Developer: Destructive Creations
Publisher: Destructive Creations
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Hatred – Review
Perhaps it’s time to break the chain of hatred concerning Hatred, the new controversial title that everyone is talking about. It’s time to separate the boys from the men and see what all the hubbub is about. Is the game really worth all the hassle or was this just great marketing from Destructive Creations? Dive into the mind of a psychopathic murderer on his own quest for glory and prepare to learn a totally new way of going down with your guns blazing.
Introductory remarks
Whilst this review might be a great way to open up the debate whether violent games, with a theme such as this one, should be banned or not, it’s actually just a simple matter of thinking about the actions you do in other games. Many of those who wish to ban games like this have probably mass murdered many other ‘human beings’ in games such as GTA, Call of Duty and many other titles. Remember Mortal Kombat was recently cheered upon, even with the graphical X-ray moves or fatalities? Before we get sidetracked too much, just keep in mind it’s only a game.
Story
Murder…
No, really, the game is all about murder and the grittiness surrounding it. You will play as an average Joe, who seemingly despises life and considers all of the inhabitants of this world to be mere maggots, who simply follow the commands of those who rule the world. As he sees no greater purpose in his simpleton life, he wishes to go out with a bang that will cover all the streets red with blood. Seeing the story does not have any real story value, except for some short snippets at the beginning and the end of each level, it’s the theme and atmosphere that do the trick. As you have to fill in the story yourself, you will have to come up with your own plotline inside your head, which might give the game an edge in certain ways.
Graphics
To make the game even more grim, the developers chose to keep the game black and white, except for the color red and the blazing flames that you leave after destroying buildings and cars. This noire look adds up to the overall atmosphere of the game and makes the game even more serious. Nonetheless, not all is well in the dark world of Hatred, even if all of its inhabitants are soon to be extinct.
Whilst the overall animations are decent and there’s a reasonable amount of variety when it comes to environments, civilians and buildings, there are also many bugs and rough edges. For example the main character actually lacks a decent amount of detail, some destructible items don’t really look like they should after being hit, and last but not least the execution scenes are done in a poor way. When the game zooms you in, during one of the many executions, you will see horrible looking faces, weird blood marks and nonexistent wounds. When stabbing a victim, during a close-up moment, nothing really happens and you’ll often not even see a wound or blood, which is quite weird for a game that revolves around barbaric violence.
Sound
Except for the gunshots, the screams of those who wish to run for cover and the pleas and gurgles of your victims, the game has not that much to offer. Whilst the game would perform well with some loud and heavy music, the silence also makes it quite eerie and in a way more gruesome. Nonetheless, the option to choose would have been quite nice. Other than that you’ll hear the main character mutter some catchphrases from time to time, that would suit any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie perfectly.
Gameplay
Even though the game is often described as just ‘another twin stick shooter’, that’s actually not completely true. Although, when playing with a controller, the game just plays horrifically. It’s best if you decide to ditch the controller and go for the keyboard & mouse setup, then you’ll truly be able to trade in your world of hurt, to start bringing all those digital lambs to the slaughterhouse.
As Hatred revolves completely around murdering the innocent and those who enforce law and order, that’s pretty much all you’ll be doing (You can pretty much wreck every building on the map too). You’ll be given a small arsenal of weapons, such as pistols, machine guns, shotguns, grenades and so on, in order to achieve your bloody goal. That being said, the diversity of the available weapons is quite limited, but they will have to do the trick. At any given time you are able to carry three weapons and three different types of grenades. If you want to pick up a new weapon one of your adversaries drops, you’ll throw away the one you currently have equipped. It’s often a simple matter of grabbing the gun that is seen the most in the stage you’re currently in, as ammo will be easy to find when looting the corpses of those who have fallen.
Hopefully it’s clear by now that the game wants you to go on a killing spree, nonetheless with some minor objectives at hand. Each of the levels will have one main objective, that most of the time starts off with killing a fixed amount of people and after that a specific building area you need to clear and/or escape from. Even though it would be the easiest to go for the main objective right off the bat, it’s advised to try out the side missions in each level first. Not only will these often aid your quest of putting as many people in body bags as possible, they will also unlock respawn points. If you complete a side mission, you will receive one extra ‘life’, in case you should die during your rampage.
Healing yourself in Hatred works in an original way, as you will need to perform executions in order to gain back some of your lost HP. When your weapons immediately kill someone, there is nothing to be won, but if the victim is still crawling towards safety, you can walk up and kill the soon-to-be-corpse by performing an execution. A gruesome, yet quite original way of regaining your strength.
As mentioned earlier, playing with a gamepad is pure torture. You’ll be able to walk around smoothly and switch your weapons easily, but that’s about it. Looking around with the second stick and using the right trigger to aim more precise is truly absolute crap. You’ll constantly be battling with your right stick in order to actually hit something. Truth be told, unplug the controller, put it away safely and just go with the keyboard setup. Everything works as it should, aiming is a delight and it makes the game that much more fun and in some ways a bit more tactical. The only disadvantage the keyboard setup has, is when trying to jump over obstacles, it’s hard to position yourself properly.
While it might be fun to butcher all of your seemingly weak adversaries, the AI sometimes feels quite retarded. Often civilians will see you shoot twenty people and halfway their escape they seem to forget why they were running in the first place and start strolling by, whilst you are looking down on the bodies of your victims, adding them to your collection of corpses. The police, SWAT and army tend to walk in the door one after another, running into the bullets you’re coincidently spraying through the opening. Other than the dodgy thinking patterns of the AI, there are also some very annoying bugs. It’s not really that amusing when police officers spawn out of thin air or even worse, when an army jeep spawns on top of you, killing you instantly. Other than that, typical bugs such as getting stuck in the scenery, getting teleported to a totally different location and so on, happen from time to time.
Conclusion
Hatred is by no means ‘game of the year’ but it isn’t a bad game either. The game tackles a controversial topic, which is in itself something ‘refreshing’, compared to all the lookalike titles that are getting dumped on Steam throughout the year. Nonetheless, there is still some work to do. The health system is original, there’s enough action and the visuals are decent, but there are still a fair amount of bugs and your arsenal of weapons is quite small. That being said, it’s worth checking out if you’re in the mood for some action after a bad day at work. Now it’s a matter of playing the waiting game, until someone blames games for something bad again.
Hatred - Review,
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