Hellbound Reviews
Bottomline, all things considered, if you’re looking for a fun, fast, short-lived, throwback FPS game, Hellbound is definitely worth considering. Just don’t expect too much out of it and you’ll find your time and money well spent.
The fact that 90’s shooters are as popular as ever is a testament to their sound design philosophy. Of course, the catalogue is as extensive as ever, what with a steady stream of retro-styled shooters gracing our screens on a nigh-regular basis. Hellbound is another such title, now a full-fledged game, which has emerged from languishing in Steam’s Early Access. And does it hold up against its peers? To put a fine point to it: oh, Hell yeah.
There’s a good few hours of fun to get from Hellbound‘s campaign. Maybe even more if you’re the type that wants to discover every secret and beat every par time.
Hellbound is more imitation than inspiration. Lacking in originality and flair with merely passable gameplay, it makes us wonder why we shouldn’t just play Doom.
Hellbound's core gameplay loop is punchy, satisfying, and cathartic. It's just a shame there's so little of it.
Hellbound is pretty upfront with what it is. If you've already burned through most of the homages I listed above, give this a shot.
Hellbound may not be great but it's a short, sweet thrill ride while it lasts.
An earnest but empty love letter to Quake and Duke Nukem 3D that never gets around to doing anything to call its own.
Hellbound has really good movement and the texture quality looks nice, but it's insanely short, the level design is mediocre, and there's nothing here that FPS fans haven't seen done better for decades.
Hellbound has potential, and will surely find an audience for both its nostalgia and its challenge.
Hellbound is a retro FPS with some neat ideas that suffers from lacking execution and a lack of content.
Overall Hellbound meets expectations as a retro style 90’s Shooter. Whilst it does not innovate as much as some people would like, this game has enough about it to be worth the pickup.
While many will at first dismiss the game as a DOOM clone, Hellbound lovingly takes its ques from a myriad of games and creates a nostalgic, challenging, and fun experience.
Nostalgia aside though, Hellbound is a well refined first person shooter that has you diving through the forces of hell in a high octane killfest supported by heavy metal tracks to keep the pace up as your heart pumps blood to the beat of the music. It’s bloody hard but it’s fun in that classic sense where you have to be better than the game as the game won’t just hand victory over to you.
If you're hankering for more of that simple, unfettered Doom action, Hellbound may well scratch your itch.
Hellbound is a very fun game, but I can’t see it being appealing to anyone other than hardcore old-school shooter fans. It succeeds at providing players with a Doom-esque experience that is a bit more faithful to the 90’s originals than Id Software’s more modern iterations, all while featuring more modern graphics and physics. However, it’s short, unpolished, and frankly, not very innovative.
Hellbound resembles 90's shooters very well but on a much smaller scale, its a modern version of those games but with a noticeably shorter content and less charisma.
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Hellbound is based around recreating the classic first-person shooter game experience of the 90s, which it does succeed in doing. If you were a fan of those games or wanted to experience what they were like in a modern package, then the developers at Saibot Studios have delivered, for the most part. Unfortunately, the game falls short of a great experience.
In the 90’s the term “DOOM Clone” was given to First Person Shooters following the runaway success of iD’s Demon Slaying Magnum Opus. It wasn’t always used negatively though as this era saw many great titles including Heretic, Blood and of course Duke Nukem 3D. Hellbound however is a DOOM Clone in the sense they actually tried to clone the game but something was contaminated in the test tube.
Hellbound isn’t a bad game. It can still be enjoyed, so long as you get it on a steep sale and you’ve got a spare afternoon for some mindless killing. This is a first-person shooter that emulates the past, but fails to recapture the magic of it. When you just turn your brain off, the game is at its best, but it just doesn’t last long. With a woefully short campaign mode, and a repetitive wave-based survival mode, Hellbound is surprisingly… deficient.