SPRAWL

SPRAWL

Escape the walled city and take on the militarized government of the sprawl. Fueled by the blood of your enemies and a mysterious voice in your head, make your way towards the spire to topple whatever lays within.

SPRAWL is a hardcore retro FPS set in an endless cyberpunk megapolis. Here the streets are your playground. The dark alleys and dilapidated apartments are all surfaces compatible with your “icarus” cybernetic implant. This implant allows you to perform gravity defying acrobatic wall-running maneuvers. Your enemies, the militarized police of the sprawl, stand no chance. Not only that, but their blood fuels this same implant, vastly enhancing your reaction time. On command you can enter a state in which even bullets move at a snail’s pace. A vast arsenal of weapons lie at your disposal, the armies of the corporate government are endless, but be warned…


Read More: Best 1990's Dystopian Games.


SPRAWL on Steam

Neon Snake

Neon Snake

This game is lovely. It gives the player what it promised, and does it in a fun way. What I would love to see in this game, however, is some sort of competitive style of game-play. Maybe implement a leader board of sorts? It’s just my opinion, as this game is a little bare. With that out of the way, I honestly do enjoy this game.

Real player with 0.8 hrs in game


Read More: Best 1990's Old School Games.


good nostalgic game

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

Neon Snake on Steam

VirtuaVerse

VirtuaVerse

Virtuaverse

A beautiful retro aesthetic is all this game has to offer for modern adventurers. If you’re happy with a bland story and no character development but enjoy that bygone feel then this might interest you.

First Impressions🤔

Virtuaverse visually impresses and it is apparent that a lot of work has gone into making this game look and feel as retro as possible. Characters, environments and objects are rendered superbly and it always amazes me how beautiful a pixel world can look if it is done right.

Real player with 20.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best 1990's Dystopian Games.


VirtuaVerse is clearly a love letter to point & click adventure games of the 90’s, not only in its engine, animations, and interface, but also in some of its puzzle design. The pixel art is a masterpiece, the soundtrack is memorable, and the adventure is captivating. However, the price of fidelity brings with it some of the elements that made old games frustrating, such as lazy direction, useless inventory items, pixel hunts, and baffling riddles that are sure to prevent completion in one session. Thus, it’s difficult to accurately appraise VirtuaVerse as a yes/no recommendation, because it largely depends on your threshold for games that don’t lead you by the hand.

Real player with 17.1 hrs in game

VirtuaVerse on Steam

Slave Zero

Slave Zero

Slave Zero is a Underrated Third-Person Shooter.

I’ve decided to rewrite this review because my old one was kind of crap but also it’s this game’s 20th Anniversary which is actually “October 31st, 1999”, and also I love this game.

Slave Zero is Fu*king Awesome, an example of an Underrated Classic that needs to be Revived or Remastered. In this game you play as a giant robot called Slave Zero, smashing up cars, buildings, and destroying other robots. This is one of the first games that has came up with this concept and it still works great today.

Real player with 34.0 hrs in game

It is hard for me to write about this game since I undoubtedly view it through nostalgia goggles, but I believe it still holds up quite well today. The game is very fun to play with great controls, a great variety of enemies, and beautifully designed futuristic areas.

I’ve noticed a lot of people comment on the story. The story is there purely for story’s sake — it is the glue that ties all the missions together. Don’t expect any intricate character development, or any sort of interaction among the characters whatsoever. Most of the exposition is presented at the very start of the game in the opening sequence and that’s that. The hero of the game, Ch’an, doesn’t communicate much with the rest of the cast - he merely executes Guardians' (the rebels) orders. This can be either good or bad depending on your preferences. If you’re the kind of player that likes to assume the role of the protagonist - then this is the game for you - but on the other hand, it is hard to have some clear idea in terms of what Ch’an is like. The intro states that “Ch’an must permanently merge with the Slave,” meaning he’s doomed to stay inside the robot for all eternity Neon Genesis Evangelion style. It would be interesting to read about his backstory, but the game is so fast paced and focused on bringing down Sovkhan that there’s never really any time to address that. It is only near the end of the game, during the final mission, when Sovkhan reveals (spoiler alert!) that he murdered Ch’an’s father which possibly explains Ch’an’s decision to permanently merge with the robot. Unfortunately, since the plot never really makes you feel invested in the characters, this grand revelation felt very underwhelming and anticlimatic. But you don’t play Slave Zero for the story! It is the fast-paced action packed gameplay, one of a kind atmosphere, amazingly intricate boss fights, and great atmospheric music that makes the game what it is. All in all, It is a great cyberpunk adventure that is still very fun to play now.

Real player with 16.6 hrs in game

Slave Zero on Steam

Brigador: Up-Armored Edition

Brigador: Up-Armored Edition

There’s a reason I’ve logged 200+ hours in this game in under 2 months. It’s fun as hell and offers incredible amounts of replay value and gameplay depth. There is an absolutely enormous amount of content, and everything is packed with detail.

The basic idea of the game is to pick a vehicle, a primary and secondary weapon, and then a special defensive weapon/feature, and go to town. You’re getting paid based on how much destruction you dish out by a cold, calculating megacorp, the SNC, that has only one goal: conquest of Solo Nobre, a massive walled city where the game takes place. You must secure the city district-by-district via whatever means necessary, even if that means completely leveling the entire map (which is totally doable, and even encouraged!).

Real player with 754.5 hrs in game

Brigador is, on the surface, an isometric twin stick shooter where you choose a difficulty, vehicle, two weapons, a special ability, and a pack of levels to fight through. But what makes it so much more than just that is the flavortext. No, that’s not a joke. Every single map, Pilot, weapon, lore concept, and vehicle, including the non playable ones have a full paragraph or more written about its special quirks, how it came into service, crew oppinion, and other such things.

The setting is a genuinely interesting one. Yes the 80s synthwave meme is a bit overplayed these days, but it works out in a way that doesn’t feel forced in brigador. Cassette tapes and CRT moniters work along side crainial jacks in this dystopian North Korea meets Rio Brazil in an An-Cap universe and it just kinda works.

Real player with 138.3 hrs in game

Brigador: Up-Armored Edition on Steam

BloodNet

BloodNet

Don’t mind the hours spent in the game. After refunding it, I ended up buying it on GOG to give it another try.

I first want to preface this review by saying I went in totally blind. I have no nostalgia attached to it, and I come from a background of loving point-and-clicks. I also seek out any game of the cyberpunk genre I can get my hands on.

That said, I wanted to like this game, but it felt impossible to. I saw it and I thought it was some kind of miracle I hadn’t played it already. Even its subtitle “The Cyberpunk Vampire Game” seemed perfect (as well as amazingly corny) to me. The screenshots made it look fantastic in that old time-y gritty moody kind of way. I felt like whatever its cons were, I wouldn’t let it keep me from enjoying a game that looked like I would love. But despite playing for long enough to get a handle on it, it still didn’t work for me.

Real player with 22.1 hrs in game

I’ll start just by saying that it is my favourite adventure (although it is much more) game. Bloodnet mixes elements of adventure and rpg. Among solving puzzles you command your small squad of friends and mercenaries in fights. There’s a lot of character statistics influencing combat, decking (travelling through cyberspace), crafting etc… Bloodnet tells a story of Ransom Stark, who is trying to lift a curse of vampirism. It is dark, mature and really sucks in. Ransom will meet a lot of interesting and well written characters. While combat sequences are not of best quality, great atmosphere makes up for it. Important element of Bloodnet is decking. Improving cyberdeck will help to experience it. It is not a point and click game (you won’t make a helicopter combining shoelaces and washing machine). Puzzles are interesting and logical. It is more of unraveling the story. If you like cyberpunk it is a must have. If you like vampires it is a must have.

Real player with 12.6 hrs in game

BloodNet on Steam

Bionic Battle Mutants

Bionic Battle Mutants

Warning: Based on single player content only.

Game runs fine under Windows 10, not a single bug apart from texture layer issue on one level (very minor thing).

Enjoyed the campaign (around 12 to 17 hours), the few problems inherent to isometric view and line of sight/visibility in this type of games are pretty well delt with here:

Wall transparency/visible line of sight/visible covers are all one icon away during battles.

The AP system, a few attack options and consumables are what you get to work with, clear and enough options for a few different layouts.

Real player with 19.9 hrs in game

BBM is an interesting take on turn-based combat with a small squad of warriors. I like the graphics style and the customization options. The game is not too deep or complicated, and is good fom some relaxed tactics for a couple of hours.

You team members can die in a fight, and reviving costs quite some resources, so it pays off to play carefully and avoid getting hit or charged, since most enemies are tough melee fighters

Good thing is you can replay missions to collect some more loot for the next upgrade.

Real player with 16.6 hrs in game

Bionic Battle Mutants on Steam

Code angel

Code angel

Well..it is fairly impressive for a solo dev.

However, I fell off the map in the first level and had to restart. I then got stuck in a pit in the second level and decided to stop playing.

There is a lot of effort here but it is definitely not worth the $20 price tag.

Text to speech is not fun to listen to, especially when the English localization is poorly done.

This needs a lot of work and a price reduction.

https://youtu.be/iotanvP32nY

Real player with 0.3 hrs in game

Code angel on Steam

Cyberia

Cyberia

A great classic which aged terribly.

This Cyberpunk themed Action/Adventure augments rail shooter action scenes with adventure exploration and puzzle elements for an enjoyable, albeit all too brief experience. An odd feature is the game having 2 difficulty settings, one for “Arcade” and the other for “Puzzle”, both scaling from 1-3. One can not set both difficulties to “1” as the game informs you would be “too easy”.

Highs:

A cheap classic.

A fine historical blast from the past.

Fun rail shooter bits.

Real player with 6.0 hrs in game

It’s EXACTLY as I remember, not better or worse – I suppose it deserves to be called a graphic adventure game with action scenes. The voice acting is cheesy, the 1990s CGI looks hideous and plastic, you probably die a lot and…

There’s this element of masochism involved in playing Cyberia – take one late puzzle disguised as an action sequence, for instance, where you have to pick the right doors and eliminate enemies in the rooms so you can proceed. Pick a wrong door and you get a video clip of you getting shot in the back. Repeat a couple of times. For some reason, you don’t get a save point nearer to it, so you have to rinse and repeat through a different puzzle as well.

Real player with 6.0 hrs in game

Cyberia on Steam

Keizudo

Keizudo

I haven’t played much and I’m not sure if I intend to play much more but I think I can recommend this game all the same from what I’ve experienced so far. The writing is competent which is important because this Is a visual novel. That said, it is not necessarily presented in a way which is comfortable or easily digested (a majority of the time, you have to click through action menus consisting of “thinking”, “investigation”, and “move” to determine your next action within a linear set of actions that all must be taken to progress the game. This can fluctuate from frustrating to engaging depending on the scene and how much dialogue there is. I can’t help but think this system needs to be refined a bit. That said, for me, this game’s visuals where a treat. I adore the pre-rendered low poly look and their dedication to that style even in the character art. In an era of graphic obsessed pc gaming, this a bold and unique move which came to me as a fresh change of pace. I absolutely recommend this game to anyone seeking a new type of visual novel with a bold approach to its presentation.

Real player with 0.3 hrs in game

Keizudo on Steam