Hellbound Critic Reviews

Overall Hellbound meets expectations as a retro style 90’s Shooter. Whilst it does not innovate as much as some people would like, this game has enough about it to be worth the pickup.

Hellbound is a great experience. Although it does rely heavily on the DOOM aesthetic, Saibot Studios have created a core gameplay experience that could be the launchpad of something brilliant.

Hellbound is pretty upfront with what it is. If you've already burned through most of the homages I listed above, give this a shot.

Hellbound may not be great but it’s a short, sweet thrill ride while it lasts. The action is nice and fast with the guns packing a solid punch, and all the weapons earn their place in the arsenal. The length of the game means its limits don’t have a chance to feel grating and the sameness of the enemies is nicely offset by the personality of the levels. Even after the game is over there are still a handful of arena levels to play in, trying to survive as long as possible to claim a spot on its leaderboards. Hellbound may be restrained by its limits but there’s no question it does a lot within them and it’s good bloody fun while the ride lasts.

If you’re hankering for more of that simple, unfettered Doom action, Hellbound may well scratch your itch.

Hellbound is a rip-roaring homage to classic Doom that hits almost all of the right notes.

The team at Saibot Studios have made exactly what they promised to their Kickstarter backers, but I was left wanting more. This doesn't make Hellbound a bad game, but it certainly feels like there were a few things left on the cutting room floor as I finished the game. After a somewhat slow start in the campaign, I was happy to finish the fight, and any fan of 1990s FPS fans could do worse than slaying demons in Hellbound.

Hellbound is based around recreating the classic first-person shooter game experience of the 90s, which it does succeed in doing. If you were a fan of those games or wanted to experience what they were like in a modern package, then the developers at Saibot Studios have delivered, for the most part. Unfortunately, the game falls short of a great experience.

Hellbound is a decent game inspired by the 90's shooters, although we wished it had more content and more character to it.

Hellbound is a decent old school FPS, which seems to do most things right, but it suffers from a serious lack of variety and really short duration.

Hellbound is a fun shooter that’s got all the hallmarks of what made the 90s FPS genre so great. Unfortunately, just like the 90s games before it, it’s pretty dated in both optimization and graphics. There’s a large number of bugs and game-breaking glitches to be experienced, all of which tarnish what is otherwise an incredible experience.

Bottomline, all things considered, if you’re looking for a fun, fast, short-lived, throwback FPS game, Hellbound is definitely worth considering. Just don’t expect too much out of it and you’ll find your time and money well spent.

The saving grace is Hellbound‘s price. At just £11.39/$14.99, it’s not terrible value for money. But there are better old-school first-person shooters available for not much more. Still, there’s a good few hours of fun to get from Hellbound‘s campaign. Maybe even more if you’re the type that wants to discover every secret and beat every par time. And the game’s survival maps offer yet more hours of gameplay. It’s just a shame that it feels more like a starter than a main course.

Hellbound offers some old school fun if you enjoy putting your aim and reflexes to the test. It’s a shame the developers stopped at seven levels, one boss fight, a handful of monsters, and six weapons (of which two are useless and some lack an alternative fire mode). What would have been merely a first episode in a 90’s shooter, pretends to be a whole campaign in Hellbound. If you’re experienced with the genre, you’ll finish the game in around two hours.

Hellbound has potential, and will surely find an audience for both its nostalgia and its challenge. While the story is almost completely unnecessary, it's a real shock that the whole narrative focus appears to not be concluded in the game, though. Just as the story gets going, and the first big boss is defeated, the endgame credits roll, leaving Hellbound feeling unfinished. That feeling is compounded by the fact that the main reason for returning comes from the score-based survival mode which is still available as a free download on Steam. Hellbound is not big, nor is it clever, and in all the wrong ways.

An earnest but empty love letter to Quake and Duke Nukem 3D that never gets around to doing anything to call its own.

Hellbound has really good movement and the texture quality looks nice, but it's insanely short, the level design is mediocre, and there's nothing here that FPS fans haven't seen done better for decades.

Hellbound is a classic shooter that works as a nice tribute that era, but falls short in many aspects. If you are looking for retro experience and you have already played the best ones, this can be a good option.

Hellbound has been in development for quite some time, and it's surprising to see that it has been polished so little since then. The main problem is that the game's shortages, paradoxically, are very easy to find in those games, from the golden age of shooters, that Hellbound is paying tribute to.

Ultimately, Hellbound isn't going to leave a sour taste in any player's mouth, but that's only because it leaves no taste at all. It's a bland retread of a bygone era of gaming that has no understanding of why people want to return to it. Hellbound carelessly mashes up concepts and mechanics with no thought and no craft, creating an end product that's serviceable only because of the strength of its foundation. Fighting demons with a shotgun is fun. It always was fun, and it always will be fun, and there's nothing wrong with Hellbound's interpretation of that. It's just that there are a thousand other games that do all this so much better, so it's hard to see why anyone would pick up this particularly shotgun.