FireStarter – PC – Preview

From Ukranian developer GSC GameWorld comes
Firestarter, an FPS that pits players against hordes of nasty monsters in a
virtual reality world toppled over by a crippling virus.  You guide your avatar
through a variety of missions defeating as many enemies as possible and
progressing through the game’s different levels.  I recently got a chance to sit
down with the demo build of Firestarter, which aside from a few problems, proved
to be quite fun and exciting.

 

You begin Firestarter by
selecting one of six different characters, each with different traits, strengths
and weaknesses.  While only three characters were available for play in the demo
(Agent, Policeman, and Mutant; the other three are the Gunslinger, Marine and
Cyborg) I was able to get a feel for the range in skills for each of the
playable characters.  The Agent was fast and nimble, yet didn’t handle heavy
weapons as well as the Mutant, who, while slow and lumbering, was better at
handling larger guns and could even two-fist them (although this did wear down
ammo very quickly).  The Policeman was probably the best balanced out of the
group, with average traits.


Firestarter takes a few risks on the standard FPS formula, by incorporating
“bullet-time” elements and a few other key features.  Whenever you get too close
to an enemy, the game automatically switches to a bullet-time mode (similar to
the adrenaline system used in Chaser, for those of you who’ve played it) in
which the action slows down to a crawl and you have the means to calculate your
given situation and take proper action.  However, the fact that this mode is
automatic seems a bit problematic, as the flow of the gameplay becomes
disjointed and loses its fluidity.  I for one think it’s fun to be caught in a
hairy situation with only impulse and reflex to get you out, and the automatic
bullet-time system seems to all but eliminate that sense.  Hopefully, GSC
GameWorld will make this a tweakable option in the final game.

 

Another element that
Firestarter throws into the FPS mix is the lack of an in game save feature.  The
game allows your character to survive by collecting artifacts, which do serve as
checkpoints at which your character can respawn if they die, as well as extra
lives.  However, when things get really nasty, it can be kind of a pain to have
to go through the entire level again, adding some undue frustration.

 

The single player mode is
pretty sparse on depth, but the game wins some points back with the great
multiplayer features.  The demo only offered two modes, Co-op and Deathmatch,
but the final version will have Co-op, Deathmatch, Hunting and Slaughter with
support for up to 32 players.

 

The graphics are pretty
good.  The environments are huge and sport a great amount of detail.  The enemy
models look a bit simplistic and the blood effects are pretty lousy, but the
huge levels, good lighting effects and well-detailed weapons make up for it.

 

The music is a cross between
dark, moody ambient music and industrial techno, similar to many other titles in
the genre.  The sound effects are also pretty commonplace, with the same kind of
demon grunts, groans and gunfire, as you’ve seen before.

 

Firestarter has a few
problems, but if these get fixed, the game should provide hours up great
multiplayer gameplay that’ll be worth the twenty-dollar price tag.