Fallen Aces, a terrific new FPS from developers Trey Powell and Jason Bond inspired by the Golden Age of Comic Books, entered early access last week. I missed my chance to go hands-on with the stylish shooter at publisherNew Blood Interactive’sPAX Eastbooth back in March, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. As soon as my Steam wishlist notified me it was available, I had to buy it. And I’ve been loving every minute.
The first level — which has hard-boiled hero Michael Thane waking up to a call informing him that goons are on their way to his house to kill him — introduces you to the game’sDeus Ex-lite approach to FPS design. But it wasn’t until the second level, “Water Under The Bridge,” that I was sure I was playing something special.
Small Expectations, Big Payoff
With an indie like Fallen Aces, sometimes low expectations set you up to be blown away. Not low, in terms of quality — New Blood hasn’t published a game I haven’t liked — but low in terms of scale.
Fallen Aces is being made by a small team and is at the beginning of its early access period, so I was expecting the levels to be fairly straightforward. So, I was amazed to see that the game is anything but. Both levels I tackled are essentially immersive sim maps, with keys to find, vents to crawl through, shadows to cloak yourself in, enemy corpses to pick up and dump, and multiple routes through each mission. In the first, I hopped out my bedroom window and scaled down the building before dying in a shootout, going back, and tackling it the normal way by, you know, walking out my front door.
Water Under The Bridge Cements Fallen Aces As A Classic In The Making
“Water Under The Bridge” begins with masked hero, Nightwave, rescuing Thane from a warehouse where the bad guys have chained him up. Thane then needs to make his way across a sprawling harbor, lower a drawbridge, and make his way back to the warehouse where he started. Though the first level gives a good idea of Fallen Aces’ approach to design, this one radically expands the scale, and the amount of weapons at your disposal. In the first level, I found only a pistol and a lead pipe. In the second level, I found a sniper rifle, a spear gun, a revolver, a switchblade, a Tommy gun, Molotov cocktails, a fire ax, and more.
And the map is loaded with cool ways to use those weapons. Nab some ammo for the scoped rifle and you can climb the watchtowers overlooking the harbor, take out the snipers, and clear much of the map for yourself. Or you can stealth through the level, ducking under trains and only emerging to karate chop a guard and steal their knife. Bits of environmental design give you clues about how to make the best of your route through the level. You find the speargun, for example, on the dock near a note about how the water is shark infested — a little clue that if you want to skirt the bad guy by playing submarine, you better be packin'. Similarly, you might find molotov cocktails near an oil slick and a pressurized canister, begging you to explode the goons standing near it.
Fallen Aces supports going in loud and going in quietly equally well, but for much of the time, I was just exploring. The level is huge, and the objectives Nightwave gives you effortlessly direct you to seek out every corner of the map. I tend to go into a game like this attempting to find the best strategy, but here, Ijust wanted to see everything this wildly stylish, accomplished FPS had to offer.
