Line #40 VideoGame/NecroVisioN


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/necrovision.png]]
2	''[=NecroVisioN=]'' is a Fantasy FirstPersonShooter developed by The Farm 51 on the ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'' engine and published in 2009 by 1C. Set in 1916, you play as Simon Bukner, a U.S. Soldier enlisted in the British Army during World War One. As you progress, you discover things much more dark and sinister than the horrors of The Great War while fighting such enemies as the German Imperial Army, zombies, and demons.
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4	Although the game uses a standard ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''[=/=]''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' style control scheme (with iron sights aiming, melee attacks, and grenades), the gameplay is more comparable to faster-paced arcade shooters such as ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'', and ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'' whereas you face swarms of enemies. Combat is a combination of shooting and different styles of melee. The game has a bullet-time mechanic, and also rewards creative kills (headshots, melee combos, etc.) with a brief period of extra damage called Fury. Chaining together multiple combos also restores your health and bullet-time.
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6	Received an expansion in February 2010, a prequel entitled ''[=NecroVisioN=]: Lost Company''. This time, the player takes control of [[DiscOneFinalBoss Doctor Jonas Zimmermann]] as he hurries to deliver a cure for the wave of zombies overtaking the German camps... [[StartOfDarkness and in the process begins the path to obtaining]] [[ArtifactOfDoom Shadowhand]] and becoming the Necromancer.
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8	!!This game provides examples of:
9	* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: While they're called "vampires", the underground-dwelling race in the game's story fits much better in this trope. They possess advanced technology (including giant robots), are very mystical, and wear "high elf" style armor. They don't even seem to drink blood (although in ''Lost Company'' they do display more traditional vampiric traits).
10	* AncientArtifact: The Shadowhand.
11	* AndIMustScream: The British Soldiers at the beginning of Chapter 2: The Fortress.
12	* ApocalypticLog: Letters written by both German and British soldiers.
13	* BadassLongcoat: Simon, Jonas Zimmermann.
14	* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: Near the end of ''Lost Company'', [[spoiler:Zimmerman executes his old friend Field Marshall Menge when he learns that Menge was behind the undead plague, attempting to create an army of the undead he could control for his vampire masters. One level later, Zimmerman is recruited by the vampires and plotting to raise an undead army of his own (merging with the Shadowhand probably helped this spontaneous 180 degree policy shift).]]
15	* BigBad: [[spoiler: Mephisto]]
16	* BittersweetEnding: The Medium difficulty ending, in which [[spoiler:Simon becomes a general in Mephisto's Army in exchange for humanity having 100 years to prepare for the next time Mephisto invades the human realm.]]
17	* BondOneLiner: Sometimes Simon will make various comments after killing an enemy, ranging from confident to deranged. "Consider your sins forgiven!" Because they are entirely random, these taunts do not always make sense in context; Simon will sometimes yell lines clearly aimed at zombies or demons when fighting human German troops.
18	** Alternatively, there is a taunt command that you can use, sometimes turning it into a PreMortemOneLiner.
19	* CallingYourAttacks: The German Infantry does this a lot: "I am attacking!" "I am covering!"
20	** Also, some [[{{NightmareFuel}} zombies]] [[{{Narm}} do this]] as well.
21	* TheCorruptible: In ''Lost Company'', Zimmerman is aloof and more than a little cold and snarky, but seems to be a genuinely dedicated healer and patriot and overall a good person. However, the letters and dairy entries you read during the loading screens reveal that beneath the surface he was already a deeply troubled individual, even before he merged with the Shadowhand.
22	* DegradedBoss: Some enemies that appear as a boss for the end of a chapter return as slightly less powerful versions.
23	* DownerBeginning: Simon's entire unit gets ambushed by machine guns, bombed by planes, and gassed. [[FromBadToWorse It only gets worse from there]].
24	* DownerEnding: The Hard difficulty ending: [[spoiler:Simon kills Mephisto and takes his place as ruler of Hell.]]
25	** Also the medium difficulty ending [[spoiler:Simon only suceeds in delaying the demon invasion of earth for a fixed amount of time]].
26	* TheDragon: [[spoiler:Azazel]].
27	* DrivenToSuicide: The British soldier in the locked shed in the beginning of Chapter 2.
28	* DualWielding: Simon can fight with a pistol in each hand. He can also use a combination of melee weapons, such as an entrenching shovel in one hand and a bayonet knife in the other.
29	* EarnYourBadEnding: The GoldenEnding is gained by beating the game on the easiest difficulty, and it gets bleaker the harder your difficulty.
30	* EasyModeMockery: The difficulty you select determines your ending. [[spoiler:But it's ''inverted'', since harder difficulties give you worse endings.]]
31	* EnemyCivilWar: Happens mostly offscreen, but as it turns out [[spoiler:not all of the German soldiers agree with [[MadScientist Zimmerman's]] plans...]]
32	* EnemyMine: Mostly averted in the first game -- German soldiers will continue shooting at the player [[TooDumbToLive even if there are zombies nearby,]] who'll instead usually attack whatever is nearby. [[spoiler:Near the end, however, the vampire wizard allies himself with Simon, helping him get closer to [[BigBad Mephisto]] as well as teleporting in a squad of vampires to help against [[TheWarSequence the massive wave of demons that attacks.]]]]
33	** Played straight in ''Lost Company'' when Zimmerman teams up with ''[[HistoricalDomainCharacter George S. Patton,]]'' beginning with the two holding out against waves of undead in a cabin, not unlike ''VideoGame/NaziZombies''.
34	* FinishingMove: Herr Dokter, Throat Cutter, Haircutter, and Flying Duck to name a few
35	* ForeignCussWord: "Scheiße!"
36	* GameplayAllyImmortality: In ''Lost Company'', you'll occasionally receive assistance from A.I.-controlled partners. Being essential to the plot, they tend to hang tough while everyone else is dying like lemmings.
37	* GangstaStyle: Simon will shoot like this (even with [[{{GunsAkimbo}} pistols in both hands]]) if he continuously shoots them.
38	* GasMaskMooks: Bulky GiantMook[=/=]EliteMooks using body armor and machine guns come equipped with gas masks as a bonus. In areas filled with poison gas, normal soldiers will use these too. The ''player'' even becomes one after finding a gas mask, while moving through poison gas infested areas.
39	* GiantMook: [[OurVampiresAreDifferent "Vampire Beasts"]] which are several times taller than the player.
40	** In Lost Company, Zimmermann encounters a giant version of a Vampire Beast as a boss battle.
41	** The more traditional FPS version appears in the form of a slow-walking, 7-foot tall German soldier wearing a heavy metal cuirass and equipped with a light machine gun. Apparently they had [[VideoGame/ModernWarfare Juggernauts]] back in World War 1 too.
42	* GirlsWithMoustaches: The madman has a picture of Helga, who sports a small mustache.
43	* GoldenEnding: As you might have guessed from the pattern above, the Easy difficulty ending. [[spoiler:After the final battle, Simon wakes up at the end of the war, with no memory of what happened during it. Although he's haunted by questions of what really happened and suspicions that he really is better off not knowing, for him, at least, it's all finally over.]]
44	* GottaCatchThemAll: The Vampire Artifacts, secret places, and [[{{ApocalypticLog}} letters]].
45	* GunsAkimbo: an option for pistols and the [[{{MoreDakka}} heavy machine guns]].
46	* InvisibleWall: In one place, you are able to get on top of a bridge across a trench. While both sides of the bridge are obstructed, an invisible wall blocks movement onto the side that leads to the rest of the trench network. In general, the invisible wall is still used to prevent players from reaching areas that are supposed to be inaccessible.
47	* LeaveBehindAPistol: Simon does this for a captured British soldier who'll (presumably) soon become a vampire.
48	* MeleeATrois: German troops and monsters will fight each other as well as the player, but there aren't many occurances where the two are encountered in the same area, and both tend to prioritize the player if they get a direct line of sight on you.
49	* MoodWhiplash: At scripted points, Simon will reflect out loud on how WarIsHell... and then you might easily hear him spout a BondOneLiner (see above) seconds later when killing an enemy. It gives an odd impression of his state of mind, to say the least.
50	* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Zimmermann.
51	* MoreDakka: The automatic weapons Simon picks up have quite a rate of fire, but with the exception of the Vampire SMG, they're all horridly inaccurate at anything but close quarters.
52	* MauveShirt: Simon encounters a number of soldiers, British and German alike, who offer various conversations, often before they die [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled by]] [[WarIsHell various]] [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption means.]]
53	* MultipleEndings: The game has a different ending for each difficulty level. [[spoiler:Inversely to what you may expect, the endings actually get bleaker on the ''higher'' difficulty levels, rather than the lower.]]
54	* {{Narm}}: Some of the dialog has plenty of this.
55	** "Ah, pain!"
56	* OneHundredPercentCompletion: Finding all secrets, reading all letters, and picking up all vampire artifacts (fortunately, you can replay levels to find stuff you might have missed). Plus completing all of the challenge maps to unlock special abilities in the single-player campaign.
57	* OneManArmy: Simon and Zimmermann.
58	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: While being called "Vampires", they show no vampiric traits; no blood drinking, no weakness to sunlight [[spoiler:although it's debatable, considering they live several miles underground when you face them]], no supernatural abilities [[spoiler:aside from [[{{IKnowKarate}} Martial Arts]]]].
59	** If their headgear is any indication, they don't even look human.
60	** In ''Lost Company'', there's a ClimaxBoss fight with a vampire leader just before the final boss battle. You get a good look at his face, and he looks pretty much like a stereotypical "Count Orlock" style vampire.
61	* RedShirtArmy: Germans and British soldiers alike die in droves, whether faced with [[TheLegionsOfHell otherworldly]] [[TheUndead monsters]] or [[OneManArmy the player.]]
62	** In Lost Company, most of the various German soldiers, being required for various dialogue and scripted events, actually fare pretty well against the enemies they're faced with, at least until events conspire to kill them off.
63	* RegeneratingHealth: Your health regenerates up to about 50% on Normal difficulty. You need to pick up medikits to bring it up all the way. You can also restore your health by raising your combo multiplier.
64	* SanitySlippage: Simon starts to show this very quickly. In the ''first level after [[DownerBeginning the opening sequence.]]'' Simon questions his sanity when zombies start appearing, and as situations worsen, so does his mental state, until by the time he acquires Shadowhand it seems he's too jaded to care anymore.
65	* ShoutOut:
66	** [[Film/RoboCop1987 "Dead or alive, you're coming with me"]]
67	** [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!"]]
68	** [[Film/ArmyOfDarkness "I dunno who's good or bad, but I'm the guy with the gun!"]]
69	** One of the challenge maps is actually named VideoGame/SeriousSam. Also, one of Simon's taunts in the final battle is "Here, take a little ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}''!".
70	* ShownTheirWork: In an out-of-the-way easter egg, you find a poetic British soldier in a prison cell; this soldier is implied to be [[spoiler:Creator/JRRTolkien]]. [[spoiler:Creator/JRRTolkien]] was actually a soldier in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
71	* SwordAndGun: More like bayonet and gun....or shovel and gun.
72	* TranquilFury: Simon has one [[spoiler:with his final confrontation with Mephisto.]]
73	->''"I never wanted this. I just wanted to fight my war, not get dragged into yours. But you took that all away from me."''
74	* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler:Jonas Zimmermann. He used bodies of fallen soldiers to build an army to protect both the vampire and human realms. And then he decided to start ''making'' bodies...]]
75	* YouHaveFailedMe: Azazel does this to his [[HellHound Cerberus mount]] after you defeat him the first time.
76	** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Could also be interpreted as Azazel]] [[MercyKill putting the mortally wounded Cerberus out of its misery.]]

Context VideoGame / NecroVisioN