Hands-On: Necrovision

Posted Jun 6th 2008 3:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Features, Hands-on, FPS

Back in 2004 an graphically impressive and fun first person shooter was released. If you are thinking we are thinking of Half-Life 2 you would be right . . . and wrong. 2004 was also the debut of Painkiller, the People Can Fly created shooter that, while not as deep in terms of storyline as Valve's masterpiece, was an incredibly fun game experience with some of the best physics interactions and art designs we have ever seen.

A number of former People Can Fly team members decided to leave the company to form The Farm 51 but they got a license to use the Painkiller graphics engine. The result is yet another first person shooter called Necrovision that is being published by 1C Company. Big Download got a chance to test drive a build of the game during 1C's US press event this week.

The game puts you in the guise of a soldier fighting in the trenches of WW I. At first you begin the game using rather conventional weapons of the time; pistols, rifles and machine guns. You also go up against rather conventional enemies during the beginning of the game, which includes German soldiers with their trademark pointy helmets.

However, this isn't your great-grandfather's WW I battle. As you play through Necrovision you discover that there are some sinister forces at work. Soon you will be fighting off more than just the typical German infantry officer. There are demon dogs, vampires, huge massive boss battles to deal with. Indeed you will be traveling underground to battle the forces of darkness. There's even a point in the game where you will be flying on top of a fire breathing dragon.

As you can imagine, Necrovision isn't subtle. During our playtime with the game we didn't lack for enemies to shoot and destroy. In addition to regular weapons you will also have access later in the game to special powers and weapons like a Shadowhand glove that allows you to engage the enemy with fireballs. There's plenty of targets to go after in the game and most of them (with the exception of the German zombie soldiers) don't hesitate to charge at you full force.

The Farm 51 is using People Can Fly's Painkiller graphics engine for Necrovision but we have been told that the engine's renderer has been heavily modified and supports DirectX10 features such as dynamic lighting, an advanced animation system and more. While the game clearly still has a lot of Painkiller's looks, Necrovision is its own beast. It's art style is darker, scarier and more horror themed than Painkiller.

Playing through the brief demo of Necrovision was an exciting and fun experience with lots of options to destroy your enemies through various weapons. Its gameplay isn't exactly revolutionary and it would have been nice to have some multiplayer features but sometimes all you just want to do is go from point A to point B and blow up everything in between. It looks like The Farm 51 will bring that kind of game to us with this title. Look for more on Necrovision before the game's expected release date sometime this fall.

Gallery: Necrovision