Not recomended. There are better arena retro shooters around, like Bloodshed (where you unlock multiple heroes and can upgrade various skills). Not a bad value for the money, but is kind of boring and fells like a payed demo of a bigger game.
It's just one of the worst games of 2024. The supposed "hero" of the game is a bully—literally, it is one of its powers. If you want diversity, try Tacome or Gone Home instead (both walking simulators).
THE GOOD: The atmosphere of the game is off the charts, depicting the night of London with fog, dirt and debris, and inflicted with disease and death. It's almost palpable. The score is memorable, with austere violins and some synthesizer tracks, and the voice acting - especially from the protagonist - has the right tone: serious but with a touch of humanity, it feels real and not over the top. The story has, at least for me, some unexpected and memorable moments (the surgery is one example, but I won't spoil it). THE NOT SO GOOD: The combat is competent, but you're almost on your toes fighting enemies since they can level up quite much, and you don't always feel like a superhero - the combat is sometimes too much hectic for my taste. When your foes are too difficult, it's time to take a nap and level up, using your xp in upgrades. (tip: stamina is VERY important). THE BAD: the autocamera during combat can hide you in some corners/rooms, and the loading times can be very frustrating when you die in combat and have to reload. To my knowledge, it's just a bug where the game is just idle, one workaround can be to kill the application in the task manager and start the game again to load the save faster. TIPS: you'll talk a LOT in this game, and the sidequests are as important as the main story. I finished the game without embracing/killing any npc to gain xp, just doing all the quests was enough to level up from time to time. Try to maintain all the npc's healthy and alive, especially the main npc's of each district, since the death of any of them will have consequences on their district (will have more monsters and mobs fighting you). When you sleep, some npc's might get sick, and you need to cure them with specific medicine for each of 9 possible diseases (research+craft). Overall, it's a great experience and I loved the game - imo it just needs some polish for the camera and load times. Definitely interested in a sequel or more adventures in the same universe.
TD;DR: If you're a fan of the new batch of retro fps or older fps games like Hexen, I recommend this game at a discount price at its current state (one episode with 10 levels, about 10 hours of gameplay), and full price when episode 2 is released (it's in the works). You can also replay the game with other game type modes, one of the modes only give you various melee weapons. Graphics: the hand-drawn art is in my opinion quite refreshing and it's different from the low poly pixel-based retro shooters with post-processing (like Project Warlock, Strafe, or Nightmare Reaper). You really have some inspired places and vistas, with a steampunk/fantasy theme! I think that one problem is the lightning since the game looks a little bit flat/shadowless in some areas. My suggestion to "fix" it: go to Display Options\Hardware Renderer\Postprocessing on GZDoom options, turn Bloom on, and set Ambient Occlusion to "High", and you'll get more lively flames/lava and more depth to the environment! Gameplay: the puzzles are reminiscent of Hexen or Thief since you collect objects or craft new ones to unlock doors or fix some broken machines to progress. The game will not hand guide you and will require you to explore the level, check the map often, and read various notes. It's not that hard, and most of the time the solution is just around the corner, although I think the first level is a bit more difficult to navigate than the following ones. A big plus is the absence of hitscan enemies - every shot from you and your opponents is projectile based -, and the weapons available follow the much-proven formula of pistol/shotgun/rocket launcher, but with alt-fire modes and some original powerups to spice things up a bit. Although it was made by just one person (not counting the cover art and the soundtrack) it doesn't feel like it. And kudos to the developer for releasing the freeware (and older, beware!) version of the game as a Doom mod, so you can try the game before you buy it.
