LOOK. OVER. HERE.
Severed Steel doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is and in this case that’s awesome. The developers at Greylock Studio wisely avoided the usual trap of indie developers; and that is packing the first game with lots of ideas and systems. Severed Steel’s simplicity is one of its major draws; a voxel based, Doom inspired shooter where the action is fast, intense, and never ending. Imagine the lobby scene from the original Matrix film, with all the flips, slides, and slo-mo but instead of reloading, you toss your gun as a weapon and grab another. Why? Well, because the lady you control had her arm amputated and she wants revenge…or something.
MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: PC
Price I’d Pay: $24.99
See, story in Severed Steel isn’t at the forefront. There is one, it’s told via some graphic novel inspired art; it looks cool, but I couldn’t tell you what all was happening in the narrative. Similarly, to SuperHOT and its sequel most levels give you one simple objective. KILL. THEM. ALL. While some levels will have you destroying panels, or something similar each will end with GET. OUT. Which just has the player rush to a marked exit to end the level. The game waste little time on direction and instead wisely lets the player get to the excellent action.
Severed Steel is all about killing fast and moving faster, having the ability to trigger the “bullet-time” effect made famous in the gaming space by Max Payne; players can slide, dive, and run-on walls to dodge incoming fire. Which there will be a lot of, and if the player is to keep their access to bullets flowing; they’ll have to KILL. THEM. ALL. The total and absolute joy that Severed Steel causes by the smoothness of its action and gameplay is pure bliss. Using a controller each of the moves are just paired to a single button; want to do a dive then just press the Y or Triangle button, bullets coming high…. No problem, B or Circle button will bust out a slide move. The benefit of using these moves to trigger the bullet-time is that the effect won’t stop even if you run out of meter; as long as you are in a dive/slide/wall run type move, the slo-mo effect will continue until the animation ends.
It makes the absolute chaos of the battlefields more manageable to be sure as enemies will attack from EVERYWHERE. Early in the game the player will receive an arm cannon on her amputated limb; with it she can fire an explosive which will destroy almost every surface. Mean when she does a dive and sees its about to end, well destroy the floor and fall to the next level, killing all the way. Guns in the game all feel well and there is a wide variety. Shotguns, assault rifles, pistols and even grenade launchers are all up for grabs…literally. If the player kicks an enemy (which can be done in bullet-time) it will force the enemy to drop their gun and the last thing they see is the player snatching it out of the air before executing them.
Severed Steel is a fantastic ride while it last, there is a map editor for the brave but replay value is only going to be found for those that have the need to top a leaderboard or want to record some dope slo-mo montages. Anyone looking for a supremely easy to get into action game that blends the bullet-time from Max Payne with a bombastic soundtrack pumping techno music and all the slides and dives from 80-90’s action movies…look absolutely no further than Severed Steel. For a first game Greylock has nailed it and I can’t wait to see this gem on consoles.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
