Liquidator 2 Preview

Introduction

“Liquidator is an action-packed, first person shooter game with large cinematic adventure components. Set in three unique game environments, the game features massive fighting sequences, a rich variety of unique characters and super-charged power-ups that contribute to incredibly strong gameplay.

Utilizing rich character and story development as well as an automatic gameplay adjustment system, Liquidator fills its encompassing alien worlds with suspense and intrigue making each gameplay experience unpredictable for the player who can enjoy playing through the game again and again with many new and exciting ways to explore and enjoy the game.

Liquidator is designed for maximum replay value as opposed to many games that can only be enjoyed once.”

OK, that’s what they tell us, now read on to find out what I think…

General Gameplay

I dislike being too negative because lots of people have worked very hard on this game but the one word I would use to describe the gameplay is: unsatisfying. Movement is smooth and realistic, weapons are OK, but nothing special, enemies are varied, if not imaginative and the levels are playable. But somehow the balance is missing.
I didn’t get close very often for various reasons so there wasn’t much melee action and medium & long distance action provided little feeling of accomplishment.

Weapons

A standard assortment of weapons are provided and considering the setting I was expecting something with a little more imagination. The Humans have managed to open portals to other dimensions but I’m still stuck with a flamethrower, a snipe rifle, a shotgun, a machine gun, a pistol and finally the pier de r�sistance: a mini axe!
Unusually for me I preferred the shotgun, which gave a nice balance between kick and result. Using the flamethrower always gave me cause for concern because I always seemed to run into the flames!

The Enemies

Every enemy I encountered seem to fit a classical idea of some demonic evil; skeletons walking around, bats, half-demon half-goat, ogre, that type of thing. They also seemed completely impervious to my weapons until the moment of death; there was not obvious change when they were hit. They simply continued doing what they were doing until suddenly they dropped or disappeared. Which by the way was very annoying.
Another problem was the time taken from an enemy attacking me to actually getting hit. In most games you have some kind of pre-attack movement that allows you dodge or take cover, not so in this game! For example the skeletons (They probably have a proper name but I couldn’t find it!) suddenly emit electricity from their skull (Don’t ask me how!) and immediately I get hit - no time to dodge or even run. Wack! Straight to the head. Brutal!

Features

Let’s start with the Jugs. Within each level there are jugs of various colours that generally provide health boosts. However some jugs actually reduce you health. Oh Boy, I can’t tell you how much that annoyed me. There was no way of telling which jug was positive and which jug was negative. There are also a few neutral jugs that are empty, just to keep things interesting. These jugs automatically replenish in the same place meaning you could run around all day collecting them.
The same seemed true of the enemies, if I killed everything and came back later there were more. Maybe I genuinely missed them first time around but I hate continuously renewing enemies.
Ammo stashes were elaborate rooms that somehow the humans had managed to construct in the other dimensions. A symbol to the wall indicated a room, which automatically open. Thankfully the demons must be too stupid to find these rooms and destroy them, meaning I can reload when needed.

Level Design

In the build I played there are three levels; The Lost Lands, The Swamp and The Land of Hell. There’s very little difference between them except textures. Large open areas, slides wooden doors, gothic/Unrealesque towers, plenty of larva and stonewalls falling to pieces.
On a technical level the levels themselves are well constructed and do provide interesting sections. There was even the seemingly obligatory underwater section with the giant human-eating fish! But given the overall theme and style of the game intricate levels may have seemed out of place.

Miscellaneous

The music: not atmospheric enough for me. Generally it was too fast, with not enough mood. I’m sorry to keep saying it but very reminiscent of MP games.

Difficulty settings: Maybe I missed them but by choosing a new game didn’t give me the option of difficulty. Being a preview build may also account for the lack of settings.

The HUD: A lot of work has gone into this aspect of the game and there are a number of nice features. Sometimes you can receive too much information and occasionally this was the case. I prefer a clean screen but you may like it. I do however acknowledge the effort that has gone into it.

Level Start: I’m a details type of person and often the minor or small things impress me. I really liked the way the levels start with the screen fading in patches. Such a small detail but at least it’s different from the other games.

Conclusion

I’ll be honest: I didn’t enjoy playing the preview. That’s not to say it’s not very good but more an honest acceptance of the types of games I like. I spent longer playing this than I should have because I wanted to like it. I thought I was judging it too quickly and felt it deserved longer. Unfortunately it didn’t make any difference.

Overall it gave me the impression of being a Multiplayer game that had a simple story tacked on and a few adaptations made to the levels. The three levels I played all seemed to be perfect for Deathmatch and didn’t quite fit a single player game. Perhaps they were trying to get away from a simple linear level, in which case they succeeded but there’s more to non-linear level design than large open spaces.

Another point that gave the impression of a Multiplayer game was the replenishing jugs; it’s exactly the sort of feature you find in MP games. Run around kill everything and collect more health. At no point did I feel I was part of a story with sensible and believable objectives.

So the question remains, should you buy this game or at least download the demo? If I had to characterise this game I would say it’s a diluted cross between Painkiller and Serious Sam. If you love those games then you may well like this one.

Disclaimer

This post was written using the Preview build and the demo & retail game may differ significantly, however I have a feeling the demo is almost exactly the same.

What do you think?

As with all posts here at PlanetPhillip you have the opportunity to respond with your comments and questions. In fact I am eager to hear what you think of the game, so get writing.