Hellbound - Confused Nostalgia

A Retro FPS Game 30 Years Later Packs a Middle Aged Paunch

A picture is worth a thousand problems

Hellbound opens with a warning: "This game is being made like it was in the 90's", aside from the bad grammar, still a foreboding sign. It comes off as a cringe attempt to earn retro status considering Hellbound has an "Old School" difficulty setting along with Noob and Normal. On top of that faux difficulty warning, there's far harder games that give no warning or option. Leave it to the Hellbound developer to make a bad impression before I've even seen the title screen. If you play the entire game on Normal like I did, then the biggest hurdle is going to be a gamebreaking glitch that I'll get to later, that includes the final boss that any body can beat if they know how to circle-strafe. Another odd choice is to use modern graphics in a game that's supposed to be retro, it comes off as more of a Doom 2016 clone with it's color pallet and setting. Even at a glance this game has a serious identity issue. 

Whether Hellbound ends up being new or old, it's a really short game. I like games to be short and sweet typically, but they have to justify the cost. Taking after 90's shooters and not having more than one episode of content is another strike against 90's convention. I never beat games like Quake 1 or 2 in a single sitting, yet even with the game-breaking glitch that took multiple tries to solve, I still beat the game in under three hours, final keyhunt included. Hellbound wraps up in a bossfight that'd be suitable for a first episode in any other game, but it's underwhelming here. The one area where the game does take after it's 90's counterparts, is the massive arena glitch that holds keeps a door shut after killing waves of demons, it's a glitch that's been going from late 2020 to the date of this post and it's a reminder of the kind of issues I have playing older games on my new hardware and sourceports.

What shooters all had in the 90's and early 2000's were the kind of protagonists that sold the insane feats of heroism and mass-murder that their campaigns required. Quake guy had no dialogue whatsoever and the Build-bunch, guys like Duke and Wang were wise-cracking action heroes that were clever and self-deprecating despite the complaints of soy-boy journalists. If the main character Hellgore is meant to mirror those heroes of old, he fails hard. The beefy caricature of a tough guy drops a lazy F-bomb here to show how tough he is. I don't mind some swearing in videogames, but if it's the only thing propping up your character then consider making him a mute, just like some of the old fps heroes from the 90's. 

Inspite of Hellbounds issues, it has some satisfying action. Blasting suspiciously Doom looking demons with that triple-barrel shotgun was entertaining enough to carry the game through it's otherwise dull campaign. The fast movement speed combined with the visceral satisfaction of gibbing enemies for health makes it fun enough to play. Waves of enemies or searching for key cards are legit elements from the yesteryear of fps titles, so in some ways Hellbound is legit, yet I can't recommend the game at it's current price. Being such a brief game and having an identity crisis on top of it's technical issues doesn't make it a bigger draw than actual 90's fps games that are still available thanks to Night Dive Studios and sourceports, all at competitive prices. Speaking of, I've got cheaper and better games to play, Comrades.