Necromunda: Hired Gun (2021)

I might want to write a proper review for this, but the short version:

• Soundtrack is great, really love it. Here's a Spotify link.
• Gameplay is repetitive, but it's short.
• Story is sort of bland, and it ends abruptly with a huge exposition dump just before the last sequence that has no real gravity.
• Looks like an Xbox 360 game.
• Plays too fast for my liking. If the controls were tighter, it would feel better.
• I love the Necromunda setting (and the wider 40k lore). So I was willing to give this game more passes than other titles.
• The game seems to know its shortcomings with combat and has tools to mitigate those. This is not the same as having tools to enhance gameplay. These abilities seem to be crafted to make combat more bearable.
• I never once intentionally wall-ran after the first sequence when it made you for the tutorial.
• I did, however, accidentally wall-run many times, often on cylindrical pillars where it ran in idiot circles while enemies got free shots.
• Upgrading your dude is fun, but not interesting. Collect money, buy upgrades.
• Sounds like a bad game but it's OK.

So after spending two hours modding my keyboard as a way to meditate through this game (i know, weird), i am in two in two minds about it. On one hand, it is the more light hearted cousing of Doom. Plenty of gore, executions, lots of shooty shooty bang bang fun. On the other hand, games becomes quite repepetive quite fast, especially as you start grinding for a bit of extra cash for those sweet sweet bionics, though luckily you only need to do it a handful of times untill you are fully kitted out.

I like the companion system (and how the looks change as you kit our your pooch), and yet the entire upgrade system is quite linear. There is not 'bad' choise. The more the better. Level system is also a bit of a waste - every time you level up, there is a bump up in your stats. not much else, but i kind of get what they were going for - jump in and blast away, not build up your RPG glass cannon.

I kept at this game because i got hooked on Warhammer 40K universe: books, games anything i can get my hands on. I though this would be a nice, albeit slightly unpolished, distraction from anything and everything Astartes. Yet, while i thought the game was building up to an epic ending, the ending was abrupt. The final mission literally came out of nowhere and led into, well, nothing. The build up was dragged out and once the final boss was upon me, i thought i am about half way through the game, not at the exit.

Speaking of which, the story itself definitely needed a bit more work. I get it, they are spinning of a mercenary story. The world is grim, life sucks, its a industrial world, all they do is try and survive. But even that has charm and potential. The way the character was introduced, let alone 'developed', just never pulled me in to see him as anything more than my avatar. I still have no clue who Jerico, the main character's temporary buddy, is or how he manifested (is there lore outside the game that i am not aware of?).

Should you play it? Yes, just not for the story, but for the good old Doom'esque fun. The setting is solid, and big and the game does have a charm of its own, it is not a clone and I have no regrets palying it. But while wrapping it up was more fun that doomscroling over social media or unwillingly coming accross another celebrity story, the potential of the pedigry that the game could have carried just wasn't quite unwrapped in this piece. In a way, that is surprising, because Streum On Studio developed 'E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy' so they should have the chops to pull something like is off.

Either way, here we are. If you get a chance to grab this on a discount, i think you will enjoy it but do temper your expectations.

Having played the recent Necromunda Underhive Wars and enjoyed it I was pretty stoked to hear streumon had made this game, but tried to keep my expectations low, (because its you know, a GW game...) and tbh I was not very fond of Streumon's last, (but mostly that was due to poor optimization) but always enjoyed the weird game that is EyE Divine Cybermancy and the setting and atmosphere Streum are always good at doing.

Hired Gun reminds me right off the bat a little bit of as a lesser-grade Syndicate (2012 reboot) in that it is a linear generic FPS with some cool sights to see and other stuff thrown in. Hird Gun has a lot of abilities, upgrades, progression, weapon customization and more... However, I dont quite see why all of any of this is even necessary. All of this complicated upgrade system and whatnot feels shoehorned in (in fact, you get a robot dog sidekick summon 'ability', which you dont even have to use! and you can upgrade the dog too) I'd say it actually gets in the way of the game.

The game feels like a very weird and wonky take on Borderlands or Rage, both in the borderline post-apocalyptic/industrial setting of necromunda and the 'looter shooter' premise, however it fails to deliver itself as a looter shooter in any real sense, as the only 'loot' to be had comes from static hidden chests that you will have to grind over and over again to get real weapon upgrades (as they cant be found anywhere else) in summation, the game has a weird and very flawed design that isn't much fun to play. There are repeatable missions but they get old fast (They remind me of the missions in EyE) and are a chore to upgrade your character through implants/skills and maybe keep an eye out for those chests that have potential upgrades.

Adding to this is the fact this game has quite a bit of problems that are almost laughable. You have for example scopes that do not actually line up with what you are shooting, weird issues where y our items will dupe, and you will have extra weapon slots but cannot deslect the weapon causing it. Stats and upgrades are neither clear and playing things you dont get a feel for what is an improvement. Some weapons and abilities are just dumb and you wont use them more than once to see what they do (like wall running/shooting sounds bad ass but why the hell would you want to try and do it?)

But the worst of it is this game feels rather souless and uninspired (with the exception of the koloss-44 level, which is just this crazy exagerrated super train the size of a deathstar... It's literally the 40k version of snowpiercer) The story is nonsensical filler.

IDK, i feel like this game is cutting it close to a pure time-waster as you can get. IT has some redeeming qualities (stuff is cool to look at, the music is a nice mix of metal in combat and dark ambient outside of it, the fighting is intense and the Blood Dragon-like melee takedowns while absolutely overpowered and gamebreaking are gory and really neat to look at, and some of the weapons are really cool ideas) but it seems little of the thing really works and its all bolted together in somewhat makeshift manner. It ain't total crap, but compared to their previous games, it feels like a step back and i wouldn't recommend it to anyone really