Recent reviews by Synteks 😂👌🔥💯

tl;dr: This game is a ton of fun right now and has a lot to offer if you enjoy arena style shooters or have been feeling an itch for a good, single player, retro fps!

-I am going to avoid spoilers in this review / explanation-

(I'll go into more detail about most of these points later in the review)
I'm loving everything about this game! I pre-ordered it a while back (before early access) and have been playing the single and multiplayer as 2 separate games. Right now, there are 2 episodes, the multiplayer, and 2 endless arenas to play with. And episode 3 and endless arena 3 are on the way, so the game is not 100% complete, but still has plenty to play with as it stands (I have 90 hours in it so far). With that being said, DUSK takes what made games like Quake and DOOM great and makes them its own. You can play it fast and kill everything, play it passive and let everything live, or slow it down and look for secrets (there is a lot of them). The levels feel great and look great and each offer something different while being simple enough to get through with sometimes having multiple ways to complete them. Some of these levels have a bit of a horror element to them as well leading to some pretty tense and scary moments. Movement is fast and the weapons feel great and are perfect for the game. Combat can be hectic at times, but everything feels fair. I highly recommend this game.

The story so far is: You play as "Dusk Dude", a treasure hunter captured by demonic cultists. You must escape and kill them all. Simple. As you progress you discover some truths about what's really been going on.

(for now I will just talk about the single player, as it is the main feature of DUSK, however, a lot of this applies to the multiplayer as well)

MOVEMENT: DUSK plays how you want it to. It can be played very fast by use of bunny-hopping or explosive jumping, or taken slower for those who wish to do so. The important thing is that you are in control. You have complete freedom in your movement both on the ground and in the air. Having this freedom allows you to dodge enemy's and get around the levels as you please and feel good while doing it. 

BASIC WEAPONS: There are technically 10 weapons in this game, but one is a special melee weapon seldom used. The main 9 weapons are nothing too fancy, but are perfect for the setting and theme. They feel extremely responsive, sound great, and all serve a unique purpose. I won't go into these purposes too much as its better to learn from playing, but they are pretty much what you would expect of them. Pistols for small enemy's, shotguns for getting in your enemy's faces or for needing high damage, rifles for medium and long ranges, explosives for crowds or bosses and for jumping to hard to reach places, a special crossbow which can shoot through walls and allow the player to hover if shot down, and your trusty sickles for when you're in a pinch. The guns follow the retro trend of not needing to manually reload or worry about magazines and a very quick to switch to and use. 

IMPROVISED WEAPONS: In DUSK you can pick up most small objects in the game, and each of these objects can be thrown to do different damages depending on what they are. It makes for interesting fights and allows the player to save ammo if needed.

PICKUPS: There are various health, armor (armor is called "morale" in DUSK), ammo, weapons, and power-ups placed throughout each level. Some are clearly presented as you move through them and others are hidden to reward exploration. Enemy's can also drop small amounts of health, morale, and ammo as well. These pickups feel very well placed and provide a good reason to explore as you can obtain some weapons early in the game.

COMBAT: No crazy AI in this game. If they see you, they will chase you. Rushing into a room guns blazing is the way this game was made to be played!

SOUNDTRACK: Badass soundtrack that is dynamic on most levels. No complaints here. Most of the sound design feels very modern, while still having some old school-esque sounds throughout the game.

The multiplayer is awesome, but it is an afterthought or an add-on to the single player and is still in fairly early stages. It is a standard arena style PvP setup with (at the time of this review) only 1 game mode, free for all. However, more game modes are planned (CTF, TDM,etc). To start, you NEED to be fast and have a basic understanding of DUSK's movement to do well in it. Or else you are an easy target for everyone else. But, with that being said, the multiplayer has a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. Anyone can easily get a hang of the movement and weapons within an hour or 2 and can take those skills very far. It is an arena style fps done right!

I figured I would toss this in at the end as it shouldn't be a major selling point in my opinion. But this game is very 90's. What you see in the screenshots is what you get. But don't let its graphics make your choice on this game, it is very tastefully used and is very much part of its charm. 

There is still a lot to be added to DUSK during its time in and out of early access. A SDK is currently in the works with planned workshop support, more game modes and features for multiplayer, potential co-op after it leaves early access, and episode 3 are the main things to note. But I'm sure many other small features and tweaks will be added along the way.

And that's about it! I'm loving this game so far and am looking forward to episode 3 within the next couple of months! I don't want to talk about enemy types or specifics of the levels just yet as those are best experienced by playing the game and are potential spoilers. Maybe after episode 3 comes out and I can look at everything as a whole I will add a spoiler section and talk about those.

-BTW, This game is probably not going to go on sale anytime soon (if AT ALL) as to avoid the "I'll pick it up when it's on sale" excuse. It will also always be $20 no matter how much more content is added. This is a dev choice that has been stated multiple times on their Discord as well as on their 2018 announcement: "Nope. $20 then, $20 now, $20 forever." I think it is very much worth the price for the time I got (and am still getting) out of it. I have gotten 90+ hours between the single and multiplayer (40 single, 50 multi). It miiiight go on sale eventually, but I would not count on it. If this game looks appealing to you, PICK IT UP!!-

Rockstar and Take Two treating its audience like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Done supporting them.

It's alright.