Grind grind grind!

Ansonteris 4 is a fantastic grind-fest. Although a first-person shooter, comparable in feel to Quake 3, this title's level-grind element seems the most attractive feature. In fact, after the first hour or so with Ansonteris, you'll find yourself with very little interest in the campaign element at all, instead devoting your time to blasting away computer-controlled bots in the "Fantasy Death-match" game-mode.

The terribly obfuscated and painfully repetitive single-player campaign makes very little contribution to the game's enjoyability. The plot is vague, unfocused, and poorly written, reminiscent of many low-grade JRPG narratives. The single-player missions alternate between two scenario-molds: you're either combating large hordes of weak enemy grunts, or a solitary, aggravatingly agile boss opponent. For every two horde-levels you struggle through, you get to force yourself through an unoriginal and irritating boss battle! Although I did play through all thirty included missions, the campaign does not offer as much experience reward for kills as do the meta-multi-player bot-matches. Seeing as developing your character's skills is the primary interest in playing a grind-fest like this, I see little value in slogging through less enjoyable content for a lesser reward. Perhaps the creator should have spent a bit more time diversifying the primary single-player experience.

The actual shooting mechanic of Ansonteris is quite strange. Although reminiscent, as mentioned above, in certain ways, of Quake 3, there are definitive negative points to the experience. Collision detection is very sketchy, and so the on-screen exclamations of "Hit!", when you've tagged an enemy, are quite necessary, especially considering the absolute lack of graphical immersion on this base. Although quite entertaining, and dare I say, fun, this game's combat element feels very soft and distant--very floaty. Although these faults are not enough to entirely detract from the experience, it may be wise of the developer, in future iterations, to work on integrating more immediate and immersive levels of feedback, thus tying closer the on-screen experience, and the player's interactions. Something as simple as adding recoil to most of the weapons, of which there is little to none, visually, would most likely have a great positive impact on the feel of the game.

Although the background music here is suiting, and on par with comparable professional titles, the sound design in this game is awful. There's little to no way to predict when enemy gunfire will or will not be heard, and there's really no audio acknowledgment of any of the player's actions, save for pulling the trigger on his weapon. No sounds are played when enemies die, when the match-timer is waning down to zero, when you score a nine-kill series, or really, when you do anything. There's not much sound-scape here at all. On this front, I am not at all impressed. Graphically, though, with regard to the development platform on which Ansonteris was created, it is quite nice looking. Visual colour-changes confirm (most of the time?) when you've been hit by enemy fire, tracers rocket past you as you project yourself into the air, enemies' mechanical wings gyrate as they hustle past, and bright, pluckily flamboyant textures adorn every wall and ceiling. Although observably incomparable to any modern graphics' considerations, the visualatmosphere here is consistent and accessible, and is very well suited to the game's general attitude.

Overall, I'll say that if you're a fan of character customization in shooter environments, and of long, grueling grind-fests, which I certainly am, you'll probably quite enjoy this title. Ansonteris 4: Schmerz offers a comfortable setting in which for you to exercise your grind. Fans of the massively multi-player shooter PlanetSide may take interest in this game, as it has a comparable skill-progression and inventory system, and fans of Battlefield 2's promotion system will find similar ground here. Sporting an accessible, although very amateur-looking interface, this game won't intimidate much of anyone, but it's shooter elements simply do not offer that much appeal. When it comes down to it, if grinding's your cup of tea, I definitely recommend this solid, albeit poorly written, action-rpg/shooter hybrid, but if it's not--perhaps you should be looking elsewhere.