The Haunted Hoard: Metal Dead (PC)

Metal Dead, despite its title devoting half its name to a focus on the metal genre of music, doesn’t really seem to be trying to appeal to that crowd or really trying to integrate that element into the game all too much. Sure, we learn early on that zombies are repelled by the sound of metal music, but it’s not relevant for most of the game and the soundtrack hardly even supplies any metal when it is. The two main characters are metalheads, but the friend ends up slotted into a role where that aspect doesn’t get to express itself much and our main character essentially only has the ability to play guitar well as something somewhat tied to his love of metal music. Otherwise, the protagonist might as well be an office worker or have any other background for as much as it expresses itself in the story, Malcolm easily slotting into a fairly simple well-meaning hero type and never really developing a solid identity outside of that. I do not think a failure to truly capture what the title seems to suggest is a genuine fault with the game, but if a player is expecting the something akin to the love letter to metal that is Brutal Legend or even just a metal soundtrack to back the action, they’re no doubt going to be surprised by a pretty traditional point and click that hearkens more to old LucasArts adventure games than the intense musical genre.

 

Metal Dead takes place a few weeks into a zombie apocalypse where metalheads Malcolm and Ronnie end up crashing in front of a medical research facility where all the zombies seem to be congregating. Malcolm seems intent on finding a cure for the zombie plague, and serendipity has landed him in front of a location so suspicious it must hold some answers. Entering from the basement, the rest of the game takes place in this skyscraper of the medical research facility, with new floors gradually becoming available over the course of the game. Metal Dead has a small cast of characters to interact with, those being other survivors who are dealing with their situation in the building in different ways. The zombie menace is gradually making headway into the building despite being somewhat dumb and silly, but it does mean that on top of finding out answers by talking with them and investigating the different levels of the building, Malcolm must round up as many survivors as he can for the eventual escape.

The building’s floors all feel different due to focusing on different room types you’d expect to find in an odd mix of an office building, medical facility, and R&D site, and since the characters work in these areas, there is technically some variety to them, but none really stand out as unique or deep characters. There’s a chef who is literally behaving like a chef stereotype on purpose, a group of stoners who tell the expected drug jokes, a loud aggressive police officer, and a nurse who is just a ball of tired feminine cliches. The nurse fawns obsessively over another doctor, greets you by saying she broke a nail and her makeup is messed up, and thinks you’re always trying to flirt with her. The game is a comedy so having some character archetypes to work with isn’t a bad idea, it could let the game get straight to the jokes instead of establishing characters, but its not exactly pitching fastballs. It has some moments of fun absurdity or amusing behavior, but despite the gore and innuendo present, it all feels surprisingly safe. The humor isn’t exploring many new territories, taking the easiest routes to well-trodden jokes to the point the player might be able to think of a better follow-through on the sometimes promising set-ups it wastes. Humor landing is a subjective experience, but even in some games where the jokes might not land for an individual player, it establishes a fun and jovial tone for the experience that can still be enjoyed. Metal Dead’s jokes don’t quite get it there, many settling into an area of “you laugh or you don’t”. Somewhat amusing is perhaps the best way to explain the tone as a result, as it doesn’t dwell too much on a joke to make a miss hurt, but it also doesn’t have many hard-hitters even for a receptive audience.

 

Part of the humor’s issues might be just the limitations the game had as an indie title. All the important information is relayed through text, with very few characters packing any emotions save a default expression and a slight variation. The cartoon art style has a sort of chibi “Rick and Morty” style despite coming well before it, but the characters are a bit rigid despite their large heads which would have been perfect for emotional readability. Perhaps some of the jokes could have done much better with a vocal performance backing them, and characters wouldn’t have so easily slotted into a generic archetype if they had the room to emote. With things as they are, characters don’t really get much elbow room to establish themselves and those with potentially more fun personalities like the mad Doctor Fechenheim and Randy the vendor in denial about there even being zombies feel like the best things you can latch onto. Metal Dead lacks the punch needed for gut-busting hilarity, but there are still small highlights like those two that stand out amid the sea of stock characters and easy and familiar jokes.

The point and click adventure part is, however, solid, but perhaps almost as unambitious as the humor. The game is staged so that you only have access to a few floors at a time, many of them containing two or three rooms only. As you move around them, you can talk to characters to learn more of the plot and eventually figure out what task is necessary to push yourself to one of the three goals of investigating the outbreak, dealing with it, and escaping. Inevitably you’ll come across situations that require some thinking to overcome, the player having to find certain items and use them properly to open the way onward. Even when you do start getting access to more and more floors, the game tries to stay focused so you are never thrown off the trail of what you need to do too much, and that’s partly because you have a zombie head in your pants. Early on, a talking head of one of the undead joins you as your hint system, the player able to call on them any time they might need a refresher on what they’re trying to do or a nudge in the right direction. If you go to a floor that literally has no use at that point in the story, the head will tell you as much to keep you from bumbling around in search of something you won’t find. This keeps Metal Dead moving at a quick pace, and the game itself isn’t very long. Getting truly stuck isn’t likely, and while certain items might be used in unusual ways to solve puzzles, your range of options aren’t so abundant that you can’t eventually work your way into solving things. There’s just enough going on here that it feels good to have it click in your head what you need to do, and getting the chain of progress going by doing the one thing that opens up a bunch of opportunities after makes for a quick and rewarding sequence of events.

 

The gameplay is a solid spine for Metal Dead to be built from, but the story still feels like it mostly underwhelms. It does wrap up pretty well by balancing its stakes and humor for a stand out ending, it just could have used more attention to the journey getting there to make the whole adventure feel that solid.

THE VERDICT: Metal Dead tries to hearken back to old point and click adventure games with an irreverent zombie apocalypse tale, but while it delivers on the gameplay in an inviting and solid manner, its humor is more of a mixed bag. Sometimes it can be amusing or enjoyably absurd, but a lot of the game goes for standard, cheap jokes that will likely slide out of your brain for failing to really stand out. It’s not unfunny, but when much of the game falls into that generic level of humor, it makes it harder to enjoy the title on anything beyond a basic level. While the inventory puzzles are simple and satisfying and the game guides you well enough to keep things brisk and frustration free, Metal Dead, despite saying it hinges its identity on metal music and zombie movies, ends up feeling formless, a generic combination of store-brand versions of its game design ingredients.

 

And so, I give Metal Dead for PC…

An OKAY rating. When Metal Dead misses, it’s not felt too hard, but that comes with the unfortunate side effect of most of its hits being rather tepid as well. Very few moments deviate from a central line of acceptable but not exceptional, mostly because few things are given the care they need to be memorable. There are glimmers of memorable characters and moments in the plot, but Metal Dead spends most of its time getting you to go about doing its puzzles. That is to its benefit in the current state as they are the more interesting part of the game thanks to solid readable solutions that aren’t obtuse or obvious, and it’s likely that had the puzzles been worse that Metal Dead could have sunk to a lower rating. Its plot may amuse some players more than others, but it lacks hard hooks to pull the player in deeper into the world. If it had taken more daring routes with its humor and characters rather than going for the easiest routes, Metal Dead could establish more of an identity, but its current form just feels like the developers wanted to make an adventure game with certain character archetypes and didn’t bother to add more substance to it.

 

Metal Dead feels like an earnest attempt to make a silly adventure game, but while its inspirations may be clear, it doesn’t approach the goal creatively. The developers succeeded at making a silly adventure game in the end but its one without any of the personal identity that could have made it more than an acceptable execution of what is expected from a game with those goals.