#farm51

I hadn’t heard about this game at all and it doesn’t seem like many have played it. It looked like a generic shooter at first glance but it’s not, it’s actually a weird mix of different genres and unique ideas. It’s well made for an indie title, developed by a Polish company called Farm51

It’s really hard to talk about the plot without spoiling it, but the gist is you’re a mercenary called Cole Black (Fuck’s sake) and you’re undergoing some bizarre therapy for PTSD after a failed rescue attempt of a teenage girl who was kidnapped for ransom money, an attempt that left him injured. The real reason for the therapy is to probe his fragmented memory for answers about what happened and who was involved in the kidnapping He isn’t really doing this therapy out of his own free will and this dilapidated asylum in Birmingham is a hub world. The person who wants to explore Black’s memories is a strange man called ‘Red’ who only appears as a blurred image on a screen. He thinks Black is hiding something and wants answers. It’s going to get mindbending and weird, with a lot of twists, that’s all I can really say. It’s constructed well though.  Black himself was alright, spends a lot of time going ‘what the fuck is going on ‘ere?’ which is how any sane person would react to the wacky shit he has to deal with. He’s a hardman type who isn’t used to being at someone else’s mercy so the tension between him and Red is compelling.

 Gameplay a very varied mix. You will be shooting, but despite being given an overpowered super gun right away, you are discouraged from using it. Killing people can ‘disrupt the memory’ and Red will get pissed off if you keep blasting away. You can go ahead and kill everyone if you want, but things will change. The gun is called the Cornergun and it does what it says on the tin, and it’s actually kind of cool to use. Overall the shooting is fine, just clunky.  Red wants you to be stealthy and avoid detection, but the game’s stealth mechanics just aren’t good enough for that approach imo. Sometimes I could run straight past enemies and nobody would see anything and other times I’d get blasted to death because they saw a bit of my elbow, it was very inconsistent. Black dies in a few shots and there’ no health pick ups so ultimately I decided to just shoot everybody.   Combat is restricted to short areas, the developers were inspired by ‘Die hard’ as they explained that in the film he actually doesn’t kill all that often and most of it is about his personal issues. I thought this approach worked well honestly and it fits the narrative as these enemies are only memories after all, and despawn when you leave the combat section so you can explore in relative peace.  The other side of the game is exploration, collecting info from files and recordings and triggering memory events to piece together the story. All your finds are kept in an evidence room so you can go over things later and it’s satisfying to see things start to come together, as you’ll be playing events out of order. You have access to gadgets on your phone, Like heat sensors and UV lighting, which are used for puzzle solving. Most of these puzzles were pretty good actually, but there isn’t that many of them. Most of them are found in the asylum hub, and here the game takes on more of a horror game feel. Black has to deal with lunatics and creepy mannequins and unsettling whispering when he’s in between levels.  One thing the game tries to drill into your head is that your actions have consequences. And your decisions will affect the ending, as well as some events. A little summary plays at the end so you can see what did what. I played aggressively but I don’t think it hugely affected the outcome and definitely not enough to suffer through the stealth mechanics to get the other changes (I just youtubed the alternatives lol)

The game looks well, you’ll be spending your time in old warehouses, abandoned industrial estates, bits of wasteland, the aforementioned asylum, and an office block. Characters are stiff looking but you’ll really only be seeing them in static poses, aside from the goons you’ll be killing, so it doesn’t matter. I thought the voice acting was decent, even the Irish guy wasn’t too bad. Black himself is gruff and he really reminds me of someone but I didn’t recognise the voice actor. Also don’t think there was any Brummie accents which is a bit odd considering the setting.

The soundtrack is brilliant tbh. It’s dynamic and there was a really cool bit when I was in a firefight and it mixed in with Black’s breathing, so it got intense. It’s goes between classical music and techno throughout the game and it just worked so well. There’s a chant that got stuck in my head from the asylum but I can’t go into detail. There’s also another section where the music in used in a surprising way but again, I can’t really say without spoiling it. 

Some things got my nerves though. On the last level especially, I got caught and stuck in the scenery about 7 times. Reloading a checkpoint wasn’t a big deal but this was the most difficult section and it got annoying. Stealth just isn’t good, despite the urging to hide and not kill. Plus, and I’m not sure if this was part of the ‘mess with your head’ them of the game, but doing well will have Red reward you with new weapons. Which he would then get annoyed about if you have the audacity to use them. And although I enjoyed the plot overall, some of it came off like a gritty episode of Eastenders.  Also, Black himself will usually react to a piece of important info, but other times he’ll find something crucial and not comment only then to be shocked at the reveal later, like, mate?, we learned that awhile ago, keep up! . The phone has a lot of apps but most aren’t used often so cycling through it can be a pain sometimes.  At times it felt like the developers had too many ideas and tried to do too much.

Get Even celebrates with its new Accolades Trailer

Bandai show off Get Even’s gameplay in the all new trailer Bandai Namco have released a new trailer showing off the grimly beautiful psychological thriller Get Even. The trailer, which you can watch below, also highlights the rather quiet success of the game, with a host of review scores and comments showing off the game’s initial reception back in June.…