REHREATED
“Does that pommel horse have a grenade launcher?”
is one of many bizarre questions I found myself asking while playingHROT.
This isn’t the best thing about HROT, we’ll get to that in a couple of paragraphs.
But the balancing of these two personality strands is what defines HROT’s quality.
The year is 1986, and something is seriously wrong in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
HROT does exactly this and does it magnificently.
Yet HROT’s greatest strength is not its appearance, but what hides inside all its bricklike institutions.
HROT has a particular affection for wrong-footing you with its keys and switches.
As with the visual presentation, HROT elegantly blends these ideas with its setting.
In one example, you come to an austere governmental conference room centred with a large table and chairs.
Although HROT’s primary inspiration isQuake, there’s a fair amount ofDuke Nukemin here too.
Unlike the more general level design, these elements fade considerably after the first few levels.
As an ode to classic FPS level design, HROT is excellent.
As a shooter, it’s fine, adequate, satisfactory, but not amazing.
Its weapon selection, on the other hand, doesn’t spark much joy.
The pistol is pathetic, the submachinegun piffling, and the lightning gun a profound disappointment.
Here, the game’s socialist parody and nuclear anxiety are in perfect sync.
From the second episode onward, HROT’s personality becomes increasingly disjointed.
Episode two splits the action between modern environments and levels inspired by Czechia’s medieval history.
But the Blood-like cultists and supernatural elements feel out of place.
The final episode, meanwhile, is all over the place.
It’s totally wild, not necessarily bad, but nothing like as considered as the first episode.
