I love to take pleasure on
killing unsuspected enemies so stealth genre is my jam. I can mention some
great stealth game: Dishonored, Tenchu 2, Tenchu: Time of The Assassins. Compared to other action genre,
stealth genre is fewer. Although some game employ stealth element in certain
extent. So today, i shall appraise Diatomic Games' Sword with Sauce (2018).
The title screen is simple: a
game title (along with version number) and a guy who's most likely the
protagonist of the game although he looks the same with his enemies. I mean
like 100% resemblance. I think his name is "Self Destruct Ninja" as
seen on advertisement billboard on one of the level.
Sorry, i mean "SELFDESTRUCT
NINJA" with all caps and minus one space. My theory may be wrong as the ninja is white as opposed to that guy on
title screen who's black. But the name sounds really cool so i stick to refer
the hero as "Self Destruct Ninja".
The main menus is on the line on
the top. They're considerably small thus bit unfriendly. To start a game you
click on "Lobby" menu. Let's start with Tutorial, shall we?
Because the game is in First
Person genre so you expect the basic control is standard:
"W","S","A", and "D" for move/sidestep
plus mouse to look around. It's kind of weird to see the move button is
"WSDA" instead of "WASD" but that just me.
Demoman_laughshort02.wav. Pretty
neat reference to Excalibur there. If King Arthur is shogun instead of knight,
the sword will be katana like this.
For those who like to play lots
of FPS, you better be remember that "R" button for throwing your
equipped weapon instead of reloading. There's reload mechanism but i will talk
about it later. You see that purple box near that guy on the most right? That's
the tutorial box, it will pop up if you get near it and i love it.
Scout_jeers05.wav. I believe i
throwed sword accurately at him but...the sword just goes pass him harmlessly
like some kind of summer breeze and end up planted on the wall behind him.
Other tutorial teaches me that i
can drag dead bodies or their weapon by holding "E" and movement button.
Miraculously, i can make that katana stands perfectly still with the blade part
on the bottom. Sniper_sf13_influx_big05.wav
The tutorial tells me that
holding right mouse button to deflect bullets but i don't think this is the
good way to block submachine gun's firing. But who do i know? I'm not ninja.
Don't you love it when your bullets pass the enemy without killing him. [Large Sarcasm].
Thankfully, the sniper rifle is
accurate plus it's able to kill enemies in one straight firing line.
Funny, i don't think there's
"Error" button on my keyboard. It's supposed to be left shift button
but somehow it didn't register well.
I never experience wall running
on other FPS game and this changes everything. Yes, i never play Overwatch or what have you. The text
says that i can look around while wall running without falling off but i keep
falling if i do that. Maybe because this is the first time i do wall running on
FPS.
That supposed to be
"moving" there. Anyway. After some wall running, i arrive in this
gadget training section. Holding down "Q" button allow me to choose
my gadget while the time slows down, kind of in Dishonored. So don't expect to search your inventory with 100%
safety if there's enemies around you.
Demoman_sf12_badmagic11.wav. This
gadget named "Spinning Death" will flies homing at nearest enemy's
head but as you can see one of it planted on wall and somehow kills enemy after
i use the same weapon to another enemy.
On the other hand, this
"Sticky Lightning" accurately electrocutes nearby enemies if planted
well. But sometime the gadget sink into the floor when thrown and it won't
target anyone except for mysterious mole men or worms. By the way, the game
will marks all of the enemies if there's only 10 left of them
That strange apparatus on right
is resupply machine that can replenish your gadgets. Gadgets have certain ammo
count, you see.
The training level ends with
smoke which may refer to fogs in Dark
Soul game. Very funny.
Before i go to first level on
this playthrough, i manage my inventory wheel first. The one with white
background is equippable item. The inventory with green background is toggle
kind of item. Lastly the one with pale brown background is passive item which
active without equipping it. The inventory with black background is the one
which currently chosen to replace. One of the gadget is broom which allow you
to clean blood stains from killed enemies. It sounds useful for stealthier
approach but i ensure you that it's useless. You can erase blood trail but you
can't do that with dead bodies except drag them to chasm which mean extra work.
Plus the enemies seems to ignore blood trail. In my opinion Vision Goggles,
Grappling Hook, and Exo-Knife are mandatory.
There's no campaign mode or what
have you. You only get several maps (plus tutorial course) that you can choose
freely. I start with Mansion map because it's considered quite easy to me. If
you have more than one loadout setting, don't forget to choose the one you want
to have from loadout option in that right tab.
By equipping Vision Goggles, you
can see enemies behind wall (and make their color red) but your vision will be
blur making your vision shorter. You can mark enemies in akin to Battlefield 1 (2016) by pressing middle
mouse button (default) but only with enemies within fairly short range. The
range could be the same with the range of Vision Goggles.
I try to drag my victim's body to
less seen place but it "sinks" to ground floor for some reason thus
making enemies aware of my assassination. Spy_jeers04.wav
But this sod hasn't aware of my
action so...Tenchu time! You can only do this stealth kill move if you carry
Exo-Knife.
That commotion gives me a great
opportunity to use my reliable method: corner assassination. Wait for some
doofus behind a corner and then melee kill him. Nice and simple. You may wonder
why i carry shield instead of Katana like sensible killer. That's because it's
(obviously) better for blocking bullets than Japanese sword if my stealth
action blown up by my own stupidity sooner or later. Whacking enemy with shield
leave no blood stain but his body will flies quite distance that can
potentially alert others.
I carry pistol (with silencer)
for ranged stealth kill and i regret that decision. As you know before that
bullet's hit detection in this game is finicky. Hitting anyone with pistol in
other part than head, is useless. So i aim at his head and...the bullets go
through his head unfazed. How lucky of him for being air headed (in literal
sense)!
The bloke remain careless while
his friends aware of gunshot on wall behind his head. I can take care of them
one by one by using the aforementioned corner assassination but now they come
at me in numbers. I should bring at least 1 gadget for crowd murder.
Then i'm dead. I think i take
care of enemies in front of me but the shotgun guy on my back delivers the
killing blow. That's me in red, by the way. Restart!
Finally, i can headshot him
properly but the sniper on inner balcony behind the dead guy become cautious.
But unlike his other comrade, he stand still in his position so i should be
safe from his snipe shot at the moment..
There's other enemy who's clearly
stand still after being smacked by opening door in cartoon style. But i can
still sneak a shuriken on his face, killing him. The pistol may has faster
projectile speed but the shuriken have better hit detection. That's why i
prefer shuriken over pistol. Besides shuriken has 20 ammo while pistol only has
6 unless you carry extra 3 magazines (for 1 item slot).
There's the sniper and i make him
down by using the deadly saw. This time, it's accurate so no problem.
One of the entertaining stuff in
this game is the dead body's anomaly. Their head constantly bounce on the floor
or their arm twitching inside a wall or door.
My brain immediately remember
this old Spiderman meme when that guy's hand stuck on the door. Thank you,
brain! [May or May Not Sarcasm]
I can slit his throat from behind
but i choose to throw my shield at him instead. It bounces to that window's
frame but finally it flies at him because it rebounds to wall on the right.
It's like Captain America's funny action.
This time i don't forget to use
traps. This Head Kill gadgets is awesome especially in tight corridor. You
plant the trap on the wall once an enemy goes near it, it springs a cable that
pierces enemy's head. There's special satisfactory feeling to see this line up
of (polygon) human shish kebab, inside of me.
The last guy get a shield on his
back. Victory!
My standard completion time is
13-15 minutes. Do mind that the game has no load/save feature so you have to
finish the level in one sitting. You can restart the game in the spot where you
die instead of from starting point by selecting "Again!" menu instead of "Restart". This could be good or bad depends on
enemy's initial position so memorization is important in this game.
For next map, i choose Temple
because it's the opposite of mansion where there's lots of closed corridor.
Temple has more open space which is perfect for sniping.
From the starting point, you can
climb that wall by jumping through that stones. I mentioned that this map is
perfect for sniping but i don't carry sniper rifle initially because there's
sniper not far from here that i can dispatch rather easily.
Sniper_jeers02.wav. I manage to
kill enemies who stay still but i miss the patrolling ones. Nice split
there, by the way.
This is better. I can grab the
sniper rifle there but not just yet. I want to test my skill with my bow here
and i successfully kill him by firing an arrow right on the back of his head.
Headshot is instant kill but unlike pistol, you can kill enemies by shooting
enough amount arrows to their body. By enough amount i mean 6-10. You also must
account the trajectory line of the arrow to aim it well.
And now this is not how you snipe
someone using a bow. I figure i can headshot enemies that running toward me and
i miss this one guy. This is the thing about carrying ranged weapon. You're
vulnerable to close range. If you carry any melee weapon, you can still
dispatch enemies from afar by using various gadget. But there's no gadget to
compensate direct melee weapon. Using traps could be the solution but i forget
to carry any of them.
Then i decide to grab SMG
from a dead enemy and have SMG duel with
that guy. His bullets have better hit detection than mine. Dead.
Sniper_niceshot01.wav. I manage
to kill that patrolling guy from pretty far distance. Upon inspection, the
arrow is planted to his chest and not his head but that still end up killing
him instantly.
Because the nature of this map, i
reckon i need to use drone to mark enemies more easily. It can tag any enemies
that it sees. Again, that's me in red. To switch between me and my flying
drone, i press right mouse button.
This isn't the ideal way for
sniping but i have to defense myself from enemies who come at me somehow.
This is better although the
enemies are about to run toward my general position. But at least, he's quite
far from me. You see the upper number on left-bottom corner? That's the amount
of sniper round that i have left but it becomes lower number if you exit
"aim down the sight" mode. Normally, you can only have 1 round of
weapon that you loot but you can carry extra round from loadout setting. You
can't manually replace currently-used magazine to new ones. So you have to
empty entire magazine first and then you can replace it by pressing left mouse
button. It's kind of rough but it works.
I finish the game with a bang! I
mean i kill the last guy by using hand grenade. Demoman_taunts08.wav
I forget to inform you about the
arsenal that i can prepare for next skirmish. You can obtain those guns from
enemies and also sword. So the only exclusive weapon: Bow and shield. Keep in
mind that when equipping a bow, you must carry quiver of arrows or you can't
use the bow at all. I'll try the survival mode so i reckon i don't need Vision
Goggles and Exo-Knife. I'll put more direct combat gadget or maybe some spare
ammo.
In survival mode, enemies will
spawn on random location on the map and they come out from smoke just like
that.
This Destruction Disc gadget is
basically mine with blue color. Any enemies who step on it will be blown up.
That sounds good but i wish the mine is larger so i can set it more accurately.
BHAM! This bastard also get a
shield on his back. Shield has wider hit spot than katana when thrown. Because
of that, The thrown shield can hit either enemy or wall/other obstacle easier, depends
on situation. Plus it has farther efficient range than thrown Katana.
I'll be honest the survival mode
is difficult to me. Plus the enemies will nigh-instantly dart at me when i
found out. There's no way to make them lose my trail. Maybe i can use grappling
hook to go across that lower balcony but grappling hook is better used to go to
higher point and not the otherwise. I try fight them by throwing 2 Spinning
Deaths and they don't hit the targets at all!
Or at least until it's too late. Those
flying saws hit the enemies not on right time, again! The game like to humor me
with that and my dead body's pose.
This is clearly unfair, a shotgun
schmuck spawns behind me and shoots my back while i deal with enemy in front.
Maybe i need to move more.
The most kill i can achieve is 21.
Maybe i can do better at other map because this "Atrium" map and i
aren't friends. But i just quit for now.
Diatomic Games' Sword with Sauce (2018) is assassin
simulator with First Person perspective. You can try gun-blazing all the way or
try stealth approach or mix of both. You can say that this game is the basic and
First Person form of Tom Clancy's Splinter
Cell with no story and you objective is only kill everyone. The game use
regeneration health system on the self destruct ninja like in most modern FPS
such as Call of Duty series where the
screen become bloodier as he takes damage and he will recover his health by not
taking any more damage for certain time. The gadgets/sub-weapons mostly useful
and there's some that useless like cloaking device that only affect enemies
that not aware at all or boomerang. The enemy's A.I is fast on tracking you
down and no way to make enemies lose my track but luckily they can be killed by
one hit from most weapon/sub-weapon. But the my biggest problem with this game:
the inconsistency of the hit detection mainly the my bullets, sniper rifle is
accurate though plus it's instant kill weapon whether you target at body or
head. Any non-bullet projectile is more accurate than bullets. Arrow is
slightly more accurate than throwing stars. Coma Dart (which is dart that can
make enemies unconscious instantly) is less accurate than throwing knife but
you can throw it any part of enemy's body. Spinning Death is quite reliable but
there's chance that it won't hit enemy as supposed to be as you witness
yourself before. Death Crab which is self-exploding robot that will creep along
the floor to nearest enemy, has better accuracy than Spinning Death but has
less ammo counter. Floor traps such as Destruction Disc and Sticky Lightning
are quite reliable but quite often they can't be set properly on floor. Toxic
Gas Grenade can be great against enemy group but it takes time before the toxic
smoke is build large enough to be deadly. I want to see more useful gadget such
as instant full heal item or smoke bomb to lose the pursuit. The lack of button
for leaning left or right could be problem especially if you prefer stealth
approach. The parkour aspect could need some improvement. The sound effect is
okay to good. The music is pretty amazing. It changes between undetected and
detected condition. The polygonal visual art is decently great.
