Fleshcancer Beta Preview: Boomer Shooter Splatter
Kicking it old skool with a fistful of shells.
Fleshcancer is going to be a divisive title from the get-go; first because of the title, then secondly because of the hardcore, fast-paced FPS aspects. A boomer shooter, this is the type of games ‘us kids’ played in the 90s in LAN parties with the settings down low so we could move at eye-watering speeds.
The mach speeds are present here, as too are the throwback visuals. We can skim over the story, as there isn’t one, but as an upcoming Early Access title, expect to see some minor development here, along with another two chapters. At present, there’s one chapter on offer with eight levels, and a selection of good old-fashioned boomsticks.
If you are a product of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom – either ‘back in the day’ or someone new to retros, you’ll be in very familiar territory here, as it’s essentially like playing Doom with a lot more sadistic creativity. This is uber violent, blink and you miss it skirmishes, and quite a brutal level of difficulty.
Just to take Fleshcancer for a test run, I played it with a trackpad and lasted seconds. No FPS should be played with this, but I thought I’d give it a quick go and was promptly handed my arse. As you can surmise, there are four difficulty modes: easy, normal, hard and nightmare, so it makes sense to use the right gear. So what did I do next? Played with a controller. Aside from this being a terrible decision, there’s a lot of work needing to be done on Fleshcancer as the settings are not fully there yet, and lots of console pop-ups that threw me off. However…
As I mentioned recently, I’ve got my tablet set up to play Steam games on the go, and I tried playing this with my controller to begin with, then connected up a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for the first time. It worked perfectly, and due to the low technical demands of the game, it went like shit off a shovel. After upping the sensitivity of the mouse to its full, playing this on an 8inch tablet was mental. It played so well, and it has me excited about being able to play this in the future.
What I don’t like about Fleshcancer are two things. One is the ever-present issue I find with old school keyhunting in FPS games: I hate it. IRL, my directional skills are great, but in these types of games and the graphical limitations, everything looks the same and over-pixelated, so it’s easy to get lost and die from stupid mistakes. Instead of the standard ‘fall off a ledge’ or into dodgy flooring, opening up the sliding doors takes off energy. I couldn’t locate the enemies for the first attempts, then realised I was suffering door damage…
The second is the animation. It’s very, very minimalistic to the point where enemies teleport. Yes, your movement is buttery smooth and flawless, but I found it hard to target enemies due to how janky it can get. On the flip side, finding hidden Tomb Raider-like pistols and a rusty super shotgun early on meant that all I had to do was close my eyes and hope for the best, and there was bound to be an explosion of flesh in front of my blood-soaked eyes. Ah, and that’s where Fleshcancer shines: this is a bona fide boomer shooter through and through and does not disappoint if you’re a violent son of a bitch that likes to kick ass and chew bubble gum.
