Giveaway of the Day - Larva Mortus

Larva Mortus: A Review 50.4Mb

The game installs to C:/Games as default, make a note because the game doesn’t install any shortcuts. You’ll find a decent games manual in PDF format within the games folder that repeats what I’ve said below. There’s a tutorial in the games discussion library if you want to install a Start menu shortcut.

In the end of XIX. century dark forces shade the world once again. A brave agent experienced in exorcism and combat comes to face the incomming evil and fight loathsome supernatural monsters and horrific spawns of black magic.

Larva Mortus offers fast and entertaining monster-hunting gameplay. Cheesy horror atmosphere goes hand in hand with furious action splatter fest, everything accompanied by creepy first class soundtrack!

Reference accessed 20th March 09

The Game:

Before you start the game you’ll need to create a profile via the ‘select player button. You can create as many profiles as you like. The options menu allows you to adjust various graphical aspects of the game, for example there are three styles of mouse pointer to choose from. There’s a toggle to turn the gore of, which is set to on as default. There’s also a toggle to switch between DX9 and OpenGL . It’s recommended that you have OpenGL.
There’s also a 16/32 bit toggle and a full screen toggle. The usual music and sound sliders can be found together with a master slider. Once these have been set up you’re good to go…..

When you start the game, the first screen you encounter is the mission map. Here you can select from three difficulty settings; easy, medium ad hard. The default setting was medium., however before you can select the difficulty settings you have to scroll through a few windows that recounts the story of the Agency; which is dedicated to the investigation of paranormal events. You start as mentioned above, in the map room. You will see several envelops stuck on the map which contain information about the various missions open to you; that includes the location of the mission, the quests, and difficulty level, which is denoted by the number of skull and crossbones given to the quest. You’ll also see the mission objectives and short story to set the scene. As you complete missions more are added to the map. (You can see what these look like by following one of the image links. You can read about each mission before you actually opt to complete that mission. Missions are graded on how difficult they are starting with the lowest grade up to ones with 5 or 6 skull and crossbones. The lower the number of this emblem on the mission info sheet, the easier the mission is. You’ll find red envelopes which cannot be taken (but can be read until you’ve attained a specific level.

Along the bottom of the map are several buttons that give access to other areas of the agency; for example, the equipment room where you’ll find all the weapons you have. This room looks rather bare early on in the game, but as you start to collect better weapons, the room fills up. There’s also a button to the trophy room and a help button which details all the bonuses as well as basic information about the game.

Your first missions include tutorials to help you on your way. There doesn’t seem to be a way of turning these off, though once you’ve seen them once they do not reappear. Pressing F1 shows you information on the various controls you need to remember, F2 brings up a HUD that shows you useful information about your status. (see below for further explanations). Q will give you quick information on the task at hand. . Once the game starts proper, you use the cursor keys to move and the Left and Right mouse buttons to fire primary and secondary weapons. The game is a top down perspective much like games like the RIP series and Alien Shooter, though the scale used is slightly larger with respect to characters, which look twice as large as the characters found in the games I’ve mentioned. (see links to alternative games below)

The left mouse button is used to fire your primary weapon, which at the beginning of the game comprises of a two handed sword which is useful for killing the numerous undead that are found in this game as well as a six shooter,. Secondary weapons include dynamite, which can be picked up and thrown using your right mouse button.. As you progress through the levels better weapons become available such as the shotgun, machine gun, flame thrower and even a crossbow. You can pause the game my clicking on P.

Bonuses, which can be found inside barrels and chests include extra ammo, armour that makes you almost invincible for short periods, a berserker power up that increases the damage you do to opponents as well as increases your résistance to attack, score multipliers (which can help to level you up) and fast walk. The games HUD shows your health staus as a red bar to the top left of the screen. There’s also a link to your profile, which can also be opened using Tab. The top right hand corner shows the bonuses that are active and to the bottom left are the weapons you’re carrying.. There’s a mini map to the bottom left, with a zoom facility, but this is of no real benefit because the dimensions of the minimap remain the same; only the image within the mini map changes.

Levelling up is dependent upon collecting points. Every time you do level up you’re awarded free skill points which can be added to the attributes you possesof which there are several. There are 30 level ups in the game which gives you a lot of scope to tweak your characters attributes. You can access you attributes at any time by clicking the Tab key. The profile details the characters statistics such as the level you’re at, score, score needed to make the next level, the length of time you’ve played the mission, the number of kills and the number of times you’ve died as well as the characters attributes which include observation, construction, resistance, luck, walking speed and melee combat. There are also other info tabs that include details of active quests, the difficulty of the quest and the objectives. Theres an information tab that tells you what you are carrying. By hovering your mouse over individual items you’ll get information about it. It’s worth checking this out because some weapons are less or more effective against certain enemies. For example, when hovering the mouse over the ‘default’ 2 handed sword, it tells you that supernatural enemies are often very resistant against firearms, which is very useful information when you’re beset upon by hoards of evil looking monsters. To toggle between the weapons you’re carrying use the mouse wheel.

There are 30 monsters that include vampires, the undead and Werewolves, plus more species. There are several primary weapons including the default sword and six shooter and include a shotgun and dynamo gun.. Levels are randomly generated, so effectively there’s no limit to the number of levels you can play. There are several different environments ranging from underground catacombs to spooky mansions and dark forests.

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Reviews worth reading:

Follow to find reviews worth reading

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Images:

See images all on one page HERE

See images as a slideshow HERE

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Minimum requirements:

O.S…………………………Windows XP/Vista
Cpu…………………….…. 1.2GHz,
System RAM………………256MB,
Graphics……………………OpenGL support (recomended)

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Video:

See video of gameplay HERE

See video of gameplay HERE

See video of gameplay HERE

See previous comments from Jan 08 HERE

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Conclusion:

Although this genre has been saturated with a variety of sub standard clones, this one stands out above most of the others because of it’s upgrade system and the overall quality of production. It’s worth a good 8 out of 10 for playability and fun.

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Alternative games available for free:

RIP3: (This is a superior game to larva Mortis in my opinion)

Get RIP3 HERE

Crimson Road aka Humvee Shootout

Get Crimson Road HERE
or

Get Humvee Shootout HERE

Ariel fire:

Get Ariel Fire HERE

Absolute Survival:

Get Absolute Survival HERE

The following game doesn’t have the annoying window opening up when you close the game down:

Theseus: Return of the Hero:

Get Theseus: Return of the Hero HERE

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Dang, so close.