REVIEW : UnMetal (XBOX Series X)
According to Picasso’s famous (but will it be true?) The aphorism, “genius copies, mediocre imitates”: there must be genius than in UnMetal, a courageous clone of the first Metal Gear.
In an industry like that of the video game that makes the recycling of ideas, genres and mechanics a crutch of creativity enslaved by serial reproduction, there is a successful title that has never been the subject of cloning: Metal Gear.
UNMETAL GEAR
Jesse Fox (already understood the first reference?) Is not one of those guys who makes things go well or who stays quiet and good in his cell, where he finds himself locked up for a crime he never committed. No, not at all: indeed, he is keen to reiterate, constantly and to everyone, how he has never committed that crime, without ever specifying which one, of course. But that’s something anyone would do. Jesse Fox, on the other hand, is willing to prove it, escaping from the clandestine prison in which he found himself and escaping aboard a Russian helicopter. A perfect plan was it not for that sudden passage in flight over another military base: a bazooka shot later, Jesse finds himself handcuffed in front of a colonel to explain how things went.
If all this preamble is told in the opening cut-scene, Fox’s story becomes UnMetal instead, an explicit homage to the first incarnations for MSX of Metal Gear which at the same time is also an amusing quote, bordering on parody, of the classic action films. The 80s. The shot is shot from above, the scenario is pixelated and composed of fixed screens that follow one another to compose the sequence of levels that tell the daring escape of Fox, who against his will ran into a much greater conspiracy than his imprisonment without crime. The detail of the story, of the story transmitted through someone else’s version, someone moreover personally involved in the events, is however very important because allows UnMetal to recover a key element of Kojima’s MGS, the one missing from any other attempt at imitation: the dialogue with the player’s perception.
THE POWER OF THE TALE
It is clear from the outset how Jesse Fox’s reconstruction of events is unreliable: pursued by the soldier who questions him about the inconsistent details of his story, Fox modifies what has just been declared, altering the scene that the player is faced with. From nowhere appear bridges where there were none, tentacles grow to the monsters of the sewers and it may even happen that the corridor of a secret base is blocked by a flock of sheep.
Often, the control of events is left to the game: during a boss fight, Fox interrupts the narration when two options appear on the screen regarding the status of his flamethrower: jammed or exploded? This is not a trivial choice: one of the two can lead to a sudden game over. To complicate matters, a second narrative layer takes over at one point: Fox is recounting the interrogation to a beautiful girl who sits in the passenger seat of a racing car during a trip to the countryside.
As I think it is easy to understand at this point, the narrative component is decidedly important, although not overwhelming: net of the frequent cutscenes, dialogues and radio calls from the different characters, all elements that cannot be missing in a tribute to Metal Gear, UnMetal’s backbone is made up of a mix of action and stealth. Fox gets along well with his hands, is quick and quick, but he can also rely on good aim, although he has promised the handsome base doctor never to kill. The decision not to jump instead is a personal fixation, useless to argue. Based on these strong assumptions, @unepic_fran engages with good frequency new mechanics and bizarre boss fights that help to ensure a fair variety for the entire duration of the game, which is in any case around ten hours. So it happens that you have to go back through an entire level before a timer runs out, take advantage of the blind spots of the thermal sensors, or collect batteries to overload a gate.
Most of the missions are connected to the finding of objects to be combined, an activity that the careful design of the levels never makes frustrating, both because everything you need is always a few screens away or already in inventory, and because the logic below is always clear and understandable.
REVIEW : Fort Triumph (XBOX Series X)
