Wake up from your depression nap and play this.
| Developer | Consumer Softproducts |
| Publisher | Consumer Softproducts |
| Full Release | 2021-06-16 |
| Engine | Godot 3.2.2 (Modified) |
| OS | Windows (Played on GNU/Linux via Steam's Proton) |
| Rating | 9/10 |
In this immersive sim, you play as a jobless mercenary recently discharged from the SEC Death Squad. A gelatinous blob man "The Handler", part of the Cruelty Squad Company, sets you up with some assassination gigs for your survival in this capitalist hell world.
This game is a playable artwork, reflecting the current state of the world in its very own-unique and humorous way. Capitalism in its ever-changing form is destroying our world; rising inequality, see (Piketty 2014), dystopia level work conditions (e.g. amazon workers), increased private and state cooperation surveillance apparatus, the job instability (gig/contractual economy), erosion of beneficial public funded institutions that help the working class, alienation, the inability for the system market to solve climate change, ineffectual response to Covid due to bought politicians. I could go on and on. Indeed the first scene of the game, has you in a squalid apartment, the handler calls you up, stating that he must of woke you up from your depression nap, and creates a MyWork account (hello myGov) for you, and tells you to spend 15 mins a day on a conditioning app; a way in which to prime your brain to get you job ready.
I can describe the stylistic direction of the game as Cronenberg body horror x LSD: Dream Emulator; the graphics purposely scuffed for that PS1 era graphical touch, and it is beautiful. Mechanics wise, its a FPS shooter/immersive sim, a mixture of Deus Ex and Hitman. You can interact with people, objects, switches etc, get body augmentations, and are dropped into a sandbox level with multiple pathways to kill the targets. Much like Hitman, before going to a level you get to choose your loadout, and much like Deus Ex, you can choose augmentations that you can buy or find in some levels. "The handler" works much like Diana in that "it" gives you lore for each level and target info. A novel feature to the game is a stockmarket the operates in real-time. This can be accessed while playing a map or at the select screen. You basically have cash in hand which you can buy augmentations and a house, or you can have money invested into the stockmarket.
Speaking of the stockmarket. You only fail when you die - that is when your globulous health indicator at the top left of the screen goes to 0. Throughout the maps you will see foodstuffs which give you 5 hp when eaten. When dying on all but the easiest difficulty, you will lose 500 dollars. No failure or worries if you kill civilians. Successfully killing all the targets, and exiting the level at clearly marked exit points (although some extra exit points can be hidden in the level), nets you more cash in the hand. Another way to increase your holdings (or sell them off for cash), is collecting body parts for the organ stock market. Gibbed enemies have a chance to spawn organs which can be collected. Another way is to fish. Yes, fish. You can collect a fishing rod from one of the levels and fish in each level to collect special fish types to sell with some rarer types which can be sold for high prices.
To expand your weapon select inventory, you have to successfully complete the mission with a new weapon in one of the two slots to unlock that weapon. For body parts and fish, you do not need to successfully exit the level to keep the items: a nice mechanic as with some levels you will be dying a lot to figure out how to complete the levels. The difficulty mechanic is a little different in cruelty squad to say the least. No (apparent) difficulty level can be selected at the start screen. The boarder around your player camera is what shows the difficulty. You start at the second hardest difficulty (see Cruelty Game Mechanics Wiki 2021) for more details. "The Devine Light" which shows a mechanical looking silver frame around your camera, see Fig. 3., for example. Enimies deal full damage in this mode. A death will put you in another difficulty mode - "Flesh Automoton" which decreases enemy damage. If you die four times in a row you go to the "power in misery" - the easiest difficulty level. Enemies deal half damage and you eat corpses to gain 1 hp. You also no longer lose 500 dollars each time you die. You can gain back the difficulty levels by finding certain orbs in certain levels, some which are in secret areas. A harder difficulty level can also be found this way. Enemy numbers increase, harder enemy types are also included in maps such as armoured golems, with damage at full. On the level select screen, two additional difficulty modifiers can also be selected, Punishment - whereby enemies do twice damage, but you get double the money for mission completion, the the other modifier - chaos, where enemies are randomized with randomized equipment and different targets are selected for the mission. A civilian modifier slider is also provided in the game settings, which changes the amount of civilians in a map, this then makes the game a little easier as you can identify enemies a lot quicker and have a better chances of shots connecting, as once civilians are alerted to gunshots, their AI causes them to erratically run around place often when you need to take down an enemy.
The sound design of the game is great. One nitpick is that lack of different footstep sounds. this would of been a welcome addition in an immersive sim type game. The soundtrack can be described, as gunked up left-field industrial techno. Pop music enjoyers be aware. Some of the tracks take awhile to get used to but eventually youll find yourself humming along to these flesh-pieces. Some, well.. just listen to the bog business track to get an idea of the difference of musical direction taken relative to other games.
Enemy AI is basic. There's a normal phase, an almost spotted searching phase- where an eye indicator pops up on the screen, and then an alert phase which the AI will run around chase you and shoot at you. Large numbers of enemies can be easily dispatched by using a doorway. Nothing spectacular about the AI here. Stealth is non existent. Some augmentations can increase enemy react times and viewing distance, beneficial for the harder missions. But generally youll find yourself blasting away at any enemy in your way. Weapons range from rocket launchers to tranquilizer dart gun. A unique weapon called the ZKZ an sks-like rifle which scales with your total holdings, that becomes one of the most powerful weapons in the game, if you have a lot of holdings. The weapon easily dispatches some of the tougher enemies, turning them into flying giblets. The shooting in Cruelty Squad is fun. There is a lean function but i found this to useless due to the ridiculous increase in weapon spread. This coupled with the ai makes Cruetly Squad not a tactical shooter by any means but a fun shooter nonetheless. Some enemies are armoured and can only be taken down shooting in specific locations or with specific armour piercing ammo, and are placed on certain paths causing you to rethink your loadout or approach the map differently. Secrets can be found throughout the maps with some leading to secret level unlocks. The different difficulty levels along with the secrets, different augs and weapons to collect, make the re-playability of the game enjoyable.
In sum, Cruelty Squad gets the formula right of having a message about our times whilst being an adept FPS immersive sim with satisfying shooting elements. It definitely stands out with the art direction. Its also good to see more and more gamedevs using the FOSS Godot engine. It could of benefited with more stealth mechanics, and AI tweaks, but overall this game is great.
9/10 Gorbinos
References
Cruelty Squad Wiki 2021, Game Mechanics, Accessed 20-07-2021 <https://crueltysquad.fandom.com/wiki/Game_Mechanics >
Piketty, T. 2013, Capital in the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: President and Fellows, Harvard College.