Alekhine’s Gun on PC – The DVDfever Review

Alekhine’s Gun – what a strange name for a game. Flashbacks of the Full Metal Jacket chant “This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun ” sprang straight to mind. But no, out of interest I did a little research, turns out there is a Chess move named Alekhine’s Gun where your two rooks get stacked in front of your Queen and can do massive damage to your opponent. Historically, the move was used by Alexander Alekhine of the Russian Federation against Aron Nimzowitsch in 1930, and once Alekhine had placed his Rooks, won the game within four moves.

So you play a character named Semyon Strogov, known as Agent Alekhine who in turn works for the KGB and is hired by the CIA. Hence, you can kind of see where the name ties in and so on, but then again this game did have a bit of a troubled past – two failed crowdfunding campaigns later and Massive Games picked it up and changed the original titled, Death to Spies 3, to the aforementioned Alekhine’s Gun.

I love the Death to Spies series: WW2/Cold War Espionage at it’s very finest. Granted, they look a bit dated now but they are the closest thing to Hitman: Blood Money since it was released, many moons ago. It has large levels, each of which can be completed in numerous ways – this is proper old school espionage. So, Alekhine’s Gun is essentially the third title in that series, albeit a different name. This one tells the story coming out of WW2 with the Cold War is well under way. The game, itself, mainly takes place in the ’60s but there are flashback missions to WW2 for the purpose of the story.

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Alekhine’s Gun | Gameplay Walkthrough Part 1 – iMAVERIQ

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The gameplay takes you through 11 missions all-round the world, some of which coincide with key historical conspiracies and events such as the assassination of John F Kennedy and The Bay of Pigs Invasion (If you are interested in the Cold War go and have a read). There are numerous ways to complete the levels and objectives, each level starting out with a brief on who your targets are and any additional objectives. The first mission sees you taking out two people, rescuing a captured CIA operative and destroying a tape with recorded evidence on it and so on. After the brief, you get the option to select weapons and additional items to take along with you.

Each objective can be completed in any order you wish but you may find it a bit easier to try and think ahead. The tape, for example, is in an officers quarters. Your primary target is an officer, so take him out, get his clothing and key and you will not be questioned when entering the room; having the right uniform on in specific areas won’t arouse to much suspicion with other guards. Much like the earlier Hitman games, you can – if you wish – just go in guns blazing and hope for the best. Granted, the sheer volume of enemies on a level would make this a bit on the tough side but the option is there if you want to play that way.

Additionally, you can also arrange accidents to happen such as poisoning a drink and putting extra lighter fuel in a BBQ. There are so many different ways you can approach a level and adapt to any situation on-the-fly if needed. One thing that does need mentioning here, though, is that there is no auto save function. Numerous times I have been on a level for a good 30 minutes, sneaking about, completing objectives and forget to save only to find myself back at the very start of the level again. Remember to save often over a few slots in case something goes awry!

Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.

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Alekhine’s Gun | Gameplay Walkthrough Part 2 – iMAVERIQ

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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.

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Alekhine’s Gun | Gameplay Walkthrough Part 3 – iMAVERIQ

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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.

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Alekhine’s Gun | Gameplay Walkthrough Part 4 – iMAVERIQ

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Important info:

• Publisher: Maximum Games
• Players: single player

GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT	7 5.5 6.5 7
OVERALL	6.5