Scorpion: Disfigured

The Good
Scorpion Disfigured is something of an interesting beast. To me, it seems like a project that was probably in the creators mind for a long time before it was finally brought to fruition, but the end product doesn’t manage to fully live up to the original ambitions.

I suppose it is unpleasant to open like that, but SD is the kind of game that what’s wrong with it and what’s right about it are kind of intermingled And somewhat difficult to ideally separate. I guess I will just share my experiences of the game with you and at the end you can make up your own mind.

At the most base level it would seem the developers were thinking of System Shock. The angular level designs, buzzing computer terminals, mutants, guards, security robots, battery-fueled special abilities, searching bodies that yield randomized items . . . any of this sounding familiar yet? Well, that’s about where the similarities of the two games end, because as far as the RPG inklings go something falls terribly off on the way side.

The basic role-playing stuff Scorpion offers are weapon upgrades and the suit powers, but I’ll begin with the former. So basically the upgrade system works by you cleaning out rooms of enemies, which will subsequently result in hearing a vacant female voice saying “an upgrade is now available.” When you shoot in the game where your bullets hit is randomized, so in practice each upgrade ‘should’ increase the accuracy of your shots, but in actuality I found it a bit cryptic as to whether the upgrades were doing anything at all. For example, when I had the Sniper gun upgraded to the max. level, I noticed my shots were still hitting wide to the left or right of the mark most of the time, even if I was in the same room as the target! Other times it seemed I was registering head shots left and right with the stock pistol, then I might rush a guy with a fully upgraded shotgun and shoot at his face but the blast doesn’t even make the slightest contact - absurd.

In spite of all the sporadic weapon behaviour, the combat of SD is actually not bad. From the first time you encounter the guards this is evident. It is a real wake up call after comfortably trouncing the otherwise docile mutants in the opening sections. The guards will constantly use cover, running from one place to another fanning out blind fire from behind objects or throwing grenades from fortifications. I was impressed when I saw a guy vault over some boxes and then proceeded to ninja-kick me when he got in my face.

The feeling of a truly intelligent group of foes doesn’t last long however, since you soon find this is the only bag of tricks they have up their sleeves. Unlike something like F.E.A.R. where the enemies could work as a team, where you might be slugging it out with a group head-on in a heated battle, only for a sneaky guy to flank you silently from behind. There is nothing so sophisticated in SD, but that is not to say you won’t be challenged at times, because when the game pours on the meat it can certainly make for some adrenaline rushes. Furthermore, in the later levels one encounters tougher guards that have energy shields which require the use of a specific weapon to penetrate. Going back to F.E.A.R., the slow-mo ability that is very similar in implementation right down to the sparks flying off where shots hit, but minus the blood splatter and gibbage which ultimately makes the combat feel a bit more lacklustre than it should, but nonetheless is understandable for a game first released in Germany.

Now I want to touch on the suit powers I mentioned earlier. The special abilities you get to play around with are as follows - you get a Berserk mode, kinesis, health regeneration, and a psychic mind control ability - interestingly, this set is almost identical to an earlier Russian sci-fi shooter known as Neuro. Anyway, I thought the mind control would be the most fun to tinker with, so I decided to dedicate my upgrades to that for starters. I will note that to use the suits powers you change ‘modes’ so that you aren’t holding a weapon, and only your hands are in front.

To use the mind control, you simply point your direction at the target, and shoot out a dinky twirling projectile [sic] - if it makes contact, the recipient will start to glow, and hopefully he will attack the other enemies. The problem is though, that the fellow under mind control seems to become even more defensive than usual, tentatively shooting from cover, and it is usually a miracle if he does any damage at all before it wears off. There was one instance however when I used it successfully, where I managed to ‘possess’ a guy with a rocket launcher, and while he was busy causing explosive mayhem, I quietly slipped away from the action and went on my merry way. It is really a hit and miss affair though, and admittedly most of the time you will find it prudent not to bother at all with the suits frivolous powers, since cleaning the rooms with grenades and a flashing muzzle in slow-mo while tapping on the health kit key is infinitely more effective.

It must be noted there are no serious puzzles in the game, you might imagine the kinesis ability might bring a rise to at least some box stacking or something similar, but there is nothing. On the other hand, it was probably a smart move since the featherweight physics would prove a nightmare in such an instance. Mostly the design is bare-bones - move from point A to point B, sometimes having to flick a switch or find a key to reach point C. What needs to be applauded though is the easy-to-use map with a way-point marker which means you never have to clean an area and then wonder “what’s next?” since you are always pointed in the right direction.

From a visual standpoint, SD isn’t altogether unpleasant to look at, and shows some sense of style. The light sourcing effects are nothing quite as extravagantly done as say Doom 3, but nevertheless are serviceable. It is evident the designer got a bit carried away with the soft shading and bloom effects - when you look down the length of a corridor the picture bleeds into a thickly saturated green haze. The items you collect also shimmer green when you gaze upon them with your headlamp, and incidentally, you will be doing a lot of this if you want to find all the suit upgrade modules in the darkened nondescript nooks and crannies around the areas.

Some of the sections like the science lab areas are somewhat pleasing on the eye, with glowing computer screens illuminating the darkness with gentle blue hues and chic glass cubicles generate some nice reflective effects - even the immaculately sterile stainless steel rest rooms with creeping house plants are nonetheless interesting just to look at. One area in particular stood out for me - Pharos Lair, which was like a quasi futuristic Egyptian temple, with dominating gold architecture and statues surrounded by pools of water adorned by shimmering candle light - at least managed to create an unusually pleasant mood even with all the shooting and explosions. On occasion the game carries off some genuinely curious moments - in the lower levels of the research base you encounter twisted freak scientists that look like they have survived fallout, and you see these fellows tending to injured mutants as if they were their children. It really creates kind of a strange atmosphere at times that is nonetheless interesting.

The Bad
The sonics are generally much worse than the visuals. The sound effects overall are weak and tiny, bullets fired sound like pebbles being thrown at a tin can. The voice acting is totally flat all round, which is expected from a Russian game with an English track localised in Germany. The protagonists’ occasional suave narration of events is terrible, and the guard conversations are no better - though the sometimes truly weird fractured dialogues can prove to be strangely mesmerizing. The music is kind of thrash metal\techno and was actually not so bad, when you can hear it that is. When the music starts it comes in full force but then the volume fades down to nearly nothing after a short while, probably due to the ancient OpenAL driver used.

There are some bugs that crop up here and there, but nothing too crippling though in my experience. I had a handful of script errors sending me back to the desktop, and one time an objective didn’t update which caused a few unpleasant hours of hitting my head against the wall, but when I came to my senses and conceded to go back a little way to an older save when I wasn’t completely fatigued got me back on track.

My feelings toward the game really kind of fluctuated from one day to the next. Sometimes I was having a blast battling the masses throwing grenades around and just savouring the slow motion pyrotechnics, and other times it was just a grind making it from start to end of yet another huge level of corridors, crates and ladders.

The Bottom Line
Scorpion Disfigured is a decent Russian shooter that is sadly dragged down a bit by the broken skill point system, and special abilities that are only a novelty token gesture rather than good play mechanics. You will find it more than enough just to fully upgrade the ‘slo-mo’ ability since it is the only truly useful power at your disposal, coupled with the fairly generous number of health kits & ammo dotted around the place, surviving the fairly exhaustive duration even on the hardest difficulty won’t fully tax a veteran player. Nevertheless, if you love sci-fi shooters - personally I do, then I think you will likely still find something to enjoy in SD - warts and all.