Do you remember NecroVisioN? It was released at the beginning of 2009, during the post-New Year fishlessness season. There was absolutely nothing to play, so I even accepted an action movie in the setting of the First World War with some joy. Shooting games "Kill them all"!“they don’t do it often anymore – there are completely different trends in fashion these days, this also influenced expectations. Well, for some reason the project was on everyone’s lips. Many acquaintances mentioned him in conversations, wrote on forums, I even saw something about him on ICQ. How it all ended, you know – NecroVisioN turned out to be a boring action movie, which, although it boasted support for DirectX 10, could not produce a measly 30 fps even in the ninth version with the lowest graphics settings. Everything else, unfortunately, also corresponded – because of the brakes, all the dynamics were lost. Enemies that were too tenacious still kicked the lifeless body of the gameplay, and bugs finished the job, which sometimes forced the dead to rise from “generic” triggers an infinite number of times. Behind all these shortcomings that fiercely caught my eye, I was unable to see anything worthwhile. It was all the more surprising to learn that the publishing house "1C" took the unfortunate project under its wing, as a result of which the engine was optimized in a short time, and a full-fledged prequel was attached to the original diabolical and epidemic story. We saw the almost finished version on Igromir, so we learned a lot from there. Now we have a finished product – let’s see if the “new money” was able to solve the root problems?

Plastic surgery

If you are personally familiar with NecroVisioN, then you remember that the engine, the hero-savior of mankind, often played tricks on him (and if you are not familiar, now you will understand why). For example, a horde of zombies is rushing towards us, and we have already taken the right position, we are slowly shooting the most zealous. The bulk get confused, stumble over corpses, get stuck in doors, and we aim at the heads of former people, carefully knock out the enchanted brains, save ammo. But suddenly everything around freezes for a moment. What is this? Enemy magic? No, this is a feature of the engine – while we are watching a static picture, zombies are briskly getting to our shelter; when the freeze passes, they are already eating our ears. It was especially fun to fight the bosses. You run, dodge, evade, shoot – everything is on the verge of death… freezing, the boss laughs evilly, the hero’s legs fly off to different corners of the level.

All this, you understand, did not contribute to the comprehension of the Tao and immersion in spiritual harmony. IN "Cursed Company", imagine, nothing slows you down. I specifically checked all possible modes: DX9, DX10, at medium settings, at minimum, at maximum, in the entire resolution range – from 1024×768 to 1920×1080. The developers really worked hard on optimization – NecroVisioN does not twitch or stutter even in scenes full of zombies and other evil spirits. Compared to the original project, this is a very big step forward.

DirectX 10, by the way, works (although I didn’t see the differences, and I still don’t see). True, I’m not sure that the cosmetic changes in the game are his doing. NecroVisioN it just became a little brighter – the pleasant glow of lamps, fires and torches spreads very softly and “expensively” on clear textures. He is opposed by sharp flashes of flame from machine gun bursts and volleys from the Hand (this is a magical weapon – it shoots projectiles familiar to role-players: fireballs, cold, barbed wire); due to bright flashes, surrounding objects throw long normal shadows who are not ashamed even with such an old F.E.A.R. compare.

The color scheme has https://bingovillagecasino.co.uk/login/ not changed. There is a war going on, plus zombies are crawling mixed with all sorts of ghosts and other evil spirits – all sorts of devilry is happening, there’s no time for bright colors, but… even the very first Doom knew how to convey tension, but at the same time allowed for the cheerful green balls of the BFG9000 and the kindly glowing eyes of the cacodemons. "Cursed Company" as dark (even in light areas) as its predecessor. On the one hand, this works for the atmosphere, on the other hand, the constant darkness and grayness do not in any way contribute to returning to the game.

How much does a pound of change cost??

An optimized engine is, of course, good, but what else did the developers add/adjust/invent?? To begin with, of course, a completely new campaign. Ten chapters reveal the history of inhumane German experiments, tell how the infection broke free, how it began to capture the minds of everyone indiscriminately. They added a new plot and new weapons, but… I won’t tell you exactly which ones and how many. The fact is that the original NecroVisioN was full of all sorts of shotguns, rifles, pistols, machine guns, shotguns and other farts (and they were not very different from each other). There were at least a dozen more of them here. To be honest, it doesn’t matter to me how exactly to turn hordes of monsters into liquid pulp.

The Magic Hand, unfortunately, did not receive new modes, and this is a serious minus, since at the middle-late stage it is necessary to fight mainly with it and even with a couple of the most powerful guns. In fact, the ending (in terms of gameplay feel) is no different from the previous part – the same guns, almost the same monsters, the same environment. In general, we have already been there, we know. Unless it slows down.

I note that the developers understood and reworked some of the weak points of the original. So, we won’t exclusively run around on foot, chop up zombies and ghosts with a sapper shovel, pick our noses while the next dozen brainless opponents sluggishly and leisurely rise from the floor. Now in NecroVisioN there are “entertainment games” that, in theory, should diversify the entire passage. For example, one of the remarkable levels is flying on a biplane. We clear the airfield, then jump into the bird, then blow up enemies on the runway, move on (we observe a hostile and dull landscape), protect the train, shoot down flying monsters… The controls are the most primitive. There is a sight in the middle of the screen – we use it to steer, you can fly faster or slower. Point the crosshairs at the enemies with the mouse and shoot. That’s it. Simple and entertaining.

In one of the levels, apparently also part of the “entertainment” program, we will be given a ride on a tank, which has a powerful main gun and a high-speed machine gun. According to all the laws of the monster genre, there will be just over a hundred thousand monsters in this location. There will be enough meat, no doubt about it.

Become a necromancer, die in the last game

U "Cursed Company", like any, in principle, prequel, there is one significant problem. To be successful, the original must be catchy. Here “Shadows of Chernobyl” encouraged us to be poisoned by the bugs of “Clear Sky” (and we were poisoned). And "Cursed Company" What? Only a crippled predecessor, who received low ratings and did not gain much popularity.

In addition, if we discard these thoughts about the appropriateness of the plot and everything connected with it, then we are left with a not very technologically advanced and beautiful action movie. Most of the elements in the interface design look outdated and cheap, this “kneeling” is always before our eyes: when we pull the lever, pick up cartridges, select a weapon, perform a combo… NecroVisioN is initially a low-flying bird, it turned out to be just as simple and without pretensions "Cursed Company".

But it has a strong side – they don’t make similar “old-school” action films with first aid kits and a thousand guns anymore. Or they do very little – Wolfenstein was a long time ago, no one remembers about him. True, the publishers’ plan was slightly spoiled by Serious Sam HD, which was much more fun and dynamic even without HD (and one is still itching to write “more beautiful”).

Pros: optimized engine; a lot of monsters; a lot of weapons.
Cons: outdated graphics; sluggish gameplay; famous ending; protracted firefights.