Vivisector: Beast Within

For a game with a name based on experimentation, Vivisector: Beast Within is a surprisingly bland and non-experimental product. This is even more surprising given some of the sources the game is based on, such as The Island of Dr. Moreau. It's all a pity given how at the surface, Vivisector attempts to present itself as an intriguing FPS with unique enemy types and relatively large environments to explore. In practice though, Vivisector is just another middling and inconsistent FPS- many of whom's promises end up falling flat.

The setup of the game focuses on the soldier Kurt, who is sent to Soreo island on a mission to stop a 'rebel uprising.' Shortly upon arriving though, he finds himself as the only survivor of his squad when they are attacked by the mechanically and genetically enhanced animals of the island. Not long after moving out on his own, Kurt finds himself as the sudden focal point of the battle between General Dogstone's human forces, and Dr. Morhead's Humanimal resistance.

It is probably for the best that Vivisector's plot doesn't deal with as many themes as its inspiration did, because the pacing and delivery of the story both leave much to be desired. The cutscenes and voice acting of the game are both sub-par in general, rendering them relatively forgettable. The amount of dead time between each cutscene also tends to be quite lengthy more often than not, further emphasizing their ineffectiveness. Finally, what few themes the story does have, such as the importance of faith and nature of evolution, are handled with the subtlety of an elephant.

With the story completely failing to be an attention grabber in any good way, it falls to Vivisector's gameplay to pull the slack. The core gameplay involves basic running and gunning with some need to use to cover depending upon the enemies the game throws at you.

At first glance, the enemy variety does seem to be one of Vivisector's potential strengths, as each of the game's four chapters has a core collection of enemies for the player to challenge. On the plus side, these collections make for a decently tangible difficulty curve throughout the game, as more versatile and harder hitting enemies are introduced periodically. The problem is that the majority of the enemies really aren't that unique. Most of them amount to basic ranged or melee grunts similarly styled in behavior and capabilities to those of other shooters.

The AI of the majority of them isn't even very impressive. Melee enemies never bother to evade your fire and charge in the straightest line available at you. Ranged enemies are a bit better though, as they at least sometimes strafe around to evade you or use cover- it's better than nothing and could have been a lot worse. It is just a pity that the enemy variety does die down a bit around Chapter 3, where the newly introduced enemies become little more than altered versions of earlier enemies (For example, the Black Wolves introduced in chapter 3 are little more than smarter Island Security enemies. And the Puma Warriors introduced in the same chapter are almost exactly the same as the Black Wolves- just slightly tougher and with AI slightly more inclined to charge you instead of take cover.).

It doesn't help that the core gameplay and level design both don't feel very consistent either. The weapons the game gives you are mostly standard affair, ranging from basic pistols and automatic rifles to sniper rifles and energy weapons. The majority of these weapons don't feel very satisfying to use though. Many of them feel weak and wildly inaccurate unless you are crouching, and even then they feel quite unreliable at the long ranges the enemy AI tends to have no problem pelting you at. There are some exceptions; with the pistols, heavy machine guns, and energy weapons of the game feeling better than the rest of the arsenal.

They can't make up for Vivisector's sometimes blatantly obtuse level design though. The level design is perhaps the most inconsistent element in the game, ranging from acceptable and varied, to absolutely appalling. The game seemingly attempts to encourage exploration in its large open environments, but many of these are essentially completely empty- especially in the earlier portions of the game.

It is because of this element that Vivisector's first chapter gives off such a bad first impression for the rest of the game- an impression that is arguably made up for Chapter 2 onwards. From that point, the game moves away from the blatant reliance on rinse-and-repeat arenas and empty environments to the occasional actual set piece and more constrained, but still large environments- large environments that are actually worth exploring on occasion. It is a jolting transition in quality, one that players may find somewhat rewarding if they are able to get past the first 3-4 hours of the game. It's certainly not an amazing reversal of fortune- but it results in Vivisector feeling just barely competent through effectively the entirety of chapter 2, and much of chapters 3 and 4.

Some bad elements of the level design remain a constant threat throughout the whole game though. There is quite a bit of first-person platforming in Vivisector, and it makes it so it isn't always obvious where the game expects players to go next. The game's haphazard use of invisible walls- some of which will just kill the player outright- only exaggerate the problems that can come up, lending the game the unintentional feeling of the environment being more dangerous than the enemies sometimes. Many of the segments in Chapter 1 and the later portions of the train level in Chapter 3 in particular are major offenders in terms of the game's level design (In fact, I am certain there is one point in Chapter 1 where I couldn't find the legitimate solution to move on- instead managing to stack some crates and just barely glitch past a small invisible wall to climb up onto the bridge I had to reach).

Depending upon the difficulty chosen and how one adapts to the level design's quirks, Vivisector can come in at anywhere from 8-12 hours in length. More if you end up getting unlucky- as Vivisector is not the most stable game. It can occasionally crash at the end of a cutscene or send the player randomly falling below the level geometry to a sudden death because he brushed against a door the wrong way.

The physics of the game in general seem to be the cause of many inconveniences: running into a collection of supply crates just right can cause them to phase out of existence, and enemy corpses falling through the ground is a more common occurrence than it should be. The melee hit detection of the game is also a completely lost cause- as both the player and ranged enemies simply can't seem to ever connect to anything other than supply crates with melee attacks. Of course- actual melee enemies have a longer reach, and thus don't suffer this disadvantage.

When all the elements of Vivisector work together at their peak- the game comes across as a fully competent shooter. Unfortunately, there is just too much inconsistency in Vivisector for this to happen enough- resulting in a game that is hard to recommend. If you are someone who is lured in by the premise of the game and are forgiving when it comes to FPS games though- you may find some fun with Vivisector, as long as you can get past its first chapter.

Pros:

• Well organized enemy sets for each chapter make for a tangible difficulty curve.
• A few surprisingly good set pieces Chapter 2 onwards
• Decent level of challenge- even on the easiest difficulty setting.
• Crazy physics can make for the occasional laugh
• Most of the cutscenes can be skipped

Cons:

• Most of the enemies are generic
• Uninteresting and poorly presented story
• Poor graphics
• Wildly inconsistent level design
• Chapter 1 is a horrible 3-4 hours to trudge through
• Unstable: can crash at the end of cutscenes, and the physics can turn on the player- sending you through level geometry to an untimely death