quote:

if you grew up in the 90s, you've probably been here before. not physically, but this place exists inside your heart. the superheated nightmare of the VHS era, the ugly quaintness of windows 98, the sanitized horror of stomach stapling. maybe you've been here in a nightmare, or maybe the place just sits dormant inside you, like a tumor waiting to be diagnosed.

cruelty squad is comforting in the same way as that diagnosis; even though it's bad news, there's kind of a peace in knowing for sure.

the game itself is very fun. it's kind of a combination of deus ex, hitman, and syndicate. you explore strange levels and assassinate strange targets. it's quite challenging, the enemies are reasonable shots and do a lot of damage, but it's fair. there's an emphasis on stealth, but it's not a mission fail if you're detected, it just becomes more challenging. you can outshoot one enemy, but many will be a problem for you.

the variety comes from the large roster of weapons and implants you can pick from, which enable different approaches. pretty much everything is viable, and even goofy seeming weapons have their uses. you can wade in wearing your nightmarish battlesuit and flamethrower everyone on the level, or you can use your intestines to grapple to the top of the tower, kick the target to death, then die to a three foot drop because you replaced all your bones with breadsticks so you could move faster. I like the pistol that damages your target's DNA so much they explode into an abstract sculpture of viscera, which you can then use to platform on.

the visual style of the game is painstakingly crafted to be as ugly and strange as possible. the majority of the textures are hand drawn, the rest being made up of heavily processed photos. it means the game looks something like a deep-fried meme. despite that, it's not muddy or confusing, everything is still very readable as enemy or friendly, except for in a handful of areas that are intended to be confusing.

the music ranges between 'having a fever dream on the couch while the SNES is still on' and 'dead muppets sing in a choir', which helps the surreal atmosphere hugely. the only time it became intrusive was on the first level, where part of the backing track sounded a lot like gunfire which was a bit confusing.

the level design is both very fun to play and strangely upsetting and scary, like if you ever clipped outside the level in a normal shooter as a child and got freaked out because you found a bunch of blurry, empty rooms and felt trapped and lost. realistic environments blend seamlessly into strangeness, leaving you with a feeling like at any second reality is going to lift away like a peeled off scab. there are many secrets, from alternate routes of attack, to hidden weapons, to full on hidden levels. they are fun to find, but easy to miss, which adds replay value to the levels.

in general there are a great many secrets and strange game mechanics which are generally not signposted for you, it's a case of discovery. none of it is vital for just completing the game, so you aren't frustrated trying to figure something out so you can progress, it is all hidden side stuff.

for fans of gorbino's quest there are also a lot of links to the gorbino canon in this game, so don't be surprised if you find a lot of stuff about this game on the various gorbino fan wikis and theory boards. make sure you talk to all the npcs you can to pick up all the nuggets of gorbino lore. there could even be hints about gorbino's quest 2 in here, i've only just started to dive in.

please buy and play cruelty squad. i heard nothing about the game leading up to its release, i dont know anything about the circumstances of its creation, i just saw the name on steam one day and decided to buy it, and it shone a light directly into my heart