Recent reviews by Bootyknight

I'm a huge fan of macabre worlds in video games; having grotesque, unexplained visual monstrosities bearing down upon an unnamed protagonist in a hellscape is absolutely my jam. It's been a while since I played a game that pulls off a combination of a physically disturbing and horrific world without enough intrigue to it to keep me curious about the backstory. I think the last game I played that captured that aesthetic so perfectly was Blasphemous, and now, it's Vomitoreum.

Gameplay:
It's a classic GZDoom style boomer shooter, with a small selection of guns that are upgraded in a couple different ways. I feel like there's not really an emphasis on the guns (obviously given the small amount), but instead the movement sells the combat; jumping and dashing around is incredibly satisfying for both combat and exploration. My only gripe would be that every boss battle boils down to circle strafing for the most part, but this is a boomer shooter so I feel like expanding beyond that is difficult.

The metroidvania aspect however, was really enjoyable. There's very little handholding in terms of where to go so being able to remember a location that was out of reach before, or an obstacle that required a tool, and backtrack once you've acquired the tool for the job was satisfying. There's also 2 "secret" collection systems that give great rewards but one is barely explained and one isn't explained in the slightest so it rewards a keen eye and diligence towards exploring EVERYTHING. I was fairly engrossed in the world so this was not a problem for me.

Art/Aesthetic:
Super pixelly, so it's an aesthetic you have to enjoy, but if you do I think this game's art is amazing. Various zone themes so it's not just HROT with sprites, and the enemy and environment design can be haunting at times. Part of me wishes I'd stopped for a second to truly look at the more grotesque enemy designs instead of dashing around guns blazing, but heyo.

Aesthetically speaking, I'm in love. The world/enemy/character design is so oddly twisted, I got some HR Giger vibes from a portion of the level textures and it was great. After looking up the artist that inspired the art direction (Zdzisław Beksiński), I think Scumhead has done him justice.

As an aside; there's some technically impressive stuff done considering (if I'm reading other reviews right) this is based on GZDoom, like having the entire game be one MASSIVE seamless level.

Lore:
There is a surprising amount of lore for a 2-3 hour game, and honestly one of the biggest reasons I kept playing. No spoilers, but the combination of ways the game tells the story (either through exploration or cutscenes) kept me intrigued consistently throughout the entirety of my playtime, and wanting more upon its conclusion. I'm also a huge fan of creepy/mysterious names and each time I stepped into a new area or boss and the name flashed up with some dystopian title I got tingles (as a taster the starting area is called the Grave Factory and it just gets more dystopian from there).

Value at £7.19/$10.00:
3 hours of my life I thoroughly enjoyed, with the gateway now opened for me to give Scumhead's other projects a go (which are all free). A creepy, dystopian world I'm going to be thinking about for days from now. An incredibly promising developer whose work I will absolutely be watching closely. Yeah it's definitely worth the tenner, especially to support indie devs.



tl;dr this game is 100% sold to me on the feeling it gives. The dystopian horror aesthetic, the post-apollyon-apocalypse setting, the corruption of flesh and technology alike. Being made to not only explore, but thrive in a disgusting and deadly environment. As a disclaimer, you may not like that aesthetic, and if you don't, that's entirely fair and this is not for you. But if you do enjoy that feeling, this will be 2-3 hours you will thoroughly enjoy.

As much as I wanted to enjoy another retro-styled shooter, unfortunately this game doesn't provide enough for it to be worth the price tag. I played the 1-level demo and saw a lot of potential, so was excited to play it when it came out. Was left thoroughly disappointed, and requested a refund.

A summary, mostly compared to DOOM since that's what this game is trying to emulate. Minor spoilers.

Positives:
- Graphics.
Whist the hell motif seems to be overdone, the guns look really nice, and the aesthetic whilst common was nailed well.
- Movement.
Fairly fluid, jumping around feels fast (not as fast as DUSK but still), and once I turned on always-sprint it felt like a good pace. Bunny-hopping across ledges and emptying shells into demons feels fun, fast, and fluid.
- The triple shotgun.
The right click on this gun is immensely satisfying. Shame about every other gun though.
- Level design.
Pretty standard. Collect 3 keys in a variety of locations. Didn't get too mazelike, and the locales changed a fair amount whilst staying within the solid 'hell' theme, so it was nice.
- Music
The metal was solid. Not much else to say.

Negatives:
- Short.
Played through on Hard, spent a little over an hour and a half to beat the whole 7 levels. DOOM had 9, in its first chapter, and iirc there were 3 chapters in the base game. The whole game's premise seems to hint at a MUCH longer game (pillars of hell needing to be shattered to stop an eternal demonic horde) but the game abruptly ends before you even manage to approach ONE pillar. Extremely disappointing.
- Easy.
Even on Hard, I died once, and that was due to an instant-death platforming error on my part. A lot of the difficulty seemed to stem from spawning melee enemies in front of you so keeping the shotgun out and rightclicking completely removes the biggest 'challenge' the game throws at you.
- Lackluster guns.
The only thing that was satisfying to shoot was the shotgun's secondary fire. Everything else felt extremely boring. There's barely 6 guns (really 4 + 2 melee weapons that I never used) that boast having 'secondary fires'. 2 of them (the ''''pistol'''' and the chaingun) are just ironsights. Shotgun fires 3 slugs with its secondary, rocket launcher just lobs a grenade. Nothing inspiring, nothing cool, really boring weapons to play with, especially compared to DOOM's 9 (7 +2) weapons.
- Lackluster enemies.
There's 1 boss, 1 'soldier' style enemy for each of your weapons (5 total, fists don't count), an imp, and a charger.
- Boring AI. All melee enemies just path directly at you. Other enemies mostly just slow path then stop to shoot, or just stand and shoot. The only time I ever took damage was from when I stopped circle-strafing.
- Disappointing writing.
Hope you like the word '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥' because it gets slung around a LOT. Feels very much like a guy trying to be hardcore/edgy/badass, but reminded me of an edgy teen's Deviantart profile page. Was trying to be Doomguy, ended up sounding like that angry dude from Hatred.
- Boring references.
There was a neat little secret on one of the levels that's a nod to Serious Sam, but that only reminded me of how much better a game that was than this. They even make fun of the whole 'getting keys' trope, but this would only work if your ENTIRE game didn't revolve around collecting keys to exit the level as well.
- Price.
If I'd paid $5 for this, I wouldn't be so harsh on the amount of content. Cannot recommend playing at full price.
- Survival mode.
Admittedly, I didn't play this. The gunplay wasn't fun enough, and the enemies weren't varied enough, so coming out of the main campaign (whose boss I just circlestrafe'd until oblivion) I felt absolutely no desire to just play more of the core gameplay loop. I kept playing hoping there'd be more that would make it better, which never came.


TL;DR: Not worth the full price. Fun movement bogged down by lackluster guns, minimal enemy variety. A core gameplay loop that could have been so much more than it was. Feels like an MVP demo rather than a full game, which is a shame, because I was really excited for this upon playing the demo.

If you're chasing the feeling of another modern but fast paced 90's shooter, I'd recommend picking up any of the following instead of this:
DUSK
Amid Evil
Post Void
Blood
Ion Fury (Ion Maiden)
Hedon
Hard Reset
Maximum Action
Project Warlock
Rise of the Triad
Shadow Warrior (either the remakes or the original)
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
Ziggurat