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Visually, the game isn’t anything spectacular. By no means is it ugly, but it looks like something that was released in the early days of the Xbox 360 and PS3. I would say it is roughly on par with Hitman: Blood Money. Each level sees numerous uses of the same character models. Granted, this does help a little when working out who to take out for a uniform, but it does break the immersion a little. Environments generally look nice but some textures up close are a bit lacklustre and things like chairs beside desks etc. are completely static, so walking into them makes you move rather than an object. It is no biggie, though, as each level has plenty ambience capturing what the developers were aiming for.
Cutscenes look like the original storyboards have been used with voice overs, much like Max Payne but not as many comic book-style frames telling the story. They look good and serve their purpose of level interludes, but I can’t help but feel that if a bit more time and money was put into the project, production values would have seen proper in-engine cutscenes and so on.
Sound is what you would expecr. Each weapon has its own unique sound – such as a swish as you throw your knife, silenced handguns, and choking an enemy out with a garotte. In general, though, I can’t say I really notice the sound to much whilst playing, probably concentrating at the task in hand. One thing that has to be said, though, is the voiceovers on the cutscenes are laughably bad, even cringe worthy at times. Once again, this is probably down to finishing off the game on a lower budget. It does get the job done, piecing the missions together but reading before and after mission briefs etc gives more enjoyment. At the time of writing this, I cannot find a single voice actor accredited to this title, so I am thinking staff within Maximum Games have done it in-house just to get things inished off.
Alekhine’s Gun | Gameplay Walkthrough Part 3 – iMAVERIQ
Conclusion
All in all, I have had a bit of a love/hate thing going on with Alekhine’s Gun. I certainly appreciate the fact that they managed to get it released after two failed crowdfunding attempts. The game itself is quite buggy. I have had numerous crashes to desktop (.exe stopped working) from changing a setting on the options screen, to playing a level, to suddenly be dumped out of the game. I also experienced the lift doors acting weird and vanishing on the second level. Mind you, there has been a patch released a few days ago which has fixed said lift doors and improved overall stability of the game.
The game, itself, has four different skill levels ranging from easy up to extremely hard where one mistake ends it all in seconds. The thing is, even on easy, the game is pretty hard. There is no hand-holding at all in this game – you have to play it trial by error, time what you are doing and so on to not get caught. This may put off a few of the more casual players from really getting into the game, but persevere and you do get to grips and start enjoying it a whole lot more. I would certainly recommend using a gamepad whilst playing. I found the game plays considerably better with my Xbox 360 pad over mouse and keyboard.
Pricing at the moment, on Amazon, sees this game at £32.99 on Xbox One and & PS4, and £29.99 for the PC version on DVD and Steam. There is plenty content there – great for multiple play throughs as there are so many ways to do things. The problems are, however, the visuals being previous generation, terrible voice acting, bugs and extreme difficulty at times – they need to be drawing more of an audience and not just fans of the prior two games. I feel this should have been put out at a lower price point to try and maximise sales to hopefully eventually allow the release of a fourth game.
All gaming footage featured is from the Games Planet Youtube channel.
Alekhine’s Gun is out now on on PC, Xbox One and PS4.
Alekhine’s Gun | Gameplay Walkthrough Part 4 – iMAVERIQ
Important info:
- Publisher: Maximum Games
- Players: single player
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
7 5.5 6.5 7 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
Retro at heart and lover of all things ’80s, especially the computers, the music and the awesome movies and TV shows! Crazy huge retro gaming collection spanning the ’80s and ’90s with hundreds of tapes, discs and carts for various machines on top of a 600+ strong Steam library that is ever-growing. No I am not a serial hoarder, just a dedicated retro gamer!