High Hell (2017) review

High Hell describes itself as a vibrant remix of the classic first-person shooter and it definitely nails that premise from the first impression.

It’s a level-based first person shooter in the most pure of mold of DOOM. You’re a gun-wielding ruffian airdropped onto a rooftop full of criminals and given a license to kill and a zany soundtrack. There’s only the loosest of stories being told here. For the most part, you’re just a guy with a gun. There are the bad guys, and it's up to you go get’ em.

High Hell doesn’t really have much of a lot going on when it comes to narrative. However, it’s certainly got a sense of humor. Sure, you might start off facing off against the stock-standard, familiar and generic suited goons. It isn’t before long before the game throws itself into an endless cycle of trying to find a new over-the-top for itself. From there, it doesn’t take long for the mind-controlled monkeys to come out to play.

Each of the game’s 18 levels involving finding or destroying something, killing every enemy in your way, then jumping off the edge of level to parachute to safety. The game constantly juggles up the order to the verbs or nouns but that’s the voxel-laden gist of it.

"Not my tempo"

There are lots of single words you could throw out to describe the difficulty and flow of the core gameplay loop in High Hell. For me,the difficulty of this game is best understood in relation to a scene from the award-winning film Whiplash.

Specifically, it reminded me of the scene where J.K. Simmons condescendingly reminds Miles Tellers’ character that he’s not quite on the right tempo.

This might seem like an unusual touchstone to point at, but behind all the wacky enemies and bright colors, High Hell really is about that climb from repetition to perfection in much the same way as Damien Chazelle's film is.

Each time you die, you have to reset the level wholesale. Eventually, through trial and error, you overcome this. You make it to the top of the mountain. You’re on the right tempo – and it feels magnificent.

Levels zip past you, time compresses and your twitch-aiming skills take precedence. You mow down scores of enemies with dauntless, mechanical efficiency. It's contagiously energetic to the point of invigoration. That is until you make a mistake. Then, another. Before long, you’re down and out. Rinse, repeat. Stop and start. Find that tempo.

The problem, is that, aside from that chase towards the right tempo, there’s no a whole lot to write home about here. You only really have the one weapon – a Quake-style railgun – that takes enemies out in a single shot. Doing so gives you a little more health, which you’ll probably need. Each downed foe gives you a little bit more room to breath and until you’re on the right tempo, enemies will constantly chip away at your health.

All the way to the top

High Hell does go out of its way to throw interesting and off-the-wall enemies at you. Unfortunately, speed and accuracy always prevail as the only way to overcome them.

There’s no advanced movement or cover mechanics to speak of. It’s all comes down to shooting them before they shoot you. This is just another way of saying it all comes down to trial and error. Once you know where enemies spawn, the challenge quickly dissipates like mist.

Between each level lies a short but strange vignette that invites you to click – and see what happens next. Like everything in High Hell, these interstitials have a novel charm to them. Unfortunately, it’s all very surface-level and short-lived.

High Hell is bright, colorful and stylish in all the ways that you’d expect from something in the Devolver Digital catalog. However, there's not much else to it. Even if it is priced accordingly, it’s a little too disposable to dig into for all that long.

Even so, if the idea of tackling a retro shooter like High Hell hits the right notes for you then you’ll probably relish the challenge of finding the right tempo regardless.