You can even play a polo-type game about halfway through the campaign which becomes a separate unlockable mode. There's a lot of detail paid to small game elements. Gain titles and epithets as your fame increases, with the gaudy back-banners to match. Marvel as you land the perfect blow and everything goes all slo-mo for a second. Knock the mallet out of your enemy's hand and listen to their cries for mercy. Not immaculately balanced, but there are enough weapon configurations to accommodate different play styles and the act of whaling on people with your mouse is an art in itself. I loved the gameplay, and that's where Hammerfight shines. Luckily, there's a mechanic that lets you skip these. Lots of mission variety, and the occasional nigh-unbeatable situational level. There's a pretty substantial campaign mode, which is all over the place in terms of difficulty and sometimes incoherent story-wise. The game boasts considerable depth for its price, and has a variety of different modes favoring different playstyles. Definitely worth the hiccup that you'll probably have on your first playthrough. The gameplay is very unique, and with the proper settings destroying someone with your steampunk-flail-copter machine is intensely satisfying. Set your DPI lower than the game recommends, and spend a couple of minutes looking at the Steam forums for bug fixes. There are a fair number of negative reviews, and I imagine these are for one of two reasons: the controls are clunky at first blush, and the game has a few serious bugs. Buy it, play it, pay close attention to the tutorial, die, pay closer attention to the tutorial, and enjoy the most entertaining physics-based combat game you will ever play. In conclusion: Best indie game I've ever played. But once I got the hang of the game it was unbelievably fun! The inventory management system is confusing if you're not used to it. Then I was having trouble with the harder levels. When I first started playing, the game's default mouse sensitivity was way too low.

My one and only criticism of the game is that it's not nice to new players. The addition of magical gems you can add to your weapons adds a fun side mission where you beat the snot out of worms and it is just wonderful. It's interesting enough that I wanted to pay attention to it, but not so major that it disrupts the game. While many criticize the plot as trying to be more than it is, I think it's perfect. The graphics are beautiful, especially for an indie game, with an almost fully destructible environment, surprisingly good physics, and neat music. While the concept of magical steampunk helicopters slamming rocks into each other sounds like the dumbest idea ever, I was amazed at just how much fun I was having. You have to ignore the negative reviews because this is the best game I have played in a long long time.

Hammerfight 32 bit