Larva Mortus
a game by | Rake in Grass |
Platform: | PC (2008) |
User Rating: | 9.0/10 - 2 votes |
Rate this game: | |
See also: | Horror Games, Old School Games, Cult Classic Games |
Indie Games are appearing on Steam more frequently than Princess Diana crops up in the Daily Express and an awful lot of them are decent concepts stretched so thin they'd make Kate Moss look portly. Larva Mortus is one of these games, although it definitely earns some credit for taking inspiration, deliberate or not, from Terminal Reality's excellent horror title, Nocturne.
The likeness of your main character, at least in terms of the non-top-down view of him, to Nocturne's Stranger is surely too uncanny to be coincidental. Sadly, while we do have a curiously perverse love of top-down, old-school arcade shooters like Alien Breed and Take No Prisoners, Larva Mortus just doesn't have enough charm to it to remain interesting.
Having said that, the action is decent, with the shotgun in particular being substantial enough in its damage dealing to be described as satisfying. You can also chop up enemies with a sword, which is never less than fun. The main problem lies in the presentation, with the environments being boring, grey and repetitive. Couple this with the "clear room, move to next one, repeat" game dynamic and you lack a recipe for long-term gaming nourishment.
Take No Prisoners and Alien Breed remained interesting because of the variety of environments and scenarios you went into. Larva Mortus, while we know it was an indie game with a limited budget, fails to do that in any significant way and, when you start to pit yourself against the big boys in a competition for sales, you need more than that naive charm to make it. It is blandly fun for a bit, and we did like the pseudo-Stranger, but it would probably be better to just load up Take No Prisoners one more time.
Download Larva Mortus
System requirements:
- PC compatible
- Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP