opening their mouths out of sync (unlike the original NecroVisioN, Lost Company doesn't have those slideshow-like cutscenes and only relies on scripted scenes, which, again, its engine wasn't made for, thanks to which “cutscenes” here feel even worse), but come on! Have you ever cared about stories in this kind of entertainment? Forget about the story! It's just some meaningless low-budget mumbo jumbo! Something that makes Lloyd Kaufman look like an artist! The multiplayer brought three new maps and a whole new playable mode called Gas Attack, but, exactly like the original NecroVisioN, NecroVisioN: Lost Company doesn't have online multiplayer anymore and only supports LAN (ask yourself – what was the last time you used LAN? Without being high?). Because yeah, it used to be based on GameSpy. Technically, though – and I'm really surprised somebody actually cared to provide such support – multiplayer is still playable with OpenSpy. So, there's that. And it's not like you should bother about the 1C's involvement, since like everything else in russia, 1C's gaming division was purchased by a Chinese publisher who (as long as public info is correct) collects all the revenue now. In other words, it doesn't... sound... like... the worst purchase ever? [i]I guess?[/i] The thing is, though, as long as you're not channeling Indiana Jones and not trying to explore the very bottom of the genre (technically, you can go lower than Lost Company, but not [i]that[/i] much lower), there's literally not a single reason for you to care about NecroVisioN: Lost Company. NecroVisioN is one of those things that makes you feel dirty. Because you're literally dealing with digital version of dirt. And the Lost Company? It's not any better. It doesn't try to acknowledge the original game's mistakes. It keeps pretending to be the real deal. And ends up looking like Mr. Bean when he got himself a credit card. “Look, guys! We've got money! We're making serious FPS games like all of those cool guys!” Feels ridiculous. And while games like Serious Sam ([i]and[/i] Painkiller, which, despite of its attempts to add certain amount of depth, still knew its limits) were fun exactly because they didn't take themselves too... well, [i]serious[/i], The Farm 51 and their project failed spectacularly by not accepting their limitations. Which didn't prevent The Farm 51 from being hired to develop “the next big thing” in Painkiller series. But that, my friends, is a story for another day.

Тоже неплохая часть. Новый герой, старая война. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3434428478

Este juego tiene lugar antes de los eventos del Necrovision original durante la primera guerra mundial, pero esta vez jugaremos desde las perspectivas del ejército Alemán, y nos ponemos en la piel del antagonista Jonas Zimmerman aquel científico veterano Alemán que enfrentamos en el primer juego y que nos dio el guante vampírico. En esta parte Zimmerman está investigando una cura para una enfermedad que afecta a todo el frente de batalla, los soldados caídos se levantan de sus tumbas y otros se convierten en monstruos, nuestra tarea es encontrar a nuestro superior Hans Menge para entregarle la cura y que pueda poner fin a la epidemia que está fuera de control. Lost compnay funciona de una forma para enriquecer la narrativa de necrovision y expandir su universo, aunque ya han pasado más de 15 años y pocas ganas por parte de los desarrolladores se ve de seguir la franquicia, todo el juego es un reciclado del primer título aunque agrega muchos otros entornos nuevos como pilotear un avión o una misión abordo de un tanque. También agregas nuevos enemigos, 6 nuevas armas y cuenta con misiones bonus a modo de desafíos. Simplemente es un buen shooter que no pretende quedar en la historia, sino dejar una huella de un juego clásico agradable, es divertido de jugar y lindo de ver si es que te gustan los desmembramientos, la sangre y el ocultismo.

I was actually expecting a sequel, but this is a prequel to Necrovision. Still not bad though, as it explains things from the other side and leaves the opportunity open for Necrovision 2. In Lost Company the protagonist is - surprisingly - one of the first game's main villains, Dr. Zimmermann. It seems like he wasn't really the bad guy initially ( with the exception that he was part of the German army ). The first game tells us that he became a necromancer and betrayed everyone, here however we see that he was the one who got betrayed, but then something else happens which isn't properly explained.[spoiler] Supposedly his soul slowly started to leave his body once he became a necromancer, but whether it was the vampires who did that or Mephisto the game doesn't tell us. The fact that the final boss fight is one of the vampire's golems though indicates that the vampires took his soul. So I guess the vampires lied to Simon in the first game and let him keep his soul to end the war?[/spoiler] I think the game could go on for a couple of more chapters to properly explain things. It plays pretty much like the first game, except that now a couple of new weapons were added to the arsenal as well as new enemies. Instead of mechs we get to use tanks in some missions, though I found it kinda lame that as a german soldier I couldn't use one of the german tanks. The plane mission was fun to play but getting used to the flying controls was kinda tough. Unfortunately you get the shadowhand at the very end of the game so you barely get to use it. It does have a very special power during the final fight though which is cool. But just like in the first game, there is NG+ where you start with it and can play the whole campaign using it. Overall I'd say it is worth the price if we consider the amount of content, but I felt like the story could go on a little longer. At least to the point where Zimmermann found the giant arachnoid robot.

1918 biplane pilot meets trench zombies and a basement dragon. I screamed so loud my neighbor called a priest. Beat it on ultra with a six pack and now I nap clutching a bone grenade.

I gotta say, i recently just finished NecroVision the 1st and now started to try NecroVision LC. To be honest, i dont like it at all. It's nothing like the 1st Game and not only that, there's a Mission with a Tank and i get killed by flying Demons. When trying to load back into it, the Game crashes just like that. I've had multiple crashes so far just for this Mission but this isn't the reason i'm writing down this review. It's probably the fact that it's nothing like Necrovision 1 The Combat Skills aren't very fluent, the Challenges are Junk. Seriously, who cares about defending a Plattform by flying Zombies and once they stood up you're done. Then there's the Challenge with flying a Plane and Tank Driving which i'm questioning the Devs... Are you trying to be Call of Duty or is this somekind of a Joke?! Well, i'll let this game rest.

pretty disappointing, especially coming off the first game but still a pass as not much comes close to this or painkiller. this outing is less polished and shorter while also being expanded in terms of content. the ultimate sin of this game is that it is somehow easier than the first game by like 4 different ways. nearly every encounter has a tall box or something to sit on top of while enemies gather around you and wait to die. almost every encounter in lost company also has.. company. these ai helper guys are pretty much akin to the invincible allies in call of duty and whatever moments you would have had with the game are now theirs. pretty much any situation i was in i could just back off or hop on a box and let the ai allies take care of business. this game does a better job of applying invisible walls because most slopes in this engine you can just fly up but I did encounter parts of the level that weren't modeled or textured and you can just look out into nothing which the first game didn't have that I could find at least. lots of iffy translation in the objectives and most things while it tells you to find a way or something it just means kill everything in the room you are trapped in. it got pretty annoying towards the end when doors were just locked shut and either the ai helper had to go and open the door for me or just the death of enemies triggered the door to open for.. reasons.. reasons good enough for me to keep playing and enjoying the moment to moment but the ai helpers and the amount of cheese you can get away with that clearly went massively undertested really kneecaps the game and of course the boss battles are the worst part. fighting the golem sucked and was an underwhelming ending. if only this game got the hell and damnation treatment. combine the best of each game and do a remake. iffy stuff like this deserves it the most but its still a gem. just dont expect a challenge or much in the way of things making sense. some automatic weapons like in the first game operate funky in the way you can just tap the bar or the vampire smg or probly some other weapons and shoot wayyyyyyyy faster than just holding it down to the point they are entirely broken and further trivialize the game. I know I said this game is too easy by 4 degrees but i dont remember them all. the third one was the challenge rooms which I never partook in because its like hey do you always want some supercharged weaponry in your inventory and I was like hell nah this game is a snooze. but whenever you decide to get your feet wet it feels good and looks great, as in like you arent just running past every enemy to the next goal trigger. killing stuff is great and this game works against that pretty hard. the only comparable game in terms of raw gore death animation stuff is wolf09. raven death animation stuff is phenomenal and there is some glimmer of that stuff going on in this game. shoot a guys leg off and he props himself up and starts crawling backwards. everything is very physics oriented. enemies can combine in such number that they begin climbing eachother to reach the high point you are cheesing them off of. not for people with any real expectations

[h1] Old school killing spree. Just don't think and shoot everything in sight. It gets job done when you're bored or just pissed off. Don't overthink it just buy on sale and annihilate monsters! [/h1]

The charms of the first game quickly fade in this prequel. The absurdity of the first games story was great, but a prequel with all the surprises ruined makes you focus on the bad things you might have ignored previously. Poor level design, reused bosses and levels, reused weapons. a combo system that is lackluster and enemies that take far too long to kill until the last 2 levels of the game. I cautiously recommend the original Necrovision. And genuinely advise you to skip this one.