[ticking]
["Jingle Bells" starts to play]
No!
[gunshot]
[music slows to a stop]
It's December.
Which means it's time for Christmas Lazy Game Reviews.
[electronic rock Christmas medley plays]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
[typing]
Now, before we get to the main Christmas game topic,
we have to take a look at a weird little piece of software
called NFK: Natural Fawn Killers.
Released in 1999, it was a project by a couple guys at Fiendish Games,
then a subsidiary of Criterion Software,
as was supposedly a spoof of the various hunting games of the time.
I say "supposedly" because it just kind of took the idea of hunting
and said, Screw it! Hunting's lame and difficult.
Here, have a bunch of ridiculous weapons and absurdly slow creatures
to slaughter instead.
Check my video on YouTube about that game for more info,
but suffice it to say, it wasn't exactly a stroke of genius.
and Fiendish Games was shut down by Criterion the following year.
Nevertheless, a new company called Small Rockets
was formed from the corpse of Fiendish Games,
the rights to NFK were licensed from Criterion,
and somewhere along the line another NFK game was released,
Santa's Gone Postal.
This is the game we're looking at here,
and this time around, the psychotic hunter Harry from the first game
has donned a Santa suit and has decided to go postal
on more cute critters.
Whatever the reason for that may be, it doesn't matter!
And the game knows it doesn't matter because once you start the game,
you're dropped directly into the world, sniper rifle in hand.
Just like the original NFK, the goal here is to shoot anything that moves,
collect enough carcasses and bloody chunks,
and do so before the time runs out.
That's it.
[gunshot]
HARRY: I got something!
LGR: You'll come across rabbits, reindeer, elves,
and bears that look like walking poop.
But the only real difference between any of them
is that some of them are worth more points than others
and will fill your sack more quickly.
And yes, the creatures are meant to look cute
and you're meant to be a deranged, blood-thirsty hunter
that takes pleasure in destroying animals,
but that's not really offensive to me.
It's a dumb and immature game, who cares?
What IS offensive to me is the crappy gameplay.
For one thing, the animal AI is about as dumb as it gets.
There's supposed to be a system of them smelling you downwind
and you have some animal calls to use,
but it's completely pointless to worry about this stuff at all.
They spawn. You shoot them. There you go.
They might run away, but they're so slow and mindless, it doesn't matter.
The only real problem are bears that can attack you,
but all you have to do is run backwards, shooting constantly,
since you run backwards at the same speed that they run forwards.
There is absolutely no challenge to this game whatsoever.
Well, actually, that's not quite the truth
because of the stupid, freaking pointless timer.
Every level has a certain time limit
and if you take too long, you have to restart the level empty-handed.
And since the animals spawn somewhat randomly,
it's quite possible to not be able to finish a level
since you just ran out of time before you harvested enough body parts.
This is made even worse by the level design,
which is just short of absolutely horrendous.
Obvious to anyone with any sense of taste,
most of the levels are butt-ugly.
Each level is actually designed using 128x128 pixel bitmaps
which work as a height map,
with a set of simple low-res textures and low-poly objects
placed on yet another 128x128 bitmap.
The advantage of this is that making levels is incredibly easy.
I mean, you can do it in MS Paint.
The disadvantage is they look like garbage
and are filled with all sorts of nightmarish angles and textures.
The fact that you can't jump,
and it's impossible to walk up a slope
if it's angled just a single degree too much,
just makes it even worse.
And even though most of the levels are just giant bowls
with an open area full of random crap in the middle,
there are some that require navigating hills and mountains,
and even one with a freaking maze mimicking the hedge maze from "The Shining."
So again, the only challenge is finding the animals
before the time runs out,
because if you find them, they're yours.
Admittedly, there is some fun to be had
with the game's four weapons.
Popping the tiny heads off of bunnies with the sniper rifle is enjoyable.
Well, I mean it is for the first few times you do it, at least.
Tearing into a polar bear with the Minigun is kind of fun.
Though it has to be the single weakest- sounding Minigun I have ever heard.
[constant snipping]
I've heard pairs of scissors
that sound more menacing than this thing.
Huh... you know...
[constant snipping]
The rocket launcher is pretty neat,
though it's slow and irritating to have to bring up the sight and aim
before you can shoot anything.
It just feels clunky.
Easily the best weapon of the game, though, is the grenade launcher,
which is not only powerful but relatively fast to shoot,
and can be used without aiming down a sight.
Also, most of the terrain deforms when using explosives,
which is a pretty awesome touch.
It makes sense that this is possible, due to the levels being simple height maps.
and is somewhat reminiscent of what you could do in the first Red Faction.
Unfortunately, like everything else in the game,
it's only a fleeting bit of fun before the boredom sets in again.
And when you're bored, but stuck playing something for a review,
you start to get annoyed at every little thing.
Heh heh. Like the guy you play as, Harry.
I mean, what a douche.
[gunshot] HARRY: Not so tough now, are you.
LGR: Why would you ever expect bunnies with silly hats to be tough to begin with?
[bleeps]
HARRY: You're gonna get this one– [bleep]
LGR: Why even include a line like that?
I can't even decipher what was meant to be said.
HARRY: Ha ha! Picking up the pieces...
LGR: No, you don't say. I thought you were building a house.
You may as well state everything that you do.
[mimicking Harry] Lookin' at the trees...
Heh. Wishing my gun had reloading animations...
Walking towards nothing...
a lot.
Ah, well. There is one consolation:
the game ends. Ha ha.
After ten levels.
Once you reach the North Pole.
And run into a friggin' massive hungry T-Rex
with a Santa outfit on.
[T-Rex roaring]
[constant snipping]
Once you complete this level, it's game over,
you see some credits,
and are unceremoniously kicked from the game back to the desktop.
Fantastic.
Ugh. If even a giant dino-Santa can't solve my problems
with NFK and this Christmas edition, nothing can.
The game is just not engaging.
The hunting isn't challenging.
The levels are annoying, the graphics are ugly,
the speech is obnoxious, the Christmas theme is barely existent,
and it's over in about an hour.
You know, actually, I take that back.
The last one regarding game length is a blessing in disguise.
In fact, the game is about an hour TOO long.
I admit the novelty of shooting crap out of cutesy things
is initially kind of appealing to my inner 12-year-old,
deforming the terrain is cool, if a bit useless,
and you probably could have fooled yourself into thinking
it was fun back in the day if you didn't have any other games.
But even with those almost positive things,
I just, I can't recommend this one at all.
I've honestly had more fun correcting the spelling in this review script
than I had playing the game.
And I generally LOVE first-person shooters from this time period.
But THIS one? Eh, no.
So unless you're just morbidly curious to experience it for yourself,
I would leave this one to rot
in Christmas PC-gaming past.
[dino roar]
[burp]