There’s been a wave of furry horror games with surprisingly elaborate tactical simulation elements, and when I say “wave”, I mean that I’m aware of two. One is Casualties: Unknown, a 2D misericore spelunking experience with an injury system so byzantine it took Oisin multiple paragraphs to work out how to die. The other, somewhat nicer game is Fright Train, a swish B-movie survival shooter in which you are a literal dog soldier, the magnificent Doug Barker.
Doug has many problems, though sadly not 99 so I can’t do an Ice-T reference here. Firstly, he’s trapped on the titular Fright Train, a procedurally generated mad science lab on rails that is hurtling through the Antarctic, for reasons unknown. Secondly, the Fright Train is full of idling zombies. Thirdly, the Fright Train is subject to recurring paranormal energy explosions that impose a lockdown, while causing yet more zombies to burst through the floor and windows.
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Fourthly, the Fright Train is something of a predatory emporium, complete with a chatty on-board sharkbot persona. If you want to open a locked door – let alone buy something at a vending machine, or seal a window to stop the temperature falling below zero – you’ll need to gather in-game vidyacoins by killing things and vandalising the fittings. The sharkbot declines to explain all this.
Fifthly, the Fright Train is being pursued by a massive iceworm. If the vehicle takes too much damage, as tracked on the HUD, the sharkbot will perform an emergency stop, and the iceworm will catch up and swallow the whole thing. Even if you make repairs, the iceworm will eventually devour the section you’re standing in, so don’t waste too much time farming coins, tracking down cylinders of anti-freeze, or shooting the living dead.
It’s a rough gig, but fortunately, Doug happens to be the lovechild of Solid Snake and Chris Redfield. If Solid Snake and Chris Redfield were dogs. He’s got a permanent scowl. He’s got a nerdy radio handler. He’s got a taste for one-liners such as “pick on somebody your own size”. Most importantly of all, he’s got 15 tactical pockets or holsters, each with both a matching item type and a percentage indicating the speed at which you’ll access items held therein.
Image credit: Black Lantern Collective / Gamersky Games
Yesirree – far from some phoned-in FNAF shooter adaptation, Fright Train is actually a game for inventory management fiends. In addition to traversing each carriage as fast as you can, you’ll need to arrange guns, ammo packs, health sprays, and other gear around Doug’s person, to optimise the business of switching guns and reloading them. There are rucksacks you can equip – Doug can even wear two! – which have to be manually opened in your inventory tab to retrieve and use or pocket whatever they contain. No, you are not allowed to pause the action while doing all this. You are a Tactical Operator, not some effing Dragonbornoramus who can freely suspend the laws of physics.
If the thought of 15 pockets has you slavering like a labrador eyeing a field of freshly laid cowpats, just wait till you experience the joy of reloading. You have to click to slide individual bullets into magazines, all the while Tactically Manoeuvring away from the hordes. The associated animation makes it looks like Doug is jerking off, which doesn’t feel entirely accidental. Fright Train is a shoot-me-do in which the onerous maintenance of your boomsticks is just as gratifying as firing them.
The combat itself is otherwise solid stuff, though nothing to write home about: the train’s zombos all sport different body armour configurations, so you can’t just aim for the head every time. You also get a meaty kick, effective both at interrupting attacks and jostling loose a shower of bonus vidyacoins, but this consumes stamina that is often required for running away.
Image credit: Black Lantern Collective / Gamersky Games
If the inventory management suggests a milsim Resident Evil mod, the overall experience of Fright Train puts me in mind of Call of Duty’s Zombies mode, except that it’s singleplayer-only and unencumbered by any business links to real-world military organisations. Each train section is a scramble for kit and currency, while trying not to advance so urgently that you (for example) find yourself in a tiny office with only one exit and exactly five bullets, just as the next lockdown triggers.
I’m enjoying the scramble despite the fact that accumulating the means to open a door often requires you to kick coins out of dozens of free-standing objects, from recycling bins to printers. Fright Train’s pacing is aggressive enough that this doesn’t ever become mindless collection, because you are constantly thinking about what you can afford to ignore or discard. You might not have enough time to boot every bin. You certainly don’t have a holster for every gun.
I’m basing all this on two hours of play on normal difficulty, encompassing Fright Train’s first two acts. It’s possible the game will be a Doug’s dinner from this point on, but I have a good feeling about this one. I would rate what I’ve played canine out of 10, if RPS were partial to such cowardly numerology. Find Fright Train on Steam. Also, go play the demo for that Casualties: Unknown game. It looks appetisingly vicious, and I’d like to get “tactical furry sims” trending, so that we don’t have to write about those stupid haystack games or whatever.