Scathe
PREVIEW
44
Enter three-person Scottish developer
Damage State, which has hitchedits
plough toid’stractor and is trying to
out-fertilise Doom. In Scatheyou play as,
well, Scathe, an enforcerof the legions of
Hell forged fromthe earth by the Divine
Creator. That’squite a thing to have
embossed on your business card. For,
y’know, reasons, Scathe is required
to prove its worth by running through
a maze and shooting everything that
gets in its way. There’s lava, a
biomechanical feel to the bad guys
(the influence ofthe Arch-Vile, Mancubus,
Lost Souls, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the
flying thingsfrom thefirst Avengers movie
are clear) and some skittering spider
things. So far, so Doom.
Scathe starts out unarmed, buta
floating and spinninggun is soon offered
up. This turns out to have infinite ammo
and a recharging secondaryfire mode,
which is just as well as there’sa lot to
shoot at,even though the initial things
placed in your path are little more than
target practice. Scathedeparts slightly
from the classic Doom template atthis
point, bymaking the dodgeas important
to the game as the fire button and thehigh
score ticking awayin the corner.In describingthe game as abullet-hell
FPS, DamageState reveals much about
its creation. Enemies are many,and go
down easyfor the most part as long as
you can bring fire to bear, but their
constant shooting – not to mention the
bouncy spikycubes that are presumably a
favouritetoy of Cerberus –means actually
getting anywherewithout taking damage
means a lot of running anddodging,a
series ofdemonic drive-bys rather than
sustained heavy gunnery.WHATTHE HELL
There’s repetition as well. Scathe isn’t
particularly robust, and while health
potions exist they don’t give youa massive
top up. Expect to see the earlycutscene in
which youpick up and brandish your gun
many times while you get thehang ofthe
game, especially while that part of your
brain that wantsto play it like Doom
insists on getting the upper hand.
Dash through attacks and keep
moving, however, in the mould of Doom
Eternalrather than the Doomof 1994, and
you’llfind yourself breaking through waves
of attacks, picking up some rather serious
weaponry, and collecting the shards
and runesthat presumably feed into
a power-up system.
Enemies in this early demo are
focused purely on Scathe without
noticeable infighting, and fit the Doom
templateof one-eyed things that run at
you andexplode, plus some rather
Quake-like helicopter soldiers. A
Metro-like mechanic in which youmust
wipe the blood off whateverpasses for
your hellish face or visor actsas a
distraction from what’sgoing onaround
you, the opaque blood making it much
harder tosee until you do.
While Scathemight feel familiar to
those who have made innumerable runs
through Hell to kill John Romero’s head
on a stick, there’s enough in this demo to
show clearly wherethe game diverges
from the template.Corridors and arenas
full of aggressive horned thingsto shoot
at may not be themost original idea,but
if there’s onething videogame history
teaches us, it’s that gameslike this can
be a lot of mindless fun,and if that’s
where Damage State is aiming, it’s got a
good chance of scoring a headshot.
Ian EvendenG
ames that are a bit like Doom but not
actually Doom have a chequered history.
While few remember Blood or Painkiller,
there are those games like Serious Sam
that refuse to die. ‘Demons with guns that run at
you’ is a fertile furrow to grow games in, turns out.
Mixing the FPS with the bullet
hell shooter in familiar territory
SCATHE
WHILE HEALTHPOTIONS EXIST
THEY DON’T GIVE YOU A
MASSIVE TOP UP
RELEASE
2022
DEVELOPER
Damage StatePUBLISHER
KwaleeLtdLINK
playscathe.comNEED TO KNOW
PLAYED
IT
Is there a
manicurist in the
building?