The game “Hong Kong Massacre / The Hong Kong Massacre”, which is based on Hong Kong and refers to Hong Kong movies in the 1990s such as “The True Color of Heroes” and “Blood Two Heroes” as the backbone of the story, launched the Switch version in mid-June. Although the digital download version of the game was launched on the PC and PS4 platforms a year ago, the “physical version” is only the Switch version this time. The title of the game seems very bloody, but in fact the game is just a top-down bird’s-eye view of the shooting game. In the end, the content and performance of the game will be introduced in detail below.
“Hong Kong Massacre” is produced by a foreign developer VRESKI, plus a graphic designer, the entire team is believed to be only two people, so the scale of the game is a distance from the current 3A big factory level. The story takes place in Hong Kong in the early 1990s. It tells the story of the protagonist, who was originally a policeman. His partner was killed by the underworld, and he wanted to leave Hong Kong and escape to Bolivia. After four years of seclusion, he decided to return to the old place to kill the enemy.
What is more special is that the game unfolds the plot in a “flashback” style. After a series of revenge and “massacre”, the protagonist is finally caught by the police, and then recounts the “massacre” of the past four days in the interrogation room. , which brings out the content of each level. However, before the interrogation was over, the police station was besieged by gangsters, and in the end the protagonist had to break out of the siege and fight to the death with the mastermind behind the scenes.
In the 1980s and 1990s, many Hong Kong-produced films were based on the war between black and white. These films were sought after in foreign countries. The famous actor Chow Yun-fat and director John Woo took this to successfully enter Hollywood. The latter also directed many films. A popular Western movie, Cheng recreates the intense scenes of Hong Kong’s “shootout” in foreign movies. In terms of games, “Jianghu True Colors / Max Payne” launched in 2001 also referred to the style of Hong Kong films, focusing on fierce gunfights, and even adopted the classic shape of Chow Yun-fat holding two guns in “Blood Two Heroes”. In addition to “The True Colors of Jianghu”, the game “Gun God/Stranglehold” launched in 2007 was directly developed with John Woo’s participation, and the protagonist was modeled by Chow Yun-fat as the focus of publicity. Since then, due to the reduction in the production of Hong Kong movies and fewer works with the theme of “black and white”, there have been fewer and fewer games that claimed to be the theme of Hong Kong movies.
There are five chapters in “Hong Kong Massacre”, and the story starts from the penultimate day to the “today” battle to break out of the police station. Each chapter has seven levels, and the last level is a boss battle. Before the level starts, you can choose one of the four weapons as the starting equipment. However, due to the limit of the number of ammunition, the ammunition will be exhausted in many cases. At this time, you must pick up the remaining weapons from the destroyed enemies to continue. fight.
At the beginning of the game, players can only use the most basic pistols to fight, but as long as they successfully pass a level, they can get “stars” rewards, so as to unlock the remaining three weapons, and upgrade them to enhance their power.
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Four weapons introduction |
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pistol |
The movement speed of the character is comparable to that of a submachine gun. Although the magazine has only 10 bullets, the total number of bullets is 20 due to the “dual gun” relationship. After upgrading, the bullets can become infinite. |
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shotgun |
There are only five bullets, but the advantage is that each bullet is a fan-shaped “range attack”, which is easier to hit the enemy, and can also play a role in the face of a large number of enemies in the later stage. The amount of ammo can be increased after the upgrade. |
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submachine gun |
Except for the number of magazines, all the capabilities are the highest among the four weapons. Unfortunately, due to the fast loading and the speed of the bullets, it is easy to fall into the “out of ammunition” state. After the upgrade, it can be changed to “Dual Gun” mode, which doubles the amount of ammo. |
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rifle |
One of my favorite weapons, the fire rate and character movement speed are not bad, the magazine capacity is the highest, after the upgrade, it can reach 50 bullets and an extra magazine, in other words, it can shoot a hundred rounds in total. Long press the fire button to change to automatic rifle burst mode. |
When players complete a level, they can get a “star” reward, in other words, after completing the entire game, they can get 35 stars. However, this amount is only enough to fully upgrade one of the weapons. If you want to get more star rewards, players must complete the special conditions of each level, including “pass the level within the time limit”, “do not use slow motion”, And “every bullet hits the enemy” three items.
Personally, I believe that “passing the level within the time limit” is easier to complete after the weapon is upgraded, and the other two are challenging the player’s operational limits. Therefore, in the process of clearing the first level, it is recommended to focus on fully upgrading a weapon.
It is worth mentioning that when the weapon is upgraded, the weapon dropped by the enemy is also in an upgraded state, so there is no “weakened” situation when changing guns in the middle. After the weapon is upgraded, the strength of the enemy will not be increased, but by the fifth chapter of the game, the enemy’s weapons should all belong to the MAX state.
The difficulty of this work is very high, the reason is that whether the enemy or the protagonist is in a state of “one-hit death”. There is also no “stealth” element in the game, the enemy’s visual and auditory range is extremely wide, and in the later stage, it can reach the level of sharpshooter “beyond the screen”. In Chapter 5, some enemies will even wear bulletproof vests, changing the state of “one-hit death” to “two-hit death”, but unfortunately the protagonist does not have this benefit. In the later stage, when the speed of the weapons of both the enemy and our party is at MAX, if they shoot at the same time face to face, there will be a tragic situation of being shot together.
Faced with such a severe and difficult situation, players can use two sets of actions, “slow motion” (Bullet time) and “rolling”. Like other games, after launching “Slow Motion”, the time in the world can be slowed down, and the protagonist’s pace will become slightly faster than the enemy’s bullet speed, so actions such as aiming or dodging bullets can be simply performed. . However, when the “slow motion” is activated, the protagonist’s physical strength will be continuously deducted, and once it reaches zero, it will be forcibly suspended and must take a short rest to replenish.
On the other hand, “Rolling” is an invincible action similar to “Monster Hunter” or “Dark Souls”. Fortunately, rolling does not deduct physical strength, and it can continue to roll until the end of the world; the problem is that the moment of standing after rolling does not It is invincible, and if the enemy shoots with a submachine gun, it is still possible to be hit. Therefore, the best way to do this is roughly the same as the aforementioned “Jianghu True Colors”: activate “slow motion” and “roll” at the same time, shoot at the surrounding enemies instantly in the middle of the roll, and make sure that the enemies around you are already there before you land and stand up. were completely wiped out.
In the later stage of the game, due to the wide reconnaissance range of the enemy, the large number of enemies, and the bad situation that the enemy’s bullet speed is too fast, the path detection must be carried out in the state of “slow motion”. In addition, players must also memorize the position of each enemy in the level, what weapon the enemy uses, whether the wall can be shot through by bullets (windows and portals can also be shot through, and some solid walls can block bullets), etc. Wait. The difficulty of this game is extremely high. When players are conducting strategies, they must regard “death” and “failure to pass the level” as a trivial matter, or as a learning process, so they may feel better.
The final level of each chapter is a boss battle, and the strategy of the level is roughly the same: the protagonist and the boss stand at the far left and far right respectively, there will be walls in the middle, and occasionally there will be gaps for bullets to pass through. The boss moves from bottom to top, and once he goes up, he will not return to the bottom. Therefore, the protagonist must be forced to go all the way up, and he may encounter a small number of enemies on the way. Therefore, when attacking the boss on the right, he must also Destroy the pawns on the left blocking the way.
The boss has a fixed physical strength, and it takes about ten bullets to knock him down. Once you reach the top of the level, the boss movement changes slightly to sideways. Although in the design, the game hopes that the protagonist and the boss will have a vertical duel until the top of the level, but in fact, if you attack in small steps, so that the boss will not move up significantly, there is a chance to reach the top of the level. Killing the leader will save a lot of bullets and time.
This work is a sketch game, so it also has shortcomings in gameplay, operability and story content. However, for some game fans who like challenges, they may fall into the “swearing to break the level before stopping” when playing this work. Emotional impulse. One of the major challenges of this game is that using the right stick to aim can easily tire your fingers. It is worth noting that the aiming of the Switch version has a hidden (?) “auto-lock” effect. It is recommended that players do not keep pushing the lever to aim. Instead, let go first, let the lever bounce back to the center and then push it towards the enemy. It will trigger the effect of “automatically lock the enemy’s position”, you may wish to try it.
