Today I played through the demo for the game NecroVision by 1C and Farm 51. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, NecroVision is a first person shooter set in the time of World War I (for a change) and has the player fighting his (or hers) way through hordes of germans, zombies, vampires and other things that go bump in the night.

first thing first: I wont be playing the full game. I was going to since I was really excited about the settings and the gameplay, but after the bitter experience I had playing this demo, I decided not to bother with the game.
I ran NecroVision on high settings (not ultra high) and I was surprised to see how ugly it was, especially the character models. Zombies looked like puppets, and the live germans all looked the same and were really unconvincing. Some of the non-human enemies were better designed, but still nothing special. Environments were slighty better, with smoother textures, but again, the blend colours of grey and black were not inspiring.

The demo takes place on the second level of the game, leading the hero through a ruined german castle filled with zombies. I must admit the taking down the zombies was pretty fun at first, and when I got the "Trench Gun" (WWI version of the shotgun) it got even better. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise since zombies are my favorite targets. The problem is that apart from shooting, stubbing and burning zombies, there wasn't a lot to do. Sure, there were quite a few levers to pull and buttons to push, but it lacked a real challange. the human enemies can be taken down with one accurate shot to the head or two shots to the chest and it is pretty easy to find ammo and health items just lying around. Even the two-parts "boss fight" was a joke. I died once during the demo, and only because I ran out of time in a certain section.
one other thing: the game took forever to load, and I do mean for ever. I actually got up from the computer and went to eat lunch and watch some T.V. during the initial loading, and it took about 15-20 minutes to finish. If the demo was any good I would have forgiven such insanity, but after 30-45 minutes, when I pressed the "quit" button, it felt like a complete waste of time.

If you've been reading carefully, you must have noticed I used the word "but" a lot, and with good reason. The word "but" pretty much sums up my impressions of this demo: it has some nice moments, but it is too generic and boring. It is hard to imagine it being a small part out of a much longer game. I can't imagine myself playing more than an hour of NecroVision, and it is a shame, since I hoped for a good shooter with lots of dark elements and even a slight horror touch.