What if strategy game but one guy? Most turn-based strategy games, be they Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM or the legion of hex-based wargames enjoyable only by weirdos like myself, focus on individual units or groups of units. There have been the occasional real-time indulgences in managing a single unit with games like Hotline Miami, but this is a field largely built around setting up your dudes, telling them what to do, and then seeing what happens.
John Wick Hex
Developer: Bithell Games
Price: $20 USD
Platform: PC (Epic Games Store)
MonsterVine was supplied with PC code for review
John Wick Hex is about having one unit: a really, really powerful one, the Baba Yaga himself, but only one. It’s micromanaging in the micro-est sense, managing Wick’s response to the perils of being John Wick: goons bursting into the room, you running out of ammo, and the occasional fistfight.
You steer John through various levels suitable to a criminal story–back alleys, shady restaurants, etc.–and decide what to do when presented with a situation like “Suddenly a bunch of goons see you” or “You ran out of ammo, do you punch that guy or throw your gun at him?”
The gimmick is the timeline: Rather than discrete turns, actions take a certain amount of time, and you can see the timeline, know how long actions are going to take, and decide accordingly. It may be faster to throw your gun at one guy, then physically attack a second, but that may get you killed. On the other hand, it may take more time to shoot the first guy, but the second guy will get a chance to shoot you, but he might miss.
There’s a more intense mode where you only have 5 seconds to make a decision, but I like playing on cool, laid-back mode. Setting your opponents and actions up just right so your plan comes together like clockwork is undeniably satisfying.
On the other hand, enemies don’t seem to do much. They allegedly have different personalities and combat styles, but I didn’t notice a lot of differences. They come out, take a shot at you, you kill them. There was very little strategic gameplay to it. On the one hand, taking down waves of faceless goons fits John Wick. On the other hand, you find a choke point and let them come to you one at a time like morons, maybe it’s not satisfying. Whatever works.
With the inconsequential enemies, the real nature of the game is resource management: health and ammo are persistent and refills of each can be hard to come by. Sometimes it’s better to throw your gun and hit an enemy than burn a precious bullet. This turns gun management into a bizarre gameplay element. You do have a chance to stock up on ammo sometimes, but if you want to shoot lots of stuff, you’re going to be picking up guns off the ground all the time and discarding the old ones, and there’s not a lot of different variety. This can lead to Hansel and Gretel-style trails of guns throughout the level as you discard the one with 8 rounds for the one with 9 rounds, then go back to get the one with 8 rounds. If there’s a “just collect magazines” command, I didn’t find it, but I was also amused roleplaying a finicky hitman trying to find the perfect gun for every scenario, so I didn’t look hard.
Focus is your other major resource, which is used for advanced melee and difficult actions, and it makes sense as a balancer, but it has to be recovered out of combat. Likewise, health requires a turn to apply bandages. This can lead to absurdities like John Wick bailing out of a fight and shambling around looking for a hiding spot so he can think over some things. I JUST NEED A MOMENT, MAN!
You can also control your stance to do things like crouching. Which leads to things like rolling. Which can lead the world’s greatest assassin to combat rolling around like Captain Kirk if you’re so inclined. I was definitely inclined.
Sometimes levels play more like puzzles than an action game, since sometimes you only figure out what’s on the other side of a door when you blunder through it. Right, that door has five mooks behind it, so I probably need the gun with five rounds instead of the one with four. Shamble shamble shamble. Wait, I need to get my head together and put that bandage on. Shamble, shamble, shamble.
It’s a minor thing, but the voice acting is all recorded at different volumes which means SOME GUYS YELL ALL THE TIME and some only speak in growly criminal lowercase and lends a “Mommy and Daddy are fighting!” feel to the cutscenes. Also, I am pretty sure that’s not Keanu doing John’s voice. Maybe Cyberpunk was paying him better.
The Final Word
The timeline idea is a neat gimmick but this is a pretty basic strategy game. If you want something simple or are a John Wick completist, it’s worth a gander. Otherwise, get back into the Long War mod for XCOM and blast alien scum.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 3 out of 5 – Average
