Awareness of one's own limits is a tremendously important aspect in any workplace, but even more so when one is competing for a place in a saturated and complex market like video games. It often happens that novice development teams do not have the ability to relate their projects to what that market offers, and the result is very unpleasant cold showers.
We take it lightly, it's true, but reading between the lines you've probably already guessed the problems with the debut of Mad head games, which on paper is presented as an interesting mix of action, shooter, RPG and even soul-type mechanics, but in reality it collides with the reality of a very, very approximate creation: we will talk about it in the Scars above review.
History: the mysterious object
A gigantic alien structure suddenly appears in Earth's orbit and a team of scientists and engineers is sent aboard a spacecraft to establish first contact and study the nature of what has been called "the Metahedron." However, when the unit approaches the mysterious object, an inexplicable phenomenon occurs that projects the SCAR group (Expedition of Contact, Analysis and Investigation) towards a Desolate and hostile planet..
Under the command of Dr. Kate Ward, we will be tasked with rescuing our missing comrades and finding our way home while desperately trying to survive the onslaught of monstrous creatures that inhabit this world, and from which we can defend ourselves by initially using an electric knife and the Vera pulse rifle, and then enrich our arsenal with new tools.
Along the way we will find the inevitable audio files that will document the dramatic experience of our colleagues, who apparently woke up some time before Kate and ventured into this difficult environment, soon becoming victims of the dark energies that inhabit it, but that Sometimes they abandon us. a trail and suggestions on how to face these adversities.
Carried out by well-acted dialogue in English, subtitled in Spanish, the history of Scars Above is, in some ways, inevitably derivative (after all, we recently touched on the topic of the astronaut lost on a hostile planet in the Returnal PC review), but it's followable and seems to have something to say, in particular. thanks to the subplot of the alien army that fought and was exterminated on that world.
Gameplay: Good ideas but confusing.
As we mentioned at the beginning, on paper Scars Above presents itself as an interesting title, a action shooter with RPG elements and soul influences which materialize in the presence of columns where you can save your position and restore your health, but at the cost of the reappearance of the enemies eliminated up to that point.
This adopted solution is based on traditional steps that act as shortcuts between one section of the stage and another, useful precisely to avoid having to face the same opponents again once a certain area has been completed, although in terms of difficulty the approach becomes tough only in some situations and towards the final phase of the campaign, divided into four chapters.
The big problem is how these ideas are put into practice, because from the first moment the experience created by Mad Head Games almost has a flavor of an outlined project with temporary assets which still must go through a long and deep process of review and refinement, both in the graphics themselves and in all interactions with the setting, including combat.
Kate can attack the monsters that inhabit the planet she is on using a kind of machete, but no matter how clumsy and crude her maneuvers are, as well as her collision detection, this is an option valid only against some small arachnids and, on the other hand, is completely useless against various crawling creatures, explosive spiders, prairie beasts, flower snakes, armored Yetis and, obviously, the huge bosses that often mark the passage from one chapter to another. other.
Therefore, it is better to shoot: beyond some brief investigation sections a la Batman: Arkham, the vocation of Scars Above is to present itself as a third-person shooter but with the limits of an action role-playing game. endurance included: the protagonist can run (visually terrible action, practically decontextualized from the setting) and turn around to dodge attacks, but paying attention to physical resistance that can be exhausted at the most beautiful moment and leave us at the mercy of the enemy. of service.
Ammunition sometimes becomes a problem, reloading your equipped weapon is tedious and there are situations in which we are asked to find an imaginative way to stop a huge monster, identifying its weak points or somehow blocking its advance and then attacking it, but it is not always easy to interpret these situations, and many times we proceed gropingly. .
The tree is coming towards us capacity, which allows us to strengthen Kate and therefore make her more resistant, speed up recharging, increase the capacity of the chargers and the backpack, as well as optimize the battery that powers the numerous gadgets that the protagonist has, which add a little depth to the experience by allowing us to activate barriers, throw spheres of flammable liquid into the light with the Thermal Charger, capsules that create stasis spaces in which everything slows down, etc.
Once again, the system itself testifies to enthusiasm and ideas, but in concrete terms the shooting turns out to be very close, the uncertain collisions and the substrate of heaviness that weighs on the management of the arsenal, especially in the most frenetic sequences, invariably end up generating episodes of frustration instead of offering a tough but fair challenge, legitimized by the solidity of the mechanisms.
Technical implementation: outdated and sloppy
We often talk about how technical realization It should not be considered a determining factor in the quality of a game, but this discussion cannot ignore the effectiveness of the solutions implemented. In fact, nothing prevents us from creating a graphically less ambitious experience, endowed with simple geometries, but united by convincing and mature stylistic choices, which serve as concrete support for everything else.
In the case of Scars Above we are faced with a product that desperately tries to aim high, in the direction of the most famous third-person action adventures, but it fails very clearly, implementing very outdated effects (how long has it been since we saw a puddle that doesn't react to contact?), really bad animations (the protagonist's career takes us back twenty years), generic and low quality resources. Not surprisingly, on test settings the game runs at a fundamentally stable 60fps at 2160p and with all presets maxed out; in fact, it would have been reasonable to expect something more.
PC system requirements
Test setup
- Processor: Intel Core i5 13500
- Video card: NVIDIA RTX 3070
- Memory: 32GB RAM
- Operating system: Windows 11
Minimum requirements
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
- Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 510
- Memory: 8GB RAM
- Storage: 20 GB of space required
- Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store Price 39,99 € Holygamerz.com 6.0 Readers (10) 7.6 your voteScars Above is a game that gets lost halfway between its ambitions and the ability to realize them, which proposes ideas that may not be original but are interesting, even if they are clumsily staged. If you accept the many limits and uncertainties of the system created by Mad Head Games, the experience can certainly provide some pleasant moments and offer a challenge that in some situations even becomes substantial, but it is really difficult to recommend it. purchase at full price.
PRO
- The initial idea is valid.
- He knows how to propose some beautiful moments of challenge.
- Decent story and dialogue.
AGAINST
- Approximate in mechanics
- Technically outdated and generic.
- Sometimes it gets frustrating
