JazzPotatoes
Koopa
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Over the last couple of days I've decided to give Winback a go on the NSO app. I'm a bit of a sucker for older action games, especially ones that predate a lot of modern game mechanics, or have an alternative solution to game design problems. And playing this has certainly been eye opening.
I'm only a few hours in, but already I can see the influence this game had on things like the cover system in Kill.switch, or the aiming in Resident Evil 4. It's weird to think about a random game by the Dynasty Warriors studio having such an influence on the overall third person shooter genre, but I suppose that's the way these things go. FROM was just a developer of niche Japanese games until they took over the world with Souls.
Anyway, Winback. Even a few hours in, there's a couple of things that really stand out to me playing this game:
1) Every level is a puzzle to be solved. Rather than just having arenas where you mindlessly shoot enemies, each new area feels like a puzzle where the direction you choose to approach from, where you take cover and where you point the camera all end up being part of the solution. It's the complete antithesis of mindless shooter, and I love it.. Every enemies feels deliberately placed, and if you go about things thoughtlessly, you get your behind whooped.
2) The combat is surprisingly intense. Even with the infinite pistol ammo, it feels like every gunfight I've had so far has been a careful dance of taking out enemies, knowing when to use/save shotgun and machine gun ammo, and knowing when to time my reloads. Again; it all feels very deliberate. I can't remember the last time I played a third person shooter where I had to pay this much attention to taking on 2-3 bad guys at the same time.
3) The controls take some getting used to, and are definitely inconsistent at certain things (having roll and cover be the same button can cause issues), but they do end up clicking and making a surprising amount of sense. Rolling out of cover to start popping shots from a crouch is always fun, and manually adjusting your aim to try and hit kneecaps and feet. If it doesn't quite make you feel like John Wick, it certainly succeeds at making you feel like a badass special forces agent.
It's an interesting contrast between this (which shares a lot of design ideas with RE4) and the RE4 remake, which has largely abandoned the original controls to go with a more standard modern TPS control set up.
I'm really having a fun time playing this at the moment. And I kind of wish we had more third person action games of this type, where the focus is on deliberately designed encounters, intense fights where even more than a couple of enemies can overwhelm you, and aiming mechanics built around analogue sticks rather than mouse movement.
I'm only a few hours in, but already I can see the influence this game had on things like the cover system in Kill.switch, or the aiming in Resident Evil 4. It's weird to think about a random game by the Dynasty Warriors studio having such an influence on the overall third person shooter genre, but I suppose that's the way these things go. FROM was just a developer of niche Japanese games until they took over the world with Souls.
Anyway, Winback. Even a few hours in, there's a couple of things that really stand out to me playing this game:
1) Every level is a puzzle to be solved. Rather than just having arenas where you mindlessly shoot enemies, each new area feels like a puzzle where the direction you choose to approach from, where you take cover and where you point the camera all end up being part of the solution. It's the complete antithesis of mindless shooter, and I love it.. Every enemies feels deliberately placed, and if you go about things thoughtlessly, you get your behind whooped.
2) The combat is surprisingly intense. Even with the infinite pistol ammo, it feels like every gunfight I've had so far has been a careful dance of taking out enemies, knowing when to use/save shotgun and machine gun ammo, and knowing when to time my reloads. Again; it all feels very deliberate. I can't remember the last time I played a third person shooter where I had to pay this much attention to taking on 2-3 bad guys at the same time.
3) The controls take some getting used to, and are definitely inconsistent at certain things (having roll and cover be the same button can cause issues), but they do end up clicking and making a surprising amount of sense. Rolling out of cover to start popping shots from a crouch is always fun, and manually adjusting your aim to try and hit kneecaps and feet. If it doesn't quite make you feel like John Wick, it certainly succeeds at making you feel like a badass special forces agent.
It's an interesting contrast between this (which shares a lot of design ideas with RE4) and the RE4 remake, which has largely abandoned the original controls to go with a more standard modern TPS control set up.
I'm really having a fun time playing this at the moment. And I kind of wish we had more third person action games of this type, where the focus is on deliberately designed encounters, intense fights where even more than a couple of enemies can overwhelm you, and aiming mechanics built around analogue sticks rather than mouse movement.
