The approach to this title was the most particular, also thanks to an incredible difficulty in starting the game, so as to fill this introduction with a nice anecdote: the gaming machine on which the test was carried out is not the latest, but adequate - for example - to start recent titles such as Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes smoothly and without slowdowns. SCAR, on the other hand, proved to be, in the very short cutscene and in the main menu, a very heavy and badly optimized title. The initial cutscene is nothing more than a zoom out of an image, while the menu is a basic sequence of items on the screen. In these very short seconds, the workload on the processor skyrockets, reaching unprecedented percentages. As soon as the campaign starts, the peak stops, returning a game performance adequate to the standard presented by the developers, that is a very fast and frenetic shooter that, for its graphic rendering, pays homage to those cornerstones of the genre, which did not build their fame thanks to pixel or crude 3D graphics, but to the return of great gaming feeling and in a great immersive value.
But is it DOOM? No, is it Unreal? Neither. It's SCAR!
When starting Scar we did not notice hints of plot in, since we are immediately catapulted into a small tutorial, firearm in hand and enemies starting to shoot us some strange green substance. We begin to move around the map, running, sprinting and shooting while on the screen there are indications on basic commands. There are some nice additions, such as a slide on the run to replace the classic crouching position and a nice grappling hook useful in moving around the map.
One of the greatest strengths of the title is its extreme speed, which goes back without too many veils to the recent DOOM Eternal Bethesda House: Make use and treasure of keys and shifting skills between double jump, dash forward, swerve and grapple it will be necessary to survive the sequence of rooms that await us, full of monstrosities. We mentioned DOOM and Unreal not by chance: from the latter the title steals most of the models of the enemies and the sound system - and this is anything but a criticism, indeed, if you have spent endless hours on the first chapter of the saga of Epic is a nice dive into the past - and from the first, as mentioned, the frenzy and the infinity of objects on the field, including health, armor, ammunition and weird, terribly lethal weapons, ready to pick up and requiring a trigger-happy hand.
Fire, flames and a pinch of skill
Pleasant feature are the skill points, or the killing of an enemy we fill a bar that frames the viewfinder. At its filling, we will be able activate an ability given by the weapon we are holding at that moment, so the shotgun will do double the damage, or the gun will have a higher rate of fire, like an assault rifle.
So nothing extremely technical or that requires the need to stop and think a little, very forbidden in an FPS of this type. Punishment, death. We will always have to move with agility and hold down the left mouse button to make continuous fire and defeat as many monsters as possible.
On the content and structure side of the maps, the title is not very satisfying. The gist is to enter a large map and kill the dozens and dozens of enemies that come against us. This will be the only objective of the game so that the door to the next room can open, to land in another room and again make slaughter of enemies. It is true that the grapple gives an excellent verticality to the title, therefore without damage from falling, it will be very fun to move around the map and try always different fire approaches, but already after an hour, the whole structure could get bored.
Every now and then we will find some small additional objectives, for example to find a specific weapon to continue, or find a key to open doors or even defend a certain place from monsters, but all this is folded and repeated an infinite number of times.
It is clear that this structure is clearly intrinsic to the work, and therefore much desired, but a slight variety in the contents, would not have hurt, perhaps always drawing on some other exponent of the genre. The offer would certainly have been more substantial, but considering that the title is sold for a handful of Euros, the final product is an acceptable compromise.
