KISS: Psycho Circus Demo

I’ve wondered before and I’ll wonder again: Why haven’t I played a good first person shooter since Half-Life?  While Voyager: Elite Force looks like it might finally end the lull of good action games, last week I had a chance to play the demo to another first person shooter vying for the action crown: Kiss: Psycho Circus.  The heavily promoted game from a group of ex-Ion Storm employees has a lot going for it, but ultimately the demo let me unsatisfied.

Developer Third Law Interactive has done a good job de-Kiss-ifying the game – in other words, this actually feels like more than a rock concert come to life.   That being said, the demo provides little insight into the comic book world of the game, and it appears as if the actual levels have little depth beyond the goal of mowing down a legion of enemies.  On the positive side, some of the enemies are well designed, especially those that continually spawn offspring.  The result is a screen filled with hordes of baddies, many of which are incredibly light on artificial intelligence.

Unfortunately the level design is also anything but inspired, feeling rigid and lacking the architectural detail we’ve come to expect from top-quality first person shooters.  Yes, the environment of the game is supposed to be surreal, but the actual level design often borders on being something very realistic: confusing.  Time and again I found myself getting lost in the levels, void of any sense of where to go next.  That’s never a good sign.

Based on the demo, there doesn’t appear to be anything drastically wrong with Psycho Circus.  But at the same time, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly memorable or unique about the gameplay.  Of course the full game might be different, but as it stands, KISS ends up being yet another forgettable first person shooter.