To me, boomer shooters carry this ethos of low polygonal carnal chaos. While Doom served as the gateway, the road to such sadism and macabre is paved by clones like Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, and Blood. In fact, this game is much more similar in spirit to Blood.
Cultic is an interesting game, not that it changes and modernizes itself in a way that changes that shakes the very foundation of what boomer shooters should be. But I can safely say there is a good boomer shooter here. One that shoots and feels great, and expands upon what a newly released one could be.
There are problems, some that holds it back to being the quintessential game to recommend. But, to some degree, I would suggest playing this game. And I have my reasons as to why you should, though. I know it's been over 2 months since its release, but I guess I have some catching up to do.
A cult has caused havoc on a community, so the MC decides to take matters into his own hands right around their doorsteps. But you get knocked out, and dragged, before saving yourself. Stuck in a rut, you begin your journey to vengeance right after taking out the guy who tried to bury you. Using only an axe before finding a handpistol around to use, it was time to feed lead to these degenerates.
Just exploring through the backyard, I found two of the members facing the other direction of the room I entered, trying to stealth kill didn't work, they were ganging up on me right before I managed to hack em to death. From there, I found my weapon. Headshots blow their heads off, but ammo is pretty scarce too. At first.
Cultic has certain elements of old 3D shooters like the original Half-Life, such as being able to pick up objects and throw them. There's even object collisions, so most of the 2D, very low polygonal visual art style is more of an aesthetic choice that seems to work really well with the novelty of being a boomer shooter.
There's lore, story bits to find about in documents that explains what is going on. Sometimes it gets so disturbing and bizarre later on, even to the point of tapping into demonology. Hanging corpses from cave ceilings that turned out to be alive, flesh eating cannibals in the forests, and so on.
The game offers myriads of ways to engage them. Lanterns can be thrown to burn them out, TNT and molotovs can be thrown, though they need to be ignited before exploding, but TNTs can be shot to blow up. Secondary fire for axes is throwing them, but that only works if they are standing still, mostly. If guns don't offer the joy of blowing them to smithereens, then bare fist can do all of that too.
And I just like how low-key the sound design is, like everything from walking, picking up items, and shooting a gun are heard loud enough, but the music coming off, there are things that can be heard from certain distances or the haunting hum of the score giving an ominous chill down the spine.
I like how it goes from claustrophobic to outlandishly throwing me into camps full of enemies in all parameters. There are all sorts of weapons to use, including shotguns and rifles. They need to be taken out quickly as possible, otherwise they'll easily swarm and take me out. They don't stop around for the player to notice them, even at first.
Of course, there are some issues I have. Few that kind of bothers me because they if they weren't here, the game would have catapulted to a greater status. First off, the enemy A.I., they can be easily exploitable. All thy do is act aggressive, and range ones try to shoot from distance. They take a while to come to me.
This also applies to the boss battles, like, it's easy to just maneuver them before taking em out. There were mini-bosses with chainsaws trying to kill, whom I just cheesed at because they couldn't pass through the door. Easily taken out without damage. Most of the bosses I've encountered weren't exactly the fun to battle out because of how simple they seem at times.
I've even gone through pathfinding issues, figuring out where to go in the open world structure took time. I mean, there's a lot the game provides me to do, which is kind of interesting and all. But, sometimes I would like to just shoot straight to the main path, and try to get to the exciting part. Which isn't always the case because I've been fumbling about.
But yeah, these issues seem kind of small. They don't dampen the big aspects of the game, and that one involves just spreading absolute mayhem against such forces of evil. In whatever way possible. It also turns out the game on sale is the first chapter, and that the next one is coming out as DLC later. So, that means I have to pay for another missing content. I hope that completes the game, otherwise it would seem kind of exploitative. I really liked Cultic, and I hope to continue when that DLC arrives.
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