NecroVisioN: Lost Company is a prequel to the classic FPS horror game that recounts the events that took place before the NecroVisioN story began.
The game contains several unique levels, characters, weapons and gameplay elements, as well as a new protagonist who tells the game's original story from an opposite perspective. Now players take on the role of one of the German soldiers of the First World War, who discovers the forces of evil unleashed by the war and begins to fight them. In the end, the player leads soldiers from all the nations gathered on the front lines through massive battles against zombies and demons. Finally, players become the first Necromancer defeated by Simon Buckner in NecroVisioN.
- Developer: The Farm 51
- Genres: action, shooter, shooter, first-person, fantasy, arcade
- User rating: 6,4
It seems like you can't talk about gaming these days without a zombie shooter you've never heard of popping up and slapping you in the middle. The market is replete with them. Although there were many games in this form, not many of them took the course of the events of the First World War. This is what the Necrovision games have done. As if world war trophies aren't rich enough premise for an FPS carnage, the zombies have been thrown into the graveyard entirely.
In the original Necrovision, you took command of a World War I soldier lost behind enemy lines and all hell broke loose around him. A zombie shooter followed. Necrovision: Lost Company is a Necrovision "pre-sequel". Aside from the terminology we just made up, this is a standalone sequel to Necrovion that takes place before the events of the first game, where they meet somewhere in the middle. The bottom line is that you take command of a German doctor (and veteran soldier) who may have been initially responsible for the outbreak of a hellish zombie apocalypse and is now trying to apply an antidote.
The game opens with a long loading screen and mediocre voice acting of a doctor reading a letter to a colleague about recent events, thus fleshing out the story. Then an increasingly strong German accent appears in the exposition, and cut-scenes are scattered profusely around. The cutscenes have bad accents that are only tolerable because of the unintentionally funny dialogue. The bottom line is that "they're upstairs" were trying to wash their hands of what at first appears to be an outbreak of a biological weapon developed by Germany. However, at the same time, work on the antidote is hindered at every step. Now the outbreak is rampant and everyone is head over heels in the proverbial saying.
The gameplay contains heavy hints of old school FPS goodness, which is to be expected from the original Doom games. The walking animation shows your weapon swinging from side to side like you're saddling a drunken horse, and picking up new items, giving it a rough, noisy soundtrack with a really "classic" twist. In addition to stoking strong feelings of nostalgia, Necrovision also gives the idea that this is going to be a real shooter that will focus on headshots and pretty much nothing else. This view is also largely correct.
Final comments:
A few extra features have been added to help try and pull the game out of the retro FPS sludge it mostly wallows in. As you make your way through the endless undead, you build up an adrenaline meter that can be used to slow down downtime and perform some exemplary gameplay maneuvers. There are artifacts that increase said meter hidden in secret locations, and challenge mode allows you to earn weapons that will be permanently added to your inventory if you win. As a result, there's quite a bit of work to be done, even if it's not exactly an original game.
