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.