Harddrive-by: Fallen Aces
I love this game. We’ll start there.
If this game wasn’t made with me in mind then it was made for Razorfist. It plays to most of my major weaknesses. Golden Age Comics, Imm-sim Boomer shooter, pulp fiction, crime noir with a Chanderleresque private dick walking down these mean streets, it’s all there.
Like the classic Theif, it’s an imm-sim. But it’s quite a bit more than that.
The game is published by New Blood Interactive which is a pretty big point in its favor right out of the gate. The engine is Unity but tinkered with to look something like what a Build engine would look like.
The opening scene is a mystery box, which is perfectly acceptable for a story that at its heart is a mystery. The cutscenes are done in the style of comic books printed in the 1930s to include the stippling in the background. It tells its tale of a 1930s political assassination attempt in a crime-ridden city.
Just to make something clear, I don’t hate cut scenes provided they are used to support the game rather than be the point and purpose of it. The cut scene needs to be above all things, brief. Which it was.
The game loads. You select one of three difficulty levels, which is pretty much all you’re going to do. The POV is first person and there are no personal adjustments. This game is technically an Immersive Simulation.
An obviously drunk private eye named Mike starts the game by falling out of bed. He stumbles out of the bedroom and into his office because the phone is ringing. You can explore his apartment/office for a bit because the game doesn’t really start until you answer the phone. The apartment door is locked but you do have the option of going out the window, that will start gameplay but leave first-timers in the dark.
This game will always reward exploration. You only have sixty health when you start and there is never going to be much in the way of medical kits available. But food is another story. Painkillers work too. So raiding the kitchen and the bathroom is worth it. There is also a safe, Mike can’t remember the combination but it isn’t hard to figure out from the surroundings.
Answer the phone and you get a brief comic strip cutscene where a clone of the Shadow called Night Wave will warn Mike that thugs are coming to kill to him.
If you looked over Mike’s desk then you would be vaguely aware that Night Wave was once part of a disbanded superhero team called the A.C.E.S. I don’t think any of them have superpowers but you won’t meet all of them in the first chapter.
Mike has a number of ways of dealing with his intruders. You can try for a pacifist run and make for the rooftop. You can slip past the goons when they break in. I personally chose violence because I always choose violence. Kicking them in the nuts will briefly stun-lock them. So will leaving a banana peel on the floor.
There are always going to be a number of ways to get past the bad guys and while getting through them is an option, keep in mind, that this game is not at all generous with ammo. This really isn’t meant to be an FPS, even if looks like one in the trailer. It is however quite generous with debris that can hurled at them and it does cause damage. Plates, chairs, coke cans, rats, pigeons, Big John (yes, there is a mini of him in this but it doesn’t do anywhere near the damage it should. What will gib a goon immediately is, of course, a bar of soap, this is a New Blood game. The gibbing is in full EC Comics gorey glory so be ready for the mess.
However, if you want a weapon, you are going to have to search for one.
You only have three carry slots and spare ammo will take up one of them. There are some temporary buffs available. Soda pop will bump up your speed, smoking cigarettes will steady your aim. This takes place in the 1930s, your life expectancy was 55 anyway.
At the end of the day, this is a game you play for the atmosphere more than anything else. You have a renegade vigilante superhero in Night Wave. A fallen superhero in the game’s big enemy Glass Jaw (you can tell). Then there’s the dame you got to rescue Delia Price AKA Scarlet Whisper.
This is a great indie game that we’ve been waiting for New Blood to drop for years. It lives up to the hype in every way available.
Also, avoid the bathrooms in the Moth and Flame. Trust me on that one.
