Info about Fallen Aces:

Official game description:
  
Enter a world of heroes, villains, crime, corruption and betrayal!  
_Fallen Aces_ is a FPS _crime noir_ that plays right out of the '90s and looks right out of a comic.  
*   **A gritty crime noir saga:** spanning three episodes and **dozens** of levels, and featuring fully voiced **hand drawn** comic cutscenes - Fallen Aces tells a _real_ story.  
*   **The world is your weapon:** use fists, knives, pipes, bats, trash cans, frying pans, pistols, shotguns, nail guns, spear guns, Tommy guns and more to take back Switchblade City.  
*   **Non linear level design:** Choose your path, use **stealth**, go **loud** or _try a mixture of both!_  
*   **Hand drawn:** 100% original hand drawn art and animation brings the game to life.  
*   **Fuggedaboutit!:** Hundreds of lines of **authentic** period era gangster dialogue injects personality into the wide array of people and places in _Fallen Aces._

Release date: 14 Jun, 2024

Categories: First-Person Shooter, Stealth Gameplay, Environmental Combat, Exploration, Immersive Sim, Single-player Story, Resource Management, First-Person Melee Combat


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Unique, appealing comic book art (weight 0.96): The game features a unique and appealing comic book-inspired art style, often described as noir or pulp, with well-integrated cutscenes and attention to detail. This visual style is a major draw for many players, creating a memorable and immersive experience.
- Excellent, replayable level design (weight 0.94): The game's levels are well-designed, offering multiple paths, secrets, and options for approaching objectives. This encourages exploration, experimentation, and replayability, allowing players to choose between stealth or action-oriented gameplay.
- Fun, satisfying combat system (weight 0.88): The combat system is engaging and satisfying, with a variety of options for defeating enemies, including melee, ranged, and environmental interactions. The game provides a sense of power and control, making combat enjoyable and rewarding.
- High-quality voice acting (weight 0.74): The game features excellent voice acting and sound design, enhancing the atmosphere and immersion. The voice performances are often praised for their quality and fitting tone, adding depth and humor to the world.
- Nostalgic boomer shooter feel (weight 0.71): The game successfully captures the essence of old-school boomer shooters while adding its own unique elements. This evokes a sense of nostalgia for classic games and provides a refreshing experience for fans of the genre.
- Amazing level design and music (weight 0.68): The game features amazing level design, with detailed maps, multiple routes, and a variety of items to find. The music is atmospheric and complements the setting, enhancing the overall experience.
- Rewarding exploration for secrets (weight 0.64): The game rewards exploration by hiding secrets throughout the levels. Discovering these secrets provides a sense of accomplishment and can offer advantages in combat.
- Great sense of humor (weight 0.63): The game incorporates humor, with funny dialogue, over-the-top actions, and memorable scenes. This adds to the overall enjoyment and creates a lighthearted atmosphere.
- Viable and fun stealth mechanics (weight 0.49): The game incorporates stealth mechanics, providing players with options for a more strategic and less confrontational approach. These mechanics are well-implemented and offer a viable alternative to direct combat, enhancing the overall gameplay experience.
- High level of polish (weight 0.16): The game is highly polished, with attention to detail in physics, lighting, and environmental interactions. This creates a smooth and immersive experience, making the world feel alive and responsive.
- Everything is a weapon (weight 0.09): Players can use almost anything in the environment as a weapon, leading to creative and emergent gameplay. This mechanic adds depth to combat and encourages experimentation.
- Reminiscent of classic games (weight 0.08): The game is compared favorably to other well-regarded titles like Dishonored, Deus Ex, and Thief, suggesting a high level of quality and similar gameplay experiences. This helps to set expectations and attract fans of those games.
- Engaging immersive sim elements (weight 0.06): The game is described as an immersive sim, suggesting engaging and interactive gameplay. This appeals to players who enjoy games with player choice and emergent gameplay.
- Consistent improvement with updates (weight 0.06): The game is praised for its continuous improvement through updates and its high quality even in early access. This suggests a dedicated development team and a promising future for the game.
- Great New Blood Interactive release (weight 0.06): The game is praised as a great release from New Blood Interactive, indicating satisfaction with the game's development and quality. This association with a reputable publisher adds to the game's appeal.
- Good value for price (weight 0.05): The game is considered a worthwhile purchase, offering a good amount of content for its price. This makes it an attractive option for players looking for a fun and affordable experience.

Common complaints:
- Melee combat is clunky/unfocused (weight 0.19): Several reviewers criticize the melee combat, describing it as clunky, unfocused, and lacking impact. Some found it too easy to exploit, while others struggled with its mechanics. There's a general sense that melee combat needs improvement and tuning.
- Game is too short/incomplete (weight 0.19): Many reviewers mention the game's short length and lack of content as a major drawback. This is often attributed to its Early Access status, with players expressing a desire for more levels, episodes, and overall content to justify the purchase. The game's incompleteness is a recurring concern.
- Difficulty is unbalanced/too easy (weight 0.15): Several reviewers found the game's difficulty unbalanced. Some felt it was too easy, even on the hardest settings, while others, especially at the beginning, found it frustrating. There's a desire for more challenging difficulty options and better balancing of combat mechanics.
- Inventory system is too restrictive (weight 0.11): The limited inventory system, with only three slots, is a frequent complaint. Reviewers find it restrictive, especially with ammo and consumables taking up valuable space, leading to constant backtracking and limiting playstyle options. This is a major source of frustration for many players.
- Poor enemy AI/broken weapons (weight 0.08): Several reviewers mention issues with enemy AI, such as illogical behavior, poor reactions to player actions, and getting stuck on terrain. Additionally, weapons dropped by enemies often break or have no ammo, discouraging direct combat and feeling artificial.
- Lacks achievements/rewards (weight 0.04): The game lacks achievements and rewards for completing special actions. This reduces replay value and makes the game less fun.
- Lacks language localization (weight 0.03): The game lacks support for multiple languages, which detracts from the experience for non-English speaking players. This makes it difficult to understand the story and immerse oneself in the game's world.

Gameplay feedback:
- Open levels, varied approaches (weight 0.24): Levels offer multiple paths and encourage exploration. Players can choose stealth, combat, or a mix, with options like parkour and hidden routes. The open-ended design promotes replayability and creative problem-solving.
- Environmental objects as weapons (weight 0.12): Players can use almost anything as a weapon, from frying pans to trash cans. The limited inventory of three slots forces strategic choices and encourages improvisation. Weapon durability encourages using the environment.
- Melee focus, weapon durability (weight 0.04): Melee weapons break quickly, encouraging players to scavenge and adapt. The melee combat system is simple but offers directional attacks. Guns and ammo are scarce, making melee a primary combat option.
- Immersive sim elements present (weight 0.04): The game incorporates immersive sim elements, offering freedom in how players approach situations. This includes interactive environments, hidden passages, and creative problem-solving.
- Unique comic book art style (weight 0.04): The game features a distinctive comic book style with motion comics and cutscenes. This visual style is a key part of the game's presentation and atmosphere.
- Viable but simple stealth (weight 0.03): Stealth is a viable option, often recommended due to limited ammo and weapon durability. However, the stealth system is simple, with inconsistent AI behavior.
- Realistic elements present (weight 0.03): The game features some realistic elements such as single rounds being salvageable and civilian reactions to guns. The reload system subtracts ammo if partial rounds were fired.
- Early access, five levels (weight 0.03): The game is in early access and currently features five levels. These levels offer different objectives and can provide 4 to 8 hours of content.
- Boomer shooter/immersive sim mix (weight 0.02): The game blends boomer shooter and immersive sim elements. It requires strategic play for survival, unlike typical boomer shooters.
- Scarce guns and ammunition (weight 0.02): Guns and ammunition are scarce, making their use feel impactful. Players must find guns in secret spots or purchase them, incentivizing careful ammo conservation.
- Varied enemy types, behaviors (weight 0.02): The game features a variety of enemy types, each with different move-sets. Blocking is effective against unarmed enemies but less so against those with weapons.
- Simplified immersive sim gameplay (weight 0.01): The gameplay is similar to simplified versions of Dishonored or Deus Ex. It lacks consequence mechanics and RPG elements.
- Puzzles with hidden codes (weight 0.01): The game features puzzles that require exploration to find codes and secrets. These codes unlock safes containing supplies and cash.
- Detective story, boxer protagonist (weight 0.01): The protagonist is a former boxer turned detective investigating a plot. The story involves a mysterious figure and an organization called A.C.E.S.

Performance notes:
- Inconsistent game performance reported (weight 0.08): The game's performance is inconsistent. While many players report smooth gameplay and optimization, especially on devices like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, others experience lag, frame rate drops, freezes, and crashes, even on systems meeting the recommended specs. Initial performance issues were patched.
- Loading times could be faster (weight 0.01): Loading times are generally considered good, with quick saves being fast. However, some players feel that level loading, especially quick loading, could be faster, particularly when compared to other games.
- Audio glitches and omissions (weight 0.01): There are reports of audio issues, including audio cutting out during cutscenes and music being absent in certain levels. The missing music created an unintended atmosphere in one instance.
- Specific gameplay bugs reported (weight 0.01): Players have reported specific bugs, such as characters getting stuck in animations or the map disappearing after loading a save. These issues sometimes require a restart to resolve.
- Enemy-related gameplay bugs (weight 0.01): Some players have encountered performance issues in sections with a high number of enemies, as well as issues with water-based enemies attacking when they shouldn't be present.
- Sprite perspective issues (weight 0): The game's verticality sometimes causes character sprites to appear strange, suggesting that different views at varying vertical angles may be needed to improve the visual presentation.

Recommendations:
- Strongly recommend purchasing the game (weight 0.62): The game is highly recommended by reviewers, with many citing its fun gameplay, unique style, and promising potential. Many suggest purchasing it now, even in early access, due to its current low price and the expectation of future content updates and price increases. The game is considered a great value for its cost.
- Potential hinges on future development (weight 0.32): Many reviewers acknowledge the game's early access status and express hope that the developers will continue to improve and expand upon the existing content. Some suggest waiting for further updates before fully committing to the game, while others are willing to support the developers now in anticipation of future improvements.
- Eagerly awaiting future content (weight 0.12): Reviewers express strong anticipation for future content, particularly the upcoming episodes, indicating a positive overall experience with the initial release. Many are eager to see where the story goes and how the game evolves with further development.
- Recommended for specific fanbases (weight 0.1): The game is recommended for fans of specific genres and games, including immersive sims like Deus Ex and Dishonored, retro FPS games like Doom, and noir-themed media. Reviewers highlight the game's unique blend of styles and gameplay mechanics, making it appealing to players with diverse preferences.
- Overwhelmingly positive, hyperbolic praise (weight 0.07): Some reviewers express extremely positive sentiments, calling the game a masterpiece and giving it perfect scores. However, these reviews often lack specific details and may be hyperbolic, reducing their overall constructiveness.
- Excellent value for the price (weight 0.03): The game's current price is frequently mentioned as a major selling point, with many reviewers describing it as a steal or a bargain. The low cost makes the game accessible to a wide audience and encourages players to take a chance on a potentially rewarding experience.
- Another success from New Blood (weight 0.02): The game is recognized as another quality title from New Blood Interactive, known for their unique and engaging games. Fans of New Blood's previous works are particularly encouraged to check out this new release, as it aligns with the studio's signature style and commitment to delivering fresh and innovative experiences.
- Mixed opinions, some review bombing (weight 0.02): This cluster contains a mix of opinions, including some negative ones and suggestions for improvement. One review shows signs of review bombing, with claims of money laundering and exploitation of gamers, which significantly reduces the cluster's importance.
- Recommended for violent gameplay (weight 0.01): The game is recommended for players who enjoy violence and beating up goons. This point is somewhat specific but lacks constructiveness, as it simply describes a type of player who might enjoy the game without providing any critical feedback.

Other player notes:
- Early access, episodic release (weight 0.11): The game is in early access and is being released episodically, with only the first episode (containing around 5 levels) currently available. The developers are actively updating the game, with more content planned for the future.
- Published by New Blood Interactive (weight 0.03): The game is published by New Blood Interactive, known for publishing retro-inspired shooters. This association sets certain expectations regarding the game's style and gameplay.
- Intriguing story, awaiting updates (weight 0.02): The story is interesting so far, and the reviewer is looking forward to future updates.
- Planned level editor, workshop support (weight 0.02): The developers plan to release a level editor with Steam Workshop support before the second episode. This feature would allow players to create and share their own levels, extending the game's content and replayability.
- Can pick up rats (weight 0.01): The game features the ability to pick up rats.
- Linux and Steam Deck support (weight 0.01): The game is available on Linux and Steam Deck.

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