The Good: Online
play with lots of shootin’, only $7
The Not So Good:
Constant defending quickly becomes stale, health regeneration limits
difficulty, spotty hit detection, few enemy types with poor AI,
weapons must be slowly unlocked and can’t be picked up from fallen
enemies, only three maps
What say you? A
cooperative third-person shooter heavy on repetition and light on
content (and everything else): 2/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
In 1831, the French Foreign Legion was
established to allow Non-French citizens to fight for the Kingdom in
Algeria. This proud military operation was tasked with keeping the
peace in French colonial holdings around the world. Thus, it’s only
proper that the fine soldiers who gave their lives are honored in a
game…where you blow up dolphins covered in dynamite. I bet they
never had to deal with that in Algiers! This is a sequel to 2009’s
Buckets of Blood (the title of which should immediately tip you off
to the level of gritty realism in the series) and featuring (mostly)
cooperative battles against waves of advancing foes. Does this
inexpensive product march gloriously under the Arc de Triomphe?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre attempts
a cartoon aesthetic, and the result is an uneven presentation. The
graphics look generally unchanged from the three-year-old original
(or, at least, they are outdated), with blocky character models that
exhibit rough animations and a low level of weapon and model texture
detail. The 2-D explosions are unimpressive, and the details feature
a bland, sandy brown color palette. For gore being so heavily
advertised, the game doesn't provide as much as I had anticipated.
Sure, heads explode and things get bloody when you use shotguns or
explosives (and, even then, results are canned and repetitive), but
you don't see limbs flying off or gruesome animations for more
traditional weapons. The third-person view is also a hindrance, with
a restrictive camera and obstructive soldier. Foreign Legion: Multi
Massacre also tries too hard to be funny, with misplaced “jokes”
in the form of billboards and exploding dolphins: calling everything
“WTF” doesn't classify as humor. The sound design isn’t any
better, with typical sound effects, very sporadic (and repetitive
when it does occur) voice acting, and a generic musical score.
Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre clearly doesn’t impress in any
aspect of the graphics or sound design.
ET AL.
Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre is a
tower defense game without the towers, where you must shoot all the
enemies that are attempting to storm your base. Although designed as
a multiplayer title, you can still host a server yourself for a spot
of single player action (and still gain experience), although you
cannot pause the game at any time. The server browser needlessly
separates games by map (although since there are only three, it
doesn’t take much scrolling to find all of the hosts) and doesn’t
display game options before you join. Matches can be customized
according to the difficulty level and game mode: a five or ten minute
game, waves of enemies (instead of a constant stream), and endless
mode, or domination where you must capture a baguette, cheese, and
wine (see, French Foreign Legion, ha ha!). At least the game seems to
adjust the number of enemies based on the quantity of human players,
so that's something. Online play, in my experience, features lots of
lag whenever a large explosion occurs; whether that is due to a peer
having a slow system or the netcode not being able to handle the
physics is anyone's guess. There are only three map designs, and one
is initially disabled: you need to unlock and equip the flotation
device, and all you do is shoot explosive-laden dolphins. Yes, that's
a game mode. The other maps offer all the same thrills (or lack
thereof), producing repetitive gaming where you defend, defend, and
defend some more.
Playing Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre
rewards you, the player, with money and experience (much like the
real French Foreign Legion, no doubt); these are spent to unlock
weapons and decorative items. The eleven weapons in the game are
divided into three categories: primary (pistol, submachine gun),
secondary (assault rifle, shotgun), and “special” (RPG, sniper
rifle, machine gun). As you level up, you can unlock new weapons by
paying for them; having enough money is never an issue, but waiting
for experience to slowly accumulate is. While my irritation with
weapon unlocks has been well
documented, Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre takes it two
steps further: you can only carry one weapon of each type per game
(even if you’ve paid a lot of money for other items), and you can’t
pick up any weapons from defeated enemies. See that shiny rocket
launcher? Sorry, can’t have it. Ammunition is also persistent, so
each bullet costs money and you’ll need to tediously refill your
weapons between matches (which, of course, means you have to leave
the server you were playing on). I routinely forget to rearm and
enter the next game with no bullets. Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre
takes everything that’s not fun about weapon unlocks and adds
several more layers of annoyance. Finally, you can pay to customize
your character with different colors (including blue and purple),
outfits, and accessories (like the proud French symbol: the duck
inner tube).
Controls in Foreign Legion: Multi
Massacre are typical for a shooter: the right-mouse button zooms in a
bit, and you are given the ability to “honk clown nose” for no
discernable reason (other than annoying other players). The game
keeps track of your score (next to a bucket of blood, of course),
pompously displaying the number of headshots, body shots, and
explosions you have caused after each kill. The speedy health
regeneration makes Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre a very easy game on
anything but the highest difficulty level (which drastically
increases the number of enemies and the damage they cause),
especially if you have four semi-coordinated human players with some
of the better weapons unlocked. If you do happen to die, you must
wait fifteen seconds to respawn in a terrible location that’s
almost always right next to (or in range of) an enemy unit. There are
health and ammo pickups on some of the levels, the latter of which
you will need constantly. Since there is no melee attack, if you run
out of ammunition, you can't do anything (a significant issue on the
dolphin level, where there are no pickups to be found). Shooting is
not very satisfying, as the hit detection is inconsistent enough to
be noticeable. There are only three enemy types: a suicide bomber, a
rocket launcher guy, and an assault rifle guy (plus the dolphins, but
they don't shoot back). The AI is not an intelligent foe, as it
follows scripted, predictable paths, stops immediately upon sighting
you, clips into nearby soldiers, and routinely runs into walls and
other objects. Of course, when the human players can get stuck on
dismembered body parts lying on the ground, maybe the AI isn’t
completely to blame for its shortcomings.
IN CLOSING
Defensive games can be fun, but the
uneven AI, weapon unlocks, few maps, and low difficulty makes Foreign
Legion: Multi Massacre far too monotonous. The enemy soldiers are
never a real challenge, due to health regeneration for you and
idiotic behaviors (getting stuck on objects, following the same
paths) for them. The weapon unlocks prevent new users from accessing
the complete arsenal, and you can't supplement your loadout with
weapons from fallen soldiers. Only having three maps (two for
novices) and a single objective (except for the one instance of
domination) also contributes to dull gameplay. The poor attempts at
humor and limited (for most weapons), repetitive gore round out an
uninspired package. Even for only $7, Foreign Legion: Multi Massacre
offers little to make it a recommended title.
