Remember good ‘ole Doom? It was easy to learn with no tricky play. Just find weapon upgrades, ammo and health packs while blasting your opponents, and you were the master. Well with Gore : Ultimate Soldier that is all back with a vengeance!
The premise is that street gangs in the US (controlled by MOB) have grown in strength and ability so that they now control neighborhoods and entire cities. To combat this the US Government, in the form of the UMC, has developed a new virtual training facility that takes raw recruits and turns them into sophisticated soldiers in a matter of days. Well, the street gangs do not appreciate this so they have infiltrated the headquarters and you are in a fight for your life and to repel the invaders.
There are two modes of play – single player (to allow you to get used to the interface and game play before taking on real opponents) – and online multiplayer (where you are pitted against other players all bent on killing each other). The single player mode will allow you to get the ‘feel’ of the game without having other human players out gunning for you. The online play offers you competition with other folk that feel they know how to blow you away before you can get to them. I did venture into the online arena and met up with some very good adversaries. The competition is there awaiting your arrival!
There are several different types of characters you can bring into this game world. Each has strengths and weaknesses and all offer an enjoyable romp through the world of Gore. One aspect I found interesting was the ability to aim shots. There are a number of aiming cursors you can use but with them and you can shoot virtually any part of a target that you can see. While unarmored, I saw very little difference in effect between shooting a target in the head or just making the much easier chest shot.
Then came armor. Armor has to be shot away before any damage is taken by the target. This results in some pretty cool graphics as you stand fully armored against a machine-gunning opponent and you see bits and pieces of your armor flying off as a result of the attack. Now the cool part is that if an opponent is not wearing a full set of armor then aiming at the unprotected portions of the target will result in damage being taken and will avoid the armor problem.
As I said in the title, Gore definitely takes you back to the roots of the first person shooters. No cumbersome inventory to worry about. If you find something (weapon, armor, ammo, health packs) you will use them or put them on if able. No need to fumble through your inventory and decide if what you found is better than what you have already. There are no tricky switches, locked doors, or elevators to negotiate. There are just stairs, the occasional ladder and a load of obstructions that can offer protection to the first character to get behind them! So you are left with avoiding your enemy’s shots (and there are plenty of methods to use to accomplish this), finding new weapons armor and ammo all while trying to get into a position where you can deal a lethal amount of firepower onto your adversary.
What a blast.
The graphics are superb, but then again these days there is no reason for the graphics to be anything but superb. The gameplay is smooth and the internet connections also run very smoothly in the multiplayer mode. The sound is appropriate for the game without being over done.
Getting around in the game world is also smooth, and once you get used to the interface, easily accomplished. The cursor control keys take you forwards and backwards and also allow you to strafe left or right (move to the right or left while facing forwards). You use the mouse to change the direction you are facing (there is a keyboard counterpart for this as well but I got used to playing with one hand on the mouse and the other on the cursor control keys). The right mouse control is for jumping and the left is for firing your equipped weapon. The numeric keys at the top of the keyboard switch between available weapons.
After a little practice, and a little practice is all you get even in the tutorial as the evil MOB hacks the program and you end up having to fight, for real not simulation, out of it. Remember not to go into a new room with only one or two shots left in your weapon. The time it takes to reload is time that the enemy is blasting away at you so you want to minimize that at all times.
All in all, Gore is a definite must to anyone that loves the first person shooters and the challenge of on line play in them, or just someone interested in finding out what they are all about, if there are actually any people left in the world that have not experienced a good first person shooter to date!
Gore is well deserving of the four and half GiN gems that have been awarded.