The beginning of The Surge is that of those who displace: the protagonist is in a wheelchair and has proposed to the Creo industry to be implanted mechanical limbs so as to be able to walk again. Here you are immediately asked to make a fundamental choice: agile or armored?
It’s important because it will determine our approach to the whole game. After a shocking video in computer graphics we find ourselves in a kind of rocket dump, without knowing what the hell happened in the meantime and why some drones attack us without too many pleasantries.
The important thing is that we can walk and above all fight. We kill them with a weapon of luck and we immediately notice a detail that will soon become certainty: they are not meat for slaughter. They are not very difficult, of course, but they are not even much to make a number. To pass them we must immediately learn to dodge their lasers and hit at the right time.
Being The Surge a soulslike comparison with the titles of From Software snaps immediately but, despite the similarities (pace of play, mobility of the protagonist, medical areas-bonfire to spend the wreckage-souls obtained fighting and more of which we will talk), the first thing that jumps to the eye is a macroscopic difference: here even the common enemies beat like damned and, if you are not careful, they can kill us without too many compliments.
The factory where we are is gone crazy and all the workers with robotic limbs want to make us skin. We meet the first out of the medical area, still not active due to a breakdown. The tutorial, which is written on the walls, explains how to aim for the limbs, inviting us to hit the unarmored
ones to do more damage. We give a stick on the head of the victim, but we are not fast enough and we suffer his counterattack, which takes away a third of the energy.
We break it down by alternating attacks and dodges (having chosen a quick character we can count less on parades), then we collect the wreckage that leaves on the ground thinking that made us work harder than we expected.
Has Deck13 reached From Software with The Surge? Find out in our review!
COMMON ENEMIES, BOSSES AND PERSONALIZATION
Now, The Surge also has bosses, some of which are really bad. Following the classic formula of the genre, we find them in the middle of the levels, placed to protect particular passages or precious loot. Typically they are too strong to deal with when you meet them for the first time. For example, only to overcome the first boss, a half-broken mech, we have employed a multitude of attempts and we had to learn to ‘dance’ with him death after death.
In short, do not worry, because there is no lack of clashes against the immense metal beasts that sweat the literal seven shirts. Having said that, however, we confirm that the focus of the game is another: Deck13 has tried to make all the fights interesting, succeeding perfectly.Not only that, it has also made them particularly spectacular. Imagine moving forward through a dimly lit corridor and finding yourself in front of a heavily armored enemy with a giant hammer in your hand that starts charging you.
Try to hit, but you dodge sideways and respond by bringing a first blow to the head and putting a second blow to the combo arm. After a first stumbling, the beast reacts and starts to swing the hammer in a threatening way by taking you by surprise with a blow from the bottom upwards that makes you fly in the air, then crushes you while you are falling to the ground, reducing you in the end life.
