Third-person motion recreation Slitterhead typically presents a reasonably compelling entrance. At first, it seems like an out-there horror recreation with an ingenious strategy to gameplay. You play as a formless spirit that may possess people, looking vicious monsters able to imitating regular individuals. These creatures explode from the heads of their human our bodies to disclose their true varieties when found.
As cool as all these phrases clearly are, Slitterhead by no means reaches the promise of its premise, aside from a couple of attractive cutscenes the place a human twists and mutates right into a disgusting, multi-armed abomination. As a substitute, it is often irritating and repetitive, with its attention-grabbing concepts turning to gimmicks that put on themselves skinny after the primary few hours.
These gimmicks really feel like they’ve potential, at the least at first. Slitterhead opens with you taking over the function of the Hyoki: a floating spirit that may zip into the brains of random people populating the dense metropolis of Kowlong, briefly taking management of their our bodies. The Hyoki cannot bear in mind something about itself or what it is doing, till it encounters its first slitterhead–which, after consuming the brains of an unsuspecting sufferer, bursts from the cranium of its host and chases you down alleys as you zap from one hapless soul to a different to remain simply forward of it. The idea is bizarre, altering the way in which you concentrate on characterization and bodily gameplay house, and slitterheads are scary–it’s an effective way to begin the sport.
However that is the one time you are on the again foot or that Slitterhead makes use of the horror facets of its premise. For the period, you are looking the parasites with the motive of exterminating them, and it is the monsters that run from you. As you leap into people, you need to use their blood to briefly create stable weapons like golf equipment and spears, permitting you to go toe-to-toe with the large octopuses and praying mantises that erupt out of the necks of their unlucky hosts. People are bodily weaker than slitterheads, however every new physique you’re taking over offers you a brand new well being bar to run down, in addition to the aspect of shock to go after a creature whereas it is slashing up the poor meatbag you simply deserted. As a fight system, the concept of constructing use of a crowd to continually confuse and overpower your enemy with an infinite sequence of ambushes is a enjoyable one.
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Slitterhead provides to the concept whenever you begin discovering Rarities–humans who kind nearer bonds with the Hyoki to make their possession a bit of extra of a partnership, and who sport particular skills consequently. These skills are inclined to replicate every of their personalities and vocations. You may heal close by allies or summon extra people to a battle, energy up your melee weapons to set enemies on hearth, throw exploding weapons, and even flip people you possess into kamikaze time bombs. And all people can dodge away from assaults and block or parry some blows, which may give you alternatives for giant counterattacks–deflect sufficient strikes and you will set off a quick interval of slowed time in which you’ll be able to wail on an opponent with every part you have obtained.
The elements of Slitterhead’s fight ought to come back collectively to make for one thing sudden and entertaining, however fights are not often all that participating in observe. Whereas there are a couple of totally different sorts of Slitterheads they usually generally deliver totally different assaults to bear in opposition to you, for essentially the most half, all of them struggle the identical means. Even nonetheless, I by no means fairly felt like I might get the cling of the parry system because of the pace and angles at which assaults come at you. The system lacks the sensation of being tight and dependable, and I used to be often oscillating between having the ability to completely parry one slitterhead to make a struggle fully trivial, just for the following one to physique me again and again.
Standing your floor is a worse option to struggle, although, when you possibly can simply persistently zap into one other physique and hit a slitterhead of their vestigial, dangling human physique, the place they’re most weak. Every time you soar into a brand new host, you acquire a lift to your melee harm, in addition to what kind of quantities to 3 or 4 free hits because the enemy AI will assault the physique you have been beforehand in for some time earlier than it realizes you have moved into a brand new one. Even that’s extra irritating than enjoyable, although. The fight system is unfastened and clumsy, inflicting you to swing previous an enemy as typically as into them, even whenever you use the lock-on system. And that is if the lock manages to outlive between our bodies. Typically, it’s going to disengage, requiring you to swing the digital camera round madly as you reorient your self simply to get a few fast, boring hits in, earlier than you repeat the method.
And whereas bringing totally different Rarities right into a mission may recommend a strategic plan of blending particular skills collectively, in observe, there’s simply not rather a lot occurring there. All of the Rarities are fairly efficient, however lots of their particular strikes do not deliver sufficient to a battle to vary its circulate. Throwing bombs, zapping enemies with poison, setting traps across the battlefield–none of them change the truth that fight principally entails simply hammering the melee button earlier than swapping to a brand new physique and hammering it once more. Many particular strikes require blood, which you additionally use for well being. If a physique takes crucial harm with you in it on three separate events, you die, and you’ll’t be exterior of a physique for quite a lot of seconds or it is recreation over, so utilizing these skills could make you very weak. With slitterheads typically hitting like a truck to ship your hosts flying and the parry timings and instructions not often feeling like you possibly can depend on them, you get a state of affairs the place most particular skills simply aren’t well worth the danger.
Some skills do have their uses–summoning extra people, as an example, is often a worthy tradeoff, and an assault with a magical chaingun enables you to principally swap your Rarity’s well being for harm in opposition to an enemy, and it is not too tough to recharge should you can slip away from a foe for a pair seconds. However many of the skills are rather a lot much less strategic. I by no means discovered myself joyful once I summoned the weak stationary turret that shot intermittently at enemies, and the power to cost up your weapon into an explosive bolt at all times took too lengthy to execute in any precise fight conditions.
You are not at all times preventing slitterheads, although. Generally you must use stealth to make your means by means of an space, which has the potential to be a contemporary tackle acquainted tropes however winds up being far too simplistic. You’ll be able to briefly come out of our bodies and float invisibly round an space, permitting you to peek round corners to keep away from threats, and generally you possibly can’t get a physique previous a guard with out being detected, forcing you to desert one host for an additional additional alongside. However guards stroll quick, apparent prescribed paths and by no means do something sudden. The stealth parts change into extraordinarily tedious and gradual digressions the place you make your means alongside an apparent path, and if it is ever not apparent, the Hyoki explains precisely what you need to do and the way.
And generally you are trying to find slitterheads, utilizing your particular powers that direct you to their places and even allow you to quickly “sight jack” them to see what they’re seeing. These scenes characterize one other thrilling concept that may be nice in the event that they required any mind energy in any respect, like should you had to make use of your data of Kowlong’s locales and landmarks to determine the place a slitterhead was heading or what it was planning, however you by no means do. As a substitute, you simply observe a glowing path to the enemy and assault them. Different instances, you may get right into a chase scene with a slitterhead because it flees by means of the streets, and never solely are these at all times precisely the identical, but in addition at all times annoying. They principally quantity to zapping from human to human to take a random swing within the course of the operating slitterhead because it passes till you lastly whittle down its well being sufficient to set off the true struggle, otherwise you attain the top of no matter prescribed path it was operating, and set off in the true struggle. Regardless, chases aren’t enjoyable; they require no explicit ability, they provide no problem, they usually carry no stakes.
The narrative is the place the sport might make up floor by means of its imaginative premise, however right here too, Slitterhead seems to be deeper than it ever truly is. At first, you are simply killing no matter monsters you come throughout, however you quickly begin to notice that hidden slitterheads are doing extra than simply snacking on the brains of whoever they will coax right into a darkish alley. They’ve taken over organized crime in Kowlong’s slums, utilizing intercourse employees as a method of luring in victims.
That early aspect of the mystery–the revelation that the head-popping, brain-slurping monster mimics had determined to do common crime stuff whereas additionally often consuming their customers–was fairly disappointing. As ingenious because it is perhaps to have these fiends roaming the town, their objectives and motivations cannot match their often-inventive creature designs. And whereas the sport means that it means to flesh out the slitterheads themselves because the narrative unfolds, that aspect of the story finally does not actually go wherever. It is by no means clear precisely how the slitterheads work, what they assume or really feel, or what they’re all as much as. They’re evil and it’s essential to kill them; anything is wheel-spinning.
Some facets of the story do get higher as the story goes on, at the least to some extent. In between missions, you possibly can discuss with every of the Rarities you unlock, studying about them and deepening their reference to the Hyoki. When Slitterhead leans into this concept, it goes to some cool locations. As an illustration, Julee–your first Rarity–isn’t pleased with the collateral harm that always outcomes from the slitterhead hunts, encouraging you as an alternative to restrict civilian casualties when potential, and that has a notable impact on the Hyoki, who began the sport by leaping off a roof in a human physique after which zapping out into a brand new one on the final second as a result of it was faster than taking the steps. Alex–another early Rarity who contrasts Julee–is bent on private revenge in opposition to the slitterheads, and he has little regard for anybody who will get in his means, even when they’re fully ignorant to what is going on on. Each characters affect the Hyoki as time goes on, and the story begins to tackle some dimension as their totally different viewpoints and ideologies increase and conflict.
Sadly, the opposite Rarities aren’t almost as compelling. There are eight altogether, however just one apart from Julee and Alex has any narrative to talk of, and all are two-dimensional stereotypes. They embody a intercourse employee with skills associated to her female wiles, a homeless man who needs to spend most of his time consuming, a high-school nerd, an previous girl who appears to have dementia, and a housekeeper who relates every part she says to cleansing. Total, they’ve little to contribute. They’re by no means written with something apart from surface-level characterization and weak jokes that play off their stereotypes, and aside from a few missions the place you deliver alongside a selected Rarity to open a door or present a bit of data, they’re incidental to the plot and their conversations are sometimes form of pointless.
And whereas some facets of the story develop in attention-grabbing instructions, Slitterhead by no means succeeds in translating that intrigue into gameplay. As a substitute, just like the fight methods, stage design is repetitious and shallow. Time journey turns into a significant aspect of the story after the opening hours, which brings its personal intriguing concepts to the narrative, however the sensible result’s that you just replay the identical missions, in the identical places, again and again. Generally it’s essential to return and search out extra Rarities or hunt for collectibles. Generally you may play by means of a mission to a distinct consequence, or open a door you noticed in a earlier run to entry a brand new small space, however finally it appears like Slitterhead is made up of the identical 4 or 5 ranges, with the identical boring fights and irritating chases, again and again.
It appears like piling on at this level, nevertheless it additionally should be talked about that Slitterhead is, largely, a reasonably ugly recreation. Character faces are plastic, shiny, and largely unmoving, and whereas the slitterheads themselves are sometimes cool-looking, because you struggle a couple of variations on the theme again and again, they cease being visually compelling in a rush. There’s lots of model within the game–opening title playing cards carry cool graphical results, missions finish with a neat freeze-frame “To Be Continued” message, and there are occasions when the presentation is artfully cinematic or knowingly horrific, hinting at what the entire expertise might have been like. Gameplay, although, seems to be 15 years outdated, and it is unhealthy sufficient to be distracting, particularly when the sport places heavy emphasis on speaking to characters to advance the story.
Actually, although, most issues about Slitterhead really feel outdated on this means. The body-swapping fight, RPG-like staff of possessable individuals, the monster-hunting semi-paranormal narrative–they’re all thrilling till you interact with them a bit of, once they reveal themselves to be shallow and underdeveloped. The precise expertise of taking part in Slitterhead is fixed repetition of methods that are not very participating even their first time, throughout ranges you may see again and again, telling a narrative that by no means makes a lot sense, with characters that really feel like first-draft lists of stereotypes. Slitterhead has lots of fascinating concepts and compelling gameplay on the floor, however beneath, it is simply boring and banal–a bunch of scary-looking monsters who end up to not be very scary in any respect.
