NeverDead

Give people three wishes and time and time again one that will come up is immortality. For Bryce Boltzmann this is a reality, but his immortal existence isn’t all picnics and rainbows. Five hundred years ago he and his wife faced off against, and were defeated by, demon king Astaroth. For his wife this meant her death, for Bryce it meant an eternity on earth. NeverDead is set in the present day where Bryce works for NADA (National Anti-Demon Agency), whose task it is to deal with demonic goings on in modern day earth, in order to pay for his booze.

He is joined in his endeavours by Arcadia, a mortal woman who puts up with Bryce’s wise cracks and innuendo most of the time, but occasionally she likes to shoot him just to put him straight. Babysitting Arcadia throughout the missions is unnecessary most of the time as she can handle herself and if she is downed you do have time to pick here back up before the mission is failed. Her presence also means you have to get creative once in a while. As she is unable to electrocute herself in order to get through small spaces, or take a leap off a massive drop, sometimes you must venture out on your own to find a way for Arcadia to get through. These mini puzzles are never massively complex but do offer a break from smashing the left and right triggers in the direction of some demons.

Although Bryce is immortal, he is not impervious to damage. His limbs are rather susceptible to falling off his torso when under attack. In order to reattach the severed arms and legs you have to combat roll over them. This has proven to be an inexact science with limbs sometimes reattaching from a little way away and other times staying on the floor after I rolled right over them.

When all his limbs are blown off the next thing to go is Bryce’s head. When this happens you are put in control Bryce’s head. While rolling around, Bryce likes to make wise cracks about his hair getting messed up which, whilst mildly amusing at first, get annoying and repetitive after a while. When in this head only situation Bryce is vulnerable to a fate worse than death. A demon known as a Grandbaby can swallow up Bryce’s head into its stomach. While this does not technically kill Bryce, his head will spend forever being digested!

As you kill demons, and collect red shards from various spots on the map you gain experience. This experience can be used to buy abilities that range from increasing sprint speed to changing the way bullets behave when Bryce is on fire or electrically charged.

At first Bryce comes armed with two pistols which can be fired whether his arms are attached to torso or not. Later on you find other guns such as SMGs and any combination of these guns can be used at any time. He also carries a nice big sword which can be used to cut down any foes and is the only way to kill some including the delightfully named ‘Spoons’ which have a giant blade of their own with which they can return the favour.

A lot of the time in NeverDead you will be faced with amounts of enemies that would be impossible to kill by simply shooting them all (you would probably run out of ammo first). The environments have been designed with this in mind, and most of the time when you face off against a wave of demons there are exploding canisters and columns that are susceptible to gun fire and do an excellent job of exploding and crushing vast numbers in a fraction of the time.

NeverDead is bizarre and annoying at times quite frustrating but it does have its fun moments too. Lobbing your arm into a bunch of enemies and firing the gun it is holding being a particular highlight. If you are bored of the run-of-the-mill shooters and want something a little bit different then make sure you check this one out.

7/10

Daryl Crowther - Webmonster

One of the younger members of the Impact team, Daryl has spent his entire working life in publishing, starting in admin before moving into design and eventually website and app development. The phrase 'jack of...

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