David Cronenburg's Rainbow Six Vegas.

Finally went back to finish this one and my thoughts are extremely all over the place. It's bleak and badly designed, and wants to be; nailing every aspect of that design philosophy for better and for worse. It looks awful on purpose, it requires overly technical understanding (i.e. a unique reload, stock manipulation, hidden fishing mini-game etc.), and it makes music out of N64 samples and aggravating soundboard sfx. It makes you stressed. But really opens up once mobility like the grapple and thruster are unlocked, becoming a more freeing experience. I think it's the best bad game I've ever played and that's the best way I can think of to say it. It's a success at all it sets out to do...which is to do damage to your soul.

I assumed everyone was being obtuse...but damn...it really was JUST like Gorbino's Quest.

I've never played a game so unapologetically dedicated to what it wants to achieve artistically in my life.

Cruelty Squad is a bizarre, surreal mess of a game, that at a first glance genuinely looks awful, but beyond its purposefully off-putting exterior, you'll find a game with excellent mechanical freedom in it's gameplay and levels, hilarious writing, and bizarrely captivating world building.

This game is a once in a life time experience and its absolutely more than you think it is.

i really tried with every fibre of my being to like this game, and sometimes i almost convinced myself that i did. cruelty squad seems like the type of thing that should be right up my alley; it's a first-person shooter with immersive sim and stealth elements, a wacky sense of humour and i truly loved the kaleidoscopic low-poly phantasmagoria that assaulted my optic nerves from every angle. unfortunately, i found most of the gameplay tedious and often confusing, which was a real disappointment.

it probably works if you're the right kind of person, but, to me, it often feels like cruelty squad is a game actively fighting against you as you play, which i suspect is intentional. it's like the devs tried really hard to break every single convention in the medium, and while i respect that enormously, it doesn't make for a very fun game. i still found lots to enjoy here, though. again, the visual style is awesome, and while certainly not for everyone, i love the surreal and abstract textures that coat every surface. i loved the music that sounds like it was ai-generated, except the ai was dropped as a child and thrown in the bin. it all creates such a unique atmosphere that really makes you feel like you're living in a hyper-capitalist dystopia where corporations are more people than people and profits matter more than human lives. its an incredible escape from reality.

i thought the writing was genuinely hilarious. i found myself speaking to every npc i could, even the ones that i was meant to be assassinating, because every single dialogue box would make me smirk or giggle or outright laugh at. people talked to me about how much they hated their lives, living as a cog in the machine. others would tell me about how much they loved life once they surrendered themselves to the system. comedy gold, i say!

but outside of the game's presentation, i didn't really enjoy much. you can see where the devs have attempted to inject some immersive simulation into the level design, and while i thought it was interesting it didn't really wow me. combat is pretty shit. reloading by moving the mouse down is a novel idea, but not especially fun either. i hated that one enemy that completely distorts your screen when you look at it, that was really annoying. the default controls are completely bizarre, and seem to be different to conventional controls just for the sake of it. it's a very strange design decision to put reload on RMB, zoom on SHIFT, use on R and crouch on X. and i didn't understand the point of the stock market mechanics at all really, it seems like it's included just to go with the whole 'capitalism' theme. i'm sure you could cheese it pretty easily to buy all the upgrades in the store, but i don't find anything enjoyable about buying and selling stocks. the movement was pretty fun, though. i saved up for the grappling hook and had a great time swinging around and smashing into walls. but i mostly just used it to try and get through levels as quickly as possible so i didn't have to play anymore.

would i recommend cruelty squad to anyone? no. if you want to experience the best parts of this game, just stare at the screenshots on the steam page for a while.

Going into this game after having it in my library for so long and reading a bit of it just to get an idea out of the two screenshots i saw two years ago made me a bit happy, "oh boy so its a stealth game?" not really "and also an immersive sim?" maybe. My butt feels kind of sore now after just going through a miserable 4 missions but that's the general aftertaste this game gives me, the aftermath of being anally molested by a vomit made slime, leaving aside its general aesthetic and the theme of the game, that have already been said in these backloggd reviews, this barely feels like an stealth oriented game and an immersive sim. yes having a silenced weapon is fun but if the only "tactical stealth" elements that your game incorporates at the start are shoot before they see you, and a barely working uh... visibility indicator? that shows up randomly then... i can only smile at you awkwardly...

Not finishing this.

Is this the funniest game ever made?

I mean. No. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Todd's Day Out will likely never be beaten in that regard, but a lot of games TRY to be funny. Jazzpunk comes to mind, a game I was told was very funny and fun but I found to be neither. Some games are funny, but not "fun". More exercises in joke telling, like The Stanley Parable.

This game, however is both fun and funny. You can speculate on illicit biocurrencies. Eminently quotable lines. The life bar may be one of the funniest HUD elements I've ever seen. But you also can go sicko mode with speed upgrades and intestinal-spiderman slinging to pull off sick 360 no-scopes on mayors in crowded malls. You might get REAL nausea playing this, which is both funny and fun.

I knew I was going to like this game, but I had no idea I was going to LOVE it.

Cruelty Squad is a very interesting game, one that I thoroughly enjoy but also feel somewhat sour on.

I love the art style, vomit on the screen that somehow ends up being cohesive when you actually play the game. Same thing with the vibes, the bleak and hyper-cynical capitalist hellscape where human life is worth less than the price of the organs. However, the game is very on the nose so it feels less like scathing commentary and more so a parody. The writing is also quite funny and fits with how absurd the game is. The music does suck though, it fits, but it just sounds like ass. The absurdity also extends to controls and game systems as well.

What is the reload button? If you said R then what were you thinking you buffoon, clearly it would be holding right-click and slamming your mouse downward you stupid idiot. R is logically the interact button. L-shift is aim-down-sights, swap weapon is C, and crouch is X. This is the way God intended man to play FPS games. To keep to wackiness going, there is not one, not two, but three different stock markets; one for actual company stocks, and the other two are for speculative biological investments, human organs and fish. I am a big fan of Balls Fish.

Levels are large and filled with multiple routes. You may even notice places that you can’t reach. That’s where bodily enhancements come into play. Ever felt like your appendix is just being a freeloader and not contributing enough, then why not make it a grappling hook. Why stop there, make your back and feet shoot gunk to jump and zoom around the place. Frickin’ absolve yourself in a flesh suit to be more protected but removing more than have of your visibility. The augments are all very thematic and some really shake up how you play the game, like the grappendix. The grappendix is one of the earlier augments that really shake up how you approach missions. You start off peaking around corners to get the jump on enemies, to flinging yourself to your target and finishing levels in less than a minute. There is one caveat though, why is everything so expensive. There is cheapo stuff, but it ranges from boring to making the game nigh unplayable, looking at you nightmare goggles.

If you want to truly experience Cruelty Squad, you have to grind for money. Which I guess fits the capitalist hellscape, but this is a game, and I want to have fun on a game. You don’t get paid relatively much for completing missions, so you’re forced to play the market. Playing the stock market is not something I enjoy doing, I want to be a Cruelty Squad employee not some wannabe stock trader. You can also grind for fish, especially a certain sewer dwelling fish, but again I want to play Cruelty Squad, not be a fisherman. It sucks that you have to go through menial garbage, just to open up the game. Also, the “final” level sucks. The best parts of the final level are the shortcut that skips the godawful block pushing puzzles with Gorbino from megahit Gorbino’s Quest harassing you and the ending. The rest of the level is fine, it’s just that terrible block pushing. Additionally, difficulty selection is overly convoluted, even for this game. If you’re confused how difficulty selection can be convoluted, then pay attention to the screen borders and you’ll figure it out soon enough.

Cruelty Squad is a truly absurd and strange game. I wish is didn’t feel as sour as I do on it, but I walk away from it thinking about how one of a kind and different it is. That alone elevates it to something special, even with my gripes. It is definitely worth experiencing firsthand.

I can rate this if I watched the person I bought it form right?

One of two games that can be considered art--this one in a more modern sense. Its abrasive nature actively challenges the player's senses, and leaves for a truly unique experience.

I can not imagine a more bleak future for a story to take place in, and yet the darkness of the world makes for great comedy.

Can't wait for Psycho Patrol: R.

En Cruelty Squad somos un asesino a sueldo que debe matar a personalidades importantes. Muchas veces con puestos importantes dentro de megacorporaciones. Ya que su mundo se ambienta en una distopia donde las corporaciones parecen dominar el mundo. Un mundo retorcido. Nuestro personaje además parece poder integrarse ciertos componentes, mostrando la fusión entre lo humano y lo artificial. Nada nuevo vaya.

Todo esto sirve de contexto para su planteamiento. En cada fase o nivel tenemos uno o varios objetivos a los que eliminar. Antes de entrar podemos prepararnos comprando y equipando a nuestro personaje diferentes componentes que nos otorgarán alguna ventaja. Cada nivel está planteado como un espacio de juego que nos permite expresarnos de ciertas maneras. Podemos intentar un aproximación más sigilosa buscando caminos alternativos o una mucho más brusca matando a todo lo que se mueve. Es un juego enfocado en el speedrun, favoreciendo la rapidez con la que eliminamos a nuestro objetivo y salimos del lugar.

Lo que más llama la atención es su estética pseudopsicodélica mezclada con con unos gráficos que bien podrían encontrarse en una Nintendo 64. Algo que al principio echa muy para atrás. Ya que quiere evocar sensaciones de rareza, incomodidad incluso.

Todos estos elementos, si bien no me aportan nada nuevo, creo que podrían haber sido suficientes para llegar a hacer algo interesante, sobre todo por su particular estilo artístico. Pero en realidad es más vacío de lo que aparenta.

Cruelty Squad es un juego meme, que a través de su estilo y sus mecánicas de shooter parecen querer que los jugadores hagan vídeos absurdos del juego. Ya que tiene una fuerte carga humorística, no solo a través de todos sus elementos estéticos, también mediante la forma en la que se plantea su sistema y las mecánicas. Coger los cuerpos desmembrados y tirarlos, patear a los NPCs, vacilar a la estúpida IA de los enemigos...

Y todo esto que parecen posibilidades es algo bastante limitado. Desde luego, cumple su cometido, ya que hay varios jugadores que han intentado el speedrun definitivo y he visto que se pueden realizar auténticas locuras explotando sus armas, mecánicas y entorno. Sin embargo, como FPS no me aporta nada nuevo. Ni siquiera sus espacios me parecen lo suficientemente interesantes de navegar. Pensaba que a lo largo del juego fuera a haber un giro que cambiara mi percepción del juego completamente, pero no lo había, está creado para el speedrun y el meme. Algo que contradice a su aparentemente interesante trasfondo, que se transmite de manera muy críptica y parece querer apuntar a algo trascendental. Sin embargo, eso se pierde por el camino y hace del juego una experiencia olvidable.