Hatred - Quicky Review - Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...

You've most likely heard of Hatred if you have anything to do with the gaming circles. News of the so-called hyper violent top-down shooter couldn't have arrived at a worse time. This is because Hatred places you as a mass-murderer. Given a multitude of weapons, your only aim is to kill and massacre everything in some sort of holy crusade. When news broke about this, there were several mass school shootings and murders , so this glorification of violence to this degree has struck quite a few nerves. Understandably, the game thrived because of the controversy, as did GTA in it's fledgling years, but Hatred took it a step further. By claiming that they have creative freedom, they appealed to a lot of the hardcore free-speech members of the internet gaming community but was it really necessary? My opinion, not really. Its a bit insulting to say such a thing when you know your games only aim is to kill innocent people without an ounce of sympathy with an extremist. Without any justifiable story behind the character or why you pursue the actions, the game is simply senseless. It doesn't help that the achievements are rewarded for killing people, more specifically cops with certain achievements rewarding you for over 1000 kills.

The so called story is that our nameless lead hates the world. Everyone else is evil and inherently bad and the world must be cleansed. With little quips and quotes eerily reminiscent of an extremist, its a god given crusade. I hate it. Over top-down shooters have a form of narrative no matter how simple. This is really just killing people for the shit of it. Is it ground breaking for gaming? No. Its not innovative and its not creative. Levels are lacklustre, the art style is fitting but requires polish and the system is slugish. With a recommended settings such as 8GB of RAM and a multitude of others, the game is slow. It assaults the system with specs that are exuberant of what it should really be. Its poor optimization means that the framerate plummets and the game lags behind. My gaming laptop is nothing short of expensive and powerful for what it is but to have an issue running a top-down shooter is absurd.

As I mentioned above, the level design isn't great. Repetitive corridors, streets and homes with a few explosive barrels indicate what to shoot and general movement through them is hampered when you keep getting stuck on trees or in doorways. Everything looks very copy and paste and the art works makes the game a nightmare to play.The black and white often blends the aiming cursor meaning its almost impossible to see at the best of times. Not including the fact that its general movement speed is awful. Our lead is a combination between She-Hulk and Medusa with long black hair that flails around frantically at walking pace and gets even worse when running faster than Usain Bolt and a voice that grates more than Steve Buscemi's teeth. Other than that. The guns and general action were quite good but the AI is atrocious. Planned to make it easier to kill? I don't know but when you have simple civilians wandering around without a care while you murder the rest of the population, you would think running away would be the basic reaction. Nope, they run at you and nudge you along gently in their efforts. Then finally the set pieces. I never realised how poorly constructed American homes were. Everything falls apart on a blocky fashion, as if the walls are only made of plywood from a single round of buckshot. 

As a shooter, Hatred could have been a great game. With a few tweaks and a major overhaul of its premise, it may have been far more enjoyable. I agree with the argument for freedom of creation but just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should. The creators should really take a step back and look at what they've done. They have caused a big stir and put themselves on the map for the time being but as an independent group, funding will run dry and its employees may struggle to get work when they're associated with this project that they all seem to be so proud of.

Overall the game is a bit of a disappointment. I wasn't expecting the release trailer to show the complete introduction to the game and I was really hoping for something that had an interesting story to coincide with its dark premise and at least give some sort of reasoning or next level philosophy. Instead I was caught up in they hype for a generic shoot-em up that used shock to sell a game that is glitchy, poorly optimized, slow and unnecessary.Because its on release and there has been about 3 updates since I came off yesterday, I can't attack its optimization solely so the game gets 5/10. Its no Hotline Miami and its certainly not worthy of its fame, much like Kim...