Hellforces: From Russia With Love Company: Buka Entertainment First-person shooters are a dime a dozen, requiring developers to constantly push the bar in order to stand out from the rest of the pack. Russian developer Orion and publisher Buka are hoping to do just that with their newest horror-themed FPS, Hellforces. Hellforces? plot isn?t the most original to come around, but it?s still more engaging than other games to come down the pipe in recent years. While looking for an alternative power source, a scientist discovers a way to extract the human soul and turn it into energy. Unfortunately, this leaves a bunch of soulless bodies lying around which are soon found by demons, adding up to a nice little zombie problem. One of these demons sets himself up as a prophet and forms the Cult of Lucifer, whose main goal is to open the gates of Hell. The cult soon takes hold and begins to grow in numbers. You are the friend of one of the cult?s potential members. As you begin rooting around for answers as to his fate, the cult begins to see you as a threat and moves to eliminate you. So far, Hellforces seems to be more action driven than other games in the genre, focusing more on blasting things than bogging you down with story. Action is very fast-paced and about as bloody as you could want. A number of weapons are available for you to deal with zombies, from modern-day weapons like shotguns, machine guns, and grenades to more futuristic weapons like lasers and pulse rifles. Melee weapons, like lead pipes, are also around for when you really want to get up close and personal with zombies. The physics engine behind Hellforces is pretty neat. Enemies react to bullets in a realistic manner and will even flop around when you apply enough force (i.e. rocket launchers). It also looks like enemies react to different shots to their body. The reason I say ?looks like? is because I?ve never been that skilled a marksman and usually just resort to wildly spraying as many bullets in the direction of an enemy as I can. Of course, this turned out to be a bad idea since bullets ricochet... Graphics are easily one of the most impressive things about the early build of Hellforces. Even on my machine, which has a little trouble running some of the more notorious resource hogs, Hellforces looked and ran great. Lighting is amazing, especially fire, and helps to build on the game?s spooky atmosphere. This is also aided by the game?s dark environments, which I found to be a little too dark at times. It certainly helps the mood, but I?d still like to see what I?m shooting at. Judging from the demo and some of the movies on the game?s official site, it looks like locations should be varied, offering tons of different things to see. Levels also feature some interaction; hopefully this will play into gameplay a little. Hellforces may not be a blip on most gamer?s radars, but judging from the early build, there?s no reason it shouldn?t be. Hellforces is slated to ship later on in 2005. -Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker Related Links: Orion Design Buka Entertainment