In John Wick Hex, the models are too simplistic, the guns too splashy, and the animations too stop-start (by necessity: this is still a turn-based game) to feel anything like the source material. There’s a brilliance to the movies where Wick will move from enemy to enemy in a kind of dance, but then there’s the violent payoff as fists and bullets crunch into bad guys. The John Wick-ness evaporates in the animations, too. This tentativeness only increases once you realise that guns, health and bandages persist to the next level, so your failures will be carried with you.
#JOHN WICK HEX PLATINUM FULL#
It’s effective, but not particularly ‘John Wick’, and I found myself wishing that I could manage a room full of lackeys in the same way Keanu does. The answer, particularly in later levels and difficulties, is to be tentative, spamming your ‘Wait’ button while on your knees, grappling enemies as they come to you. Sure, it’s realistic, but it makes for random moments of frustration. You’re as good as dead, and it won’t always feel like your fault. You will regularly be behind the curve rather than ahead of it, with punches staggering you and bullets ripping into you, and there’s no real comeback from these situations. John Wick may be a beast, but he doesn’t have a roundhouse in his locker that can take three people out at once. The randomised troop placement, and the way enemies can cheaply spawn from nearby doors, means that this happens, and happens regularly. Turn a corner and there’s every chance that the game has plonked three goons in your face. That’s a lot of information to be given, and it’s how John Wick and you can feel untouchable, as you anticipate everything and work the battlefield like a game of chess.Īt its worst, it can feel like a snowballing crapfest. The time management system makes this possible, visualising what your opponent’s next three or four moves are going to be. It feels good to be ahead of the curve, getting a bullet in moments before an enemy, and then leaving enough time to anticipate the attack of someone else. Some of the least attractive looking options are the most powerful who knew that ‘throw gun’ and ‘wait’ could be so effective?Īt its best, John Wick Hex can have you pirouetting from enemy to enemy, shoving elbows into faces and firing quick pistol bursts into their knees. It does take some time, though, and we only felt like we were in full flow by the halfway point. It’s worth persisting through these opening levels, as Wick’s actions – and which situation they most benefit – soon get a little clearer. It’s a bewildering system at first, and the game knows it, crushing you under walls of text and menus that make no immediate sense. The fog of war will hide you and you can make your next decision.
If you want to dodge that bullet, you might want to consider a dodge behind a pillar or a roll. Want to shoot that enemy? Sure, but it will take you four time units, and the enemy is going to shoot you in three time units. In its place is a timeline, combining Wick’s and the enemy’s actions into a single chronology. Fair play to John Wick Hex – it knows that turn-switching would hardly make for balletic combat, so it ditches it. Most games of this type will play around with action points and turns: your troops or your team get to perform a number of actions before pressing ‘End Turn’ and handing control over to the enemy. The other way that John Wick Hex upends traditional turn-based games is the way it handles actions.
If you plan to learn the spawns, you’re going to be disappointed. Bithell has also employed a procedural troop placement, so every replay (or death) will stick the enemies in new locations in the level. Pillars, corners, balconies, warehouses full of crates: they make John Wick Hex a game of Ambush Simulator, and your ability to anticipate and get out of them is half of the skill. Mistakes are regular because John Wick Hex is heavy on the fog of war, perhaps because Keanu’s mop-top obscures his field of view. John Wick Hex forces you to own your mistakes, and you will make plenty of them. Find yourself low on health, and there’s no opportunity to push up a different unit. Turn a corner to find yourself ambushed and there’s no one else to cover you’re back – you’re going to stay ambushed. It was always going to give you control of lone-wolf Wick rather than a squad, but it didn’t stop it from feeling alien to move one solitary unit around a map in a turn-based tactics game. If you’re used to turn-based strategy games, then John Wick Hex immediately pulls the rug from under you.
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