Hermodr Demo

Old-school shooters did not really concern themselves with complex stories and intricate character development, since the most important element was the actual shooting. Thus, games like Doom and Quake focused on providing the players with as much cannon fodder as possible, although other classics tried to implement an intriguing background story at the same time, such was the case with Half-Life.

Hermodr is a retro first-person shooter in which your sole goal is to kill everything that moves and stay alive while doing so. Everything is designed to remind you of the good old times of the genre, including the level design and the weapons. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that the gameplay is a tad too sketchy and badly designed, especially when it comes to ballistics.

As such, each gun has a different type of ammunition, which means that it shoots different projectile types as well. Whether you are using a shotgun, a rocket launcher or a submachine gun, you can do a lot of damage under the right circumstances. The ballistics are pretty annoying, on the other hand, because the bullets move too slowly, which forces you to forget everything you learned in other shooters.

Although there’s nothing wrong with going for the old-school level design, it becomes a problem when you do not bother to fill the said levels with anything. Thus, almost every room is completely empty, except maybe for the occasional weapon or ammunition box you happen to stumble upon. It also makes it difficult to navigate the map sometimes, given the fact that most of the rooms look the same in every way.

As for the actual graphics, the pixelated 3D perspective is actually quite enjoyable, especially since it carries a pretty powerful dose of nostalgia. However, it can be difficult to make out the enemies from each other sometimes, which is not a very big issue, fortunately. Once again, the level design could use some work, because it severely undermines the whole game.

Even if Hermodr is still a demo at the moment, it’s difficult to say good things about it, despite the fact that it has a lot of potential. Hence, unless the full version features a lot more carefully designed stages, Hermodr is not going to impress anybody.