It’s the 2016 remake of DOOM. But no.

RATING: 5/10.


So Hellbound is an indie first-person shooter that’s clearly paying homage to all those bloody, gory, action-packed 90s games like DOOM and Quake, etc. The game isn’t trying to hide this—it’s actually part of its advertising. And yes, for all intents and purposes, this game most definitely is more or less a 90s FPS game!

…But not made by the original creators.

The plot is simple, nonexistent. You play a burly shirtless dude named Hellgore. He swears a lot. He likes blowing shit up. He likes killing monsters and demons. And so on. He’s a combination of Doom Guy and Duke Nukem. Apparently the demons in this game wiped out most of Hellgore’s race and other allies, or something like that. Anyway, it’s Hellgore’s job to kill all the demons and stop the big baddie leading all the monsters. And now we have our game.

So right off the bat, the biggest problem with this game is that it’s trying so hard to be like DOOM that it doesn’t have its own identity. At no point did I say “Wow, I’m playing Hellbound!” I just kept saying “Oh. I’m playing Diet DOOM.” Now look, nothing’s wrong with paying homage to other games; nothing’s wrong with making a game similar to another game. But you need you have your own kind of style to make yourself stand out. Let’s say someone saw a painter using specific colors and techniques to craft beautiful paintings. It is perfectly fine to use those exact same tools to make your own piece of art. But you have to make your own art; it’s not a good idea to try and copy the person who inspired you.

Which is what Hellbound does, unfortunately.

Gameplay’s pretty standard. You got your rifle, machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, melee weapon. Pretty much any weapon works fine with most of the enemies. The enemies themselves aren’t overly-complex. You got the demons who shoot at you with the same guns you got. You got tall, horned demons who chuck fireballs at you. You got asshole feral demons who attack by running towards you and lunging at you and can one-hit kill you sometimes. I hate these fucking things so much. And…that’s it. The only other enemy is the final/only boss in the game. But otherwise, these are the only enemies in the game. Which is okay, but the problem is that in order to make the game harder, the developers just spam enemies in overly-vast wide open areas. New enemies aren’t ever introduced; old enemies aren’t reformatted to be more difficult. It’s just these three enemies, and that’s it.

The level design is hit or miss. Some of them are incredible and well-designed; others are very wide…and long…and barren. The scenery looks beautiful—that’s for damn sure. Especially for an indie game that looks like it was made by only a small team of developers. Some of the stages visually look very nice, even if the overall design is a bit blah. So props there.

By far the best thing about this game is the soundtrack. It’s just nonstop heavy metal, head-banging, kickass soundtracks blaring in your ears from start to finish. No point in being a total badass unless the game reflects said tone as well via soundtrack. There’s nothing on the levels of being an eargasm sorta speak (especially considering I finished Spark the Electric Jester not too long ago), but goddamn is it impressive.

The final stage is disappointing. You kill a couple enemies. Then you encounter the boss. Then you beat the boss. And then the game’s over. The boss himself only has one attack, which is hurling giant blue energy balls at you. The only reason why the final boss is challenging is because, again, the game spams enemies at you the entire time. But the boss himself is pathetic.


So would I recommend this game?

Um…

…

…

Eh.

No.

This game is completely inoffensive. It’s not pushing some agenda; it’s not political; it’s not trying to cash in on real life issues; it’s not following memes; it’s not controversial; it’s not subverting expectations solely because it can. It’s just a gory, action-packed FPS. What you see is what you get. And that’s fine. But that’s the problem.

This game is just fine.

There’s nothing unique about it; it doesn’t have its own style. And because of that, I found myself not getting bored…but just playing the game because I spent money on it, and I needed to finish it since I figured the game was gonna be short anyways. As I said before, there’s nothing wrong with making a “DOOM clone” game. But you need your own uniqueness to bring to the table.

DUSK is a wonderful DOOM clone that has cosmic horror elements to it. It has its own style that makes it stand out and it’s absolutely enthralling.

AMID EVIL is a…science fantasy(?) DOOM clone that incorporates modern-day game mechanics and combines it with a strange, but interesting medieval lore behind it. It’s fantastic.

Duke Nukem 3D is a DOOM-like game (which came out before DOOM I believe? The first one at least) that is self-aware of what it is and takes the piss out of it while also making the protagonist a rugged trash-talking badass who has no problem breaking the fourth wall. And said game is riddled with dark humor.

The friggin’ Chex Quest trilogy is a series of DOOM clones made for children and all three games are loads of fun, with its methods of obtaining health meaning eating fruits and vegetables or drinking water, and your methods of armor consist of putting on a “Chex” shield, and your guns are small devices that zap gooey alien invaders back to their dimension.


No one’s stopping you from buying Hellbound, but for the sake of argument?

DUSK is $20.

AMID EVIL is $20.

There’s a DUSK and AMID EVIL bundle for $35.

Duke Nukem 3D is $20.

The Chex Quest HD Remake along with the original Chex Quest trilogy are all free.


You’re better off paying the extra five dollars.