DUSK

It's a really fun game with excellent atmosphere, but no matter what settings I use, it's giving me really bad motion sickness even only after 15 minutes. I tried everything I could find online, but nothing seems to help.

Everyone and his mum recommended DUSK to any and all classic FPS fans. I was interested but not convinced. I bought the game but it took me a while to actually play it. I must say, DUSK is amazing. The game is not what you expect. It starts off very much on the beaten path, making you think it is just another new FPS trying to be the original DOOM or some other game from that era. This could not be farther from the truth. The game lulls you into a false sense of security, only to surprise you and challenge your expectations time and time again. The combat and movement feel great. The atmosphere is great. The game can at times be really unnerving, and it achieves this in the best of ways. Not through cheap jump scares or overly explicit gore, but through a constant gnawing feeling that things are not what they seem and that something is not quite right. The game achieves this masterfully. I will not elaborate so as not to ruin the experience, but it is indeed an experience any fan of this sort of game should experience. If I could point one negative, and it is a small one, I have to say that the ending did not quite do it for me. It is absolutely fine, but the build up to that point had been so amazing that the finale itself left me a bit disappointed. But I am nit-picking. Get DUSK. Play it. You won't regret it.

The headline of this game is that it's a throwback shooter that channels mid-90s classics like Quake, Blood and Doom. And while that's an undeniable claim, there's a lot more going on with Dusk than its appearance lets on. Beneath its painstakingly brown and chunky retro exterior is an effortless understanding of compelling game design. One of Dusk's strengths is its atmosphere. Through environmental storytelling and pithy exposition, Dusk manages to be a fully-realized Lovecraftian horror story. Everything -- the enemy design, the environments, the palette, the sound design, the dynamic metal soundtrack -- drips with foreboding and bone-crushing ambiance. It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but it's actually damn scary. The level design is sublime. It's a love letter to classic shooters that combines the glory days of Build Engine real-world setpieces with Unreal Tournament-style combat arenas. The progression through the game's environmental variety is like a greatest hits list -- villages, swamps, farms, labs, military compounds, hellscapes -- it's all there. While it honors the classics, it's innovative in a way that even modern games don't dare to be. Most interestingly Dusk adds in rudimentary elements of immersive sims. The environmental interactivity, physics puzzles and object manipulation play seamlessly into the action, though, and serve to make an intuitively dynamic gameplay experience. The arsenal is a blast, and every weapon has its own tactical use to the end. The powerups add crucial elements to the gameplay and work into the level design. Encounter design is top-notch and requires thought and reflex in equal measure. And I can't praise the enemy design enough -- it's really the heart and soul of the game. Giving a blow-by-blow of Dusk really does it a disservice because it's more than the sum of its parts. Quite simply it's a modern classic, and if you're a fan of the genre, then OR now, you owe it to yourself to play it.

This game gets almost everything right. The controls are.. perfect. Q1 style. You run 90mph, can dodge all enemy projectiles with enough effort, have full air control, and can literally perform backflips (though I don't believe they.. do anything?) The weapons are basically the Q1 weapon set. The style is modern pixel retro. The level design ranges from "clearly stolen from Quake" to "stunning and bizarre, who came up with this?!" It's just plain fun. I kept laughing out loud at some of the weird ideas and quirks. I also screamed in surprise several times. Did I mention it's fun? The game is super over the top and doesn't take itself too serious, but it's also kind of a horror game? Except when it's just plain funny. I'll say there were 2 things that weren't quite perfect: for one, some of the levels are pretty complex and I had trouble finding the right key/door, wasting several minutes just looking for how to get to the next portion. Second thing, the enemies aren't super well balances. Some are so easy you can literally beat hundreds at a time with a shotgun (and you will), other types deal so much damage that not spotting them soon enough is instant death. I wish it was a little more linear, because (on regular difficulty) I was tearing through whole armies of some guys, only to be blasted to my last save after turning a corner. Overall 10/10, maybe even 11/10. Can't believe I never heard of this game before. This is a shooter from the good old days when first person shooters were fun, stupid, you didn't need to reload weapons, the levels didn't have to be drab office buildings, and there were no "missions" or anything - just run around shooting at anything that moves and then some. Trust your eyes.

What makes Dusk awesome? Is it the wonderfully jank quake inspired graphics? Is it the over the top, tongue-in-cheek story and humor? Is it the classically inspired and varied weapon set? (You know how in some games you just use shotgun or machine gun? not in this game) Is it the cabal of colorful and varied enemies? Is it the spectacular and tough *THOUGH* bosses? Is it the kickass soundtrack? No, where Dusk truly shines, and where it rises above its inspirations, is the level design. Oh the level design! This game is truly a masterpiece. I bought it on a whim because I was in the mood for a boomer shooter. I thought "Hey, this looks neat!" Man, I was blown away, could not let it go until I beat it. BUY IT! New Blood just won themselves a loyal customer. Can't wait for a sequel to this.