Hammerfight

 PC
User Score
5.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 53 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 53
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 53
  3. Negative: 25 out of 53

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  1. genoforprez
    Jul 27, 2011
    5
    I picked up Hammerfight as part of Humble Indie Bundle 3, having never heard of it before, and my reaction to it is bittersweet, but sadly a little more on the bitter side. The game deserves points for inventing a simple but interesting gameplay mechanic that's extremely satisfying when it works. (Emphasis: when it works.) The idea is that your mouse controls a robot with a weapon hangingI picked up Hammerfight as part of Humble Indie Bundle 3, having never heard of it before, and my reaction to it is bittersweet, but sadly a little more on the bitter side. The game deserves points for inventing a simple but interesting gameplay mechanic that's extremely satisfying when it works. (Emphasis: when it works.) The idea is that your mouse controls a robot with a weapon hanging from the bottom. By sweeping your mouse in circular motions, you simulate centripetal force, which causes the weapon to whirl around your little robot. Once you get the weapon in motion, you need to bring it crashing into an enemy to deal damage. I can honestly say that it is extremely satisfying to get your weapon whirling at an incredible speed and slam it into an enemy with such force that it sends them crashing into the wall or floor, damaging the environment and leaving the enemy stunned.

    So what's the problem? There are actually several. The first is that the game tries too hard to be more than what it is. It tries to have characters, an epic story spanning across multiple chapters (which are really just encounters), and challenges. In some games, this isn't a bad idea, but when the core mechanic of your game boils down to sweeping your mouse to smash stuff with a hammer and not much else, the "epic" characters and story feel like they're trying too hard and just end up frustrating you as you click like crazy to skip through them in order to smash more things with a hammer. Honestly, this game would have been one hundred times greater if it was nothing more than you and a friend or AI-opponent trying to smash each other with hammers in stand-alone versus matches or in multi-robot elimination matches. But that's not what happens here. The "challenges" are another issue...

    Generally, putting challenges in a game is a great idea. But the idea of a challenge is that it is a CHALLENGE that you give the player once they have either mastered or grasped the general principles of your game. Hammerfight gives you one tutorial match (one enemy), then a real match (one enemy), then a battle (multiple enemies plus allies), and then it immediately starts giving you challenges. For example, you are chained to the center of the screen without a weapon and must dodge an enemy with an incredibly powerful weapon for a set period of time. Why am I doing stuff like this already? I barely have the hammer-swinging principles down, and now I'm doing frustrating challenges that have nothing to do with fighting things with hammers. In short, these "challenges" come annoyingly, frustratingly early and make you feel like the real game is lying forgotten in a previous chapter somewhere.

    Lastly, sadly, the hammer-swinging mechanic, which is such a fun idea and has such potential, just ends up not being used very well. When you start the game, immediately all you want to do is swing heavy objects around and smash things with them. But your enemies spend---literally---half of any battle flying off the screen where you can't reach them. When they are on screen, they move with incredible finesse and maneuver their weapons with precision. Or it at least seems that way, since your robot controls like a brick with a drinking problem. I discovered that controlling the robot is slightly less annoying if you don't let the game automatically calibrate your mouse and instead manually set the mouse sensitivity extremely high, but that unfortunately doesn't fix all the problems. (e.g., the game not informing you that you're not allowed to even *graze* walls or floors without taking damage or that you will still take damage from an enemy's hammer, even if--realistically--it's not moving fast enough to hurt a giant steel robot. But whatever.)

    So, in short, it's a really brilliant idea, and you're sure to enjoy the game you will no doubt *think* it is going to be, but like me, you'll probably end up disappointed in what the game actually is: a great idea for a mechanic put to poor use, and a casual smash-fest trying too hard to sell itself as an adventure game.

    For the curious, I would recommend trying it if it's on sale for cheap, but definitely don't pay $10 for it.    … Expand
  2. badkarma
    Aug 2, 2011
    6
    In Hammerfight you control a very small helicopter-like machine in a steampunk-setting that has hammers, swords, maces and so on attached to it. You usually fight against similar opponents. The interesting part about it is, that you directly control your machine with the mouse and the weapons swing, when you swing your hand aswell. It is really fun to smash the other helicopters with yourIn Hammerfight you control a very small helicopter-like machine in a steampunk-setting that has hammers, swords, maces and so on attached to it. You usually fight against similar opponents. The interesting part about it is, that you directly control your machine with the mouse and the weapons swing, when you swing your hand aswell. It is really fun to smash the other helicopters with your weapons, as you see them breaking to parts. Overall the actual gameplay is very good, the sound is nice and the visuals are fine (though the resolution is a bit too low for current standards). It's a pity that there are still too many downsides concerning the rest of the game. First of all the story-mode is really annoying. Similar to older asian roleplaying games you have to click through a hell lot of uninteresting dialogue. And this dialogue is really unnecessary. It would have been far better to reduce the plot to few cutscenes and a mission-briefing. Especially when you take the second problem under concern: The difficulty of the game is quite random, but overall hard. When you start an arena-mission, your opponents have a random set of weapons so they are sometimes extremely hard to defeat (especially when fighting 2 at once and one has a TNT-barrel). You may frustratingly often restart that mission (and click through all that annoying dialogue) only to hit a random chance, that the one opponent is equipped with a spear instead of the TNT-barrel (which makes him less of a problem). Apart from that there are also several minor cosmetic problems: a) you have to to play the campaign to access the arena mode; b) the game will customize the appearance of your heli (including colour, flags and symbol) on a regular basis (it would be better, if the player could choose at least his own colour and symbol); c) the arena mode cannot be setup, it just gets harder, once you won a wave - easier waves can not be played again, once you've won them; d) the HUD is really BIG, that makes attacks from other helicopters or worms from the left bottom of the screen really difficult to avoid - there are even some missions that make this effect worse (for example there is a mission with a cliff taking up a third of the right screen reducing the visible AND playable area to a minimum); Conclusion: This game has a great potential when you are actually playing it. Unfortunately it suffers alot from its setup. If there will be a sequel, it could be great, if the story-telling mode is reduced to a simple set of mission-briefings (without any clicks) and a better setup for the arena mode (e.g. setting up the waves or having a knockout-tournament mode). A multiplayer mode would be a great addition aswell as some visual customization.… Expand
  3. FatalExcursion
    Aug 12, 2011
    6
    Not by any means a bad idea, but the fact that gameplay is somewhat marred with bugs and huge curves in adjustment to new weapons, enemies, etc. pushes me away from reaching the core of Hammerfight. It does provide a nice atmosphere, something definitely drawn from steam-punk roots, but with a flawed mouse (utilizing limited physics) mechanic backing it up, being that its the only way forNot by any means a bad idea, but the fact that gameplay is somewhat marred with bugs and huge curves in adjustment to new weapons, enemies, etc. pushes me away from reaching the core of Hammerfight. It does provide a nice atmosphere, something definitely drawn from steam-punk roots, but with a flawed mouse (utilizing limited physics) mechanic backing it up, being that its the only way for movement, I can't help but not favoring Hammerfight by any means.… Expand
  4. muchenik
    Apr 7, 2018
    6
    This is a game that has a nearly two hour long tutorial that is punishing. The game has an amazing physics engine and decent graphics. The UI is consistently hiding things from you and there is pop up and chat that serves to just distract you. This is a game that actively fights you.

    You have a fun game if you can get past the first 90 minutes of gameplay. It is about flying pods in a    This is a game that has a nearly two hour long tutorial that is punishing. The game has an amazing physics engine and decent graphics. The UI is consistently hiding things from you and there is pop up and chat that serves to just distract you. This is a game that actively fights you.

    You have a fun game if you can get past the first 90 minutes of gameplay. It is about flying pods in a steampunk world that swing weapons around them. You get to learn to thread the needled of how to spin your weapon while avoiding other weapons. The theme is rich with flying roman gladiatorial style combat where many times you are fighting against unknown odds. It is worth picking up if you can get on sale.    … Expand
  5. vpm
    Nov 1, 2013
    7
    One of the most amusing games, for a buck! Coming with one of the earlier Humble Bundles, I was a little turned down at first, because the settings were quite vague. Then, after altering the mouse sensitivity to the lowest (ikr?), I was flailing spikes like a 12th century Mongol (or something like that...)!
    The arena fights are amusing, really. You just have to open up to the game. If    One of the most amusing games, for a buck! Coming with one of the earlier Humble Bundles, I was a little turned down at first, because the settings were quite vague. Then, after altering the mouse sensitivity to the lowest (ikr?), I was flailing spikes like a 12th century Mongol (or something like that...)!
    The arena fights are amusing, really. You just have to open up to the game. If throwing rocks at people is not your cup of tea, then I guess this won't work for you.
    For the money, once the settings are right, this game is great fun.    … Expand
  6. donhelio
    Nov 6, 2013
    7
    Seriously underrated game. 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.

    Set your DPI lower than the game recommends, and spend a couple of minutes looking at the Steam forums for bug fixes. The gameplay is very unique, and with the proper settings destroying    Seriously underrated game. 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.

    Set your DPI lower than the game recommends, and spend a couple of minutes looking at the Steam forums for bug fixes. The gameplay is very unique, and with the proper settings destroying someone with your steampunk-flail-copter machine is intensely satisfying. Definitely worth the hiccup that you'll probably have on your first playthrough.

    The game boasts considerable depth for its price, and has a variety of different modes favoring different playstyles. There's a pretty substantial campaign mode, which is all over the place in terms of difficulty and sometimes incoherent story-wise. Lots of mission variety, and the occasional nigh-unbeatable situational level. Luckily, there's a mechanic that lets you skip these.

    I loved the gameplay, and that's where Hammerfight shines. 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. Knock the mallet out of your enemy's hand and listen to their cries for mercy... or not. Marvel as you land the perfect blow and everything goes all slo-mo for a second. Gain titles and epithets as your fame increases, with the gaudy back-banners to match. There's a lot of detail paid to small game elements. You can even play a polo-type game about halfway through the campaign which becomes a separate unlockable mode.

    The dialogue clearly suffers from translation issues (my personal favorite is when the arena announcer simply shouts "IT HAPPENED" after a successful kill), but the sound and textures are excellent.

    In short, a really fun time-killer that is almost guaranteed to be a new experience. You can usually get it for around $10, and its worth that. If you stick around long enough to get past the one or two bugs and the initial awkwardness of the controls, you'll find yourself enjoying it.

    I'd personally love to give this game a 9, as it's one of my favorite indie games. However, it's just frankly not there due to some production/implementation issues that made it to the final game (i.e. translation/bugs.)    … Expand
  7. shabooya13666
    Sep 15, 2017
    5
    It's refreshing to see a team create a new core mechanic for a game, and this one (physics-based gameplay involving swinging a weight on a chain around a central point in order to smash that weight into enemies) is engaging enough. Unfortunately the mechanic is never given a chance to shine as the rest of the game is bogged down with annoyances.

    The limited space on the screen (there is    It's refreshing to see a team create a new core mechanic for a game, and this one (physics-based gameplay involving swinging a weight on a chain around a central point in order to smash that weight into enemies) is engaging enough. Unfortunately the mechanic is never given a chance to shine as the rest of the game is bogged down with annoyances.

    The limited space on the screen (there is no menu option to increase resolution) is often taken up with unnecessary distractions that obscure your view. These range from small frustrations such as flames and smoke to large sections being blocked by your health meter or characters faces talking to you. With a competently coded camera focus these could possibly be overlooked, but enemies often fly off the screen, only to come screaming back into view in the middle of attacking you. This often gives you no time to avoid attacks, which is especially egregious when they use faster weapons like guns and missiles.

    All of these flaws make the game an exercise in frustration more than fun. It hearkens back to the days of "Nintendo hard", where games were characterized by cheap deaths. It's unfortunate, because the if the game could have just gotten out of its own way and let its mechanic shine it could have been a lot of fun.    … Expand