A small Finnish Studio Housemarque became renowned shooter series, Stardust, the first game which was released in 1993. But commercial success came much later to the Finns, after they began a long-term collaboration with Sony to release their new games for consoles family PlayStation. So in 2007 came to light game Super Stardust HD, in 2013 it was a spectacular side-scroller Resogun, and in 2016-m – a shooter with elements of role-playing Alienation. Today I would like to tell you about a whole new game Housemarque for the PlayStation 4, called Matterfall.
Game: Matterfall
Platform: PlayStation 4
Genre: Side-scrolling, Shooter
Release date: 16 Aug 2017
Developer: Housemarque
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Finns from Housemarque decided not to change its genre of the commitment, therefore, released the game, which combines elements of a side-scroller, shooter and platforming. The story tells about a future where humanity’s impact extends far beyond the planet Earth. Dangerous experiments with a mysterious substance, found in mines of one of the alien colonies get out of control, leading to disaster. Intelligent matter literally covers a huge territory and captures people in hard cocoons. To clean up the effects is called a mercenary by the name of avalon Darrow. Armed with the latest technology, she is sent on a dangerous mission, in which must not only survive, but also to understand what caused the disaster.
Before the game, you will be prompted to choose the level of difficulty. And here we must be very careful. If you are at least superficially familiar with the previous games Housemarque, you have to understand: this is hardcore to the bone shooters to master those to perfection is not given to everyone. To begin, I recommend you to choose difficulty level “Beginner”, where the main character will receive an additional segment of health, and enemies will be significantly easier. But even on the lowest difficulty, you will have hard times. If you want to be in the midst of this “bullet hell”, can take a risk and choose a difficulty level “Veteran”. In this case, keep in mind that for the safety of your nervous system, I do not answer. On the screen will reign a hell of explosions and flying projectiles that in the eyes may begin to ruffle. Is the game and a cross between “Rookie” and “Veteran” — is the complexity of a Mercenary.
Game Matterfall is divided into 12 levels, divided into several locations. It begins in a vast alien metropolis of fortune city, but the main character will also have to visit the hydroponic farms and even in mines, which produce mysterious matter. A significant departure from the previous games Housemarque was the presence in Matterfall jump, which is assigned to the R1 button on the DualShock 4 controller. At first this arrangement a vital buttons seems a little strange, but very quickly understand that when the left thumb controls the movement of the character, and the right – shooting with the analog stick (mechanics, characteristic of twin-stick shooters), remain free just the index fingers of both hands. The developers had to take this questionable step, because otherwise this task would be simply not to solve.
The developers are very interested in implemented in the game the interaction of the protagonist with the alien matter. Matter you will meet two different types. Red matter (the dead) to life-threatening. Try to avoid contact with her by any means. Blue matter (live) is your friend. From it are made of various mechanisms, bulkheads, and platform, which moves and jumps avalon. Most often blue matter must be activated with a special light (matter cannon assigned to the L2 button). This can include a lift or make tangible hanging in the air the platform to have the opportunity to jump on it. The protagonist can also pass through the blue matter in a special breakthrough (L1+ left analog stick). Due to this the mechanics of the player opens up tremendous opportunities. For example, you can activate vertical blue wall and fly through it, taking cover from enemy shots (enemies and their projectiles cannot penetrate through the blue matter). In addition, the leap stuns some enemies, making them vulnerable to your shots, and also allows avalon to fly through enemy bullets without harm for health.
After the death of some enemies leave behind a cluster bomb of blue matter. You can blow those bombs up his matter cannon, destroying everything around. On the screen at this time going on this indescribable beauty that is simply eye-catching. Staff Housemarque continue to improve their graphics engine based on voxel technology. Almost all 3D objects in the game consist of particles — “voxels”. After the destruction of the object falls apart, or explodes, for me the component parts around, so the action on the screen looks like something truly epic. Imagine a game in which you as if caught in the epicenter of the fireworks. Like some of the scenes Matterfall. Everything is moving, where-that flies, shoots, explodes, but all this madness has a solid mathematical basis, feel that you will be able to emerge unscathed from the most intricate situations.
Very striking some areas of the game levels, where the activated weightlessness. Avalon is floating in the air, shooting the enemies and dodging the flying projectiles in it. Also Matterfall there is a kind of leveling. Well, not really pumping. Rather system upgrades. As you progress you will discover new augmentation and types of additional weapons, saving people encased in cocoons of red crystals. Thus, for example, you can get the grenade launcher, which produces hand grenades, exploding upon contact with enemies, or a powerful shotgun. In total the game has 12 different improvements (number of levels), and at the same time you can use three, setting them on the buttons of d-pad D-Pad.
Despite the fact that the levels Matterfall is long enough, the game still feels very short in duration. To run on a low difficulty level it can be just three to four hours. No bonus game modes the developers we unfortunately do not offer. Replay levels Matterfall possible in order to pass them using the new augments and oust players from other countries in the scoring tables. You can tell that Housemarque has created a new trend in the field of eSports. Thousands of people rushed through the game and set new records. Personally, I was very pleased to see the tables of Champions players from Russia. By the way, the longer the main character manages to Dodge enemy attacks, the more points she gets for killing enemies. Thanks to his skill some players can circumvent the other in the scoring tables. And become a master in Matterfall Oh so easy.
Pros:
- Hardcore fans of the gameplay will be ecstatic.
- The game is incredibly beautiful thanks to the voxel graphics engine.
- The manipulation of matter serve to unlock the ocean of possibilities.
- The presence of the jump much variety to classic game mechanics.
- The system augments will allow you to replay levels in different ways.
- Pleasing very affordable cost of the game is 1299 rubles.
Cons:
- Tall difficulty will scare many.
- No bonus game modes.
- Very long loading screens.
- The game is quite short.
Game Matterfall established Finnish developers Housemarque the honorary title of “masters of the art hardcore.” Their new game, clearly influenced by the Metroid series (the way the main character, shared science-fiction setting) and the legendary Japanese shooter Ikaruga (system of dualism of matter and reigning on the screen bullet hell). But in this case, borrowing other people’s ideas I don’t think something bad, because Matterfall makes it incredibly subtly and with characteristic to the Finns. Hardcore shooter veterans of the genre, no doubt, will find an appreciative audience, and from me the game gets a well-deserved score of 8 out of 10.
Review game Matterfall: bullet hell shooter originally from Finland
Sergey Grey