Is this a 'classic boomershooter' like back in the 90s? No, it's not. This game combines many elements from a variety of old and modern shooters. The atmosphere is a mixe of Blood, Quake, and Doom 1/2. However, the gameplay and story feel like a nice combo of classic boomershooters and more modern games such as Quake 2 ,Half-Life 1/2, Doom 2016, and Wolfenstein 2014 plus , with environments akin to build games. The overall graphical design isn't bad, but it lacks authenticity to the era it's trying to replicate. Is this a bad thing? Hell no. If you're looking for a fun-to-play game and don't want to see Doom, Quake, or Duke Nukem 3D for thecountless time again, this game will not give you something completley new more like a feeling of "Hey, I remember this from gmae X!", but the game is well made and fun to play.

Dusk is one of the best indie boomer shooters on the market with so much creativity being put into each level. Dusk's theme is nothing too crazy when compared to the other boomer shooters, same guns, health pickups, and secrets. but what makes Dusk stand out is how each level plays. Every level ends up being a short story with new ideas and scenarios that you need to manage. The final episode ends up being the best combination of level design and new elements that make everything feel so satisfying. Only wish we could see more of this creativity with more levels.

the basic problem with Dusk is that it does little to improve upon the games it is a homage to. this wouldn't be a problem if classic first-person shooters were ever anything more than mediocre, but they aren't: Doom, Quake, Half-Life, etc. are all ultimately boring; bland repetition of geometry intended primarily as arenas for combat which actually is as simple as "shooting it until it dies" with a requirement for spatial awareness etc. rarely relevant -- but mostly you'll just be circle-strafing. it's "mindless fun", the worst kind of "fun". it's only with more experimental action-adventure games like System Shock and Deus Ex -- "immersive sims" -- and more demanding character action-inspired shooters like ULTRAKILL and Doom Eternal that the genre becomes more than a slightly more sophisticated version of Cookie Clicker.

there seems to be little thought to game-mechanical design in every aspect of the game; there are in most scenarios too many weapons which overlap too much in niche -- a classic of this genre, there are several redundant and trivial enemy types, level design is often bewilderingly poor -- often literally just being huge open spaces with spammed enemies -- and borders on the quality of something like Doom II's more infamous maps, bosses are universally too easy and uninteresting, the porn-narrative cheese of Doom et al. is mimicked with little thought, etc. the guiding principle for the game's development seems to of been "wouldn't this be cool" more than anything else.

there is one truly good level in this game, the penultimate one, and it's the best level in the game precisely because it's by far the most difficult, which makes me think that the game's real issue is that it's just far too easy (and yes, I played on Cero Miedo), never demanding too much of you or pushing you to form evermore synaptic connections; it's far too comfortable, and because of that it's largely boring.

Juegazo inspirado en el mejor shooter de todos
QUAKE (y algo de Blood)
El gameplay para ser algo honestos es algo conflictivo por que por un lado es buenisimo en todas las opciones que tienes disponible.
Parry, Bunnyhop, Agarrar props y usarlos para plataformas o barricadas, Propulsarte con armas, un huevo de posibilidades

Pero todo eso se va al garete cuando te das cuenta que la A.I de los enemigos es super simplona y a MUY duras penas en CERO MIEDO (La dificultad) Apenas dan desafio siquiera.

Por otro lado el Soundtrack, es una maravilla. Track buenisima tras otra.

Si pudiese cambiar algo de este juego seria el A.I de los enemigos para que este mas a la altura del player.

Now, I'm definitely not the biggest boomer shooter guy. I like to believe we've come a long way from circle-strafing around a bunch of dudes in a big arena, gunning them down one by one, like mowing a lawn while on 2mg of fentanyl. But to deny their significance to the genre, hell, the medium as a whole, or to suggest they're "outdated" or some other bullshit you'd hear some blue-haired zoomer spout, would be nothing short of asinine. They still deserve love, arguably more than they get, and DUSK is proof of that.

DUSK is a love letter to everything that's amazing about boomer shooters. A culmination of what has made the genre so timeless, in spite of the inherent simplicity of a game that would constitute such a categorisation. A Frankenstein of the bouncy and bombastic gunplay and platforming that made such games iconic.

Speaking of Frankenstein, what kind of internet nobody would I be if I were to forget the incredible setting of the game? Dave Szymanski really knocked it outta the park with this one. Travelling from middle-of-nowhere rural villages to sprawling military complexes RE4-style, and capping it off with a mysterious and ancient city of cultists, the world of DUSK is something truly never-before-seen. It certainly helps that a lot of the levels can be legitimately scary at times, with the introduction of new and unfamiliar monsters in dark, cramped hallways, unbefitting of the genre as a whole, but working perfectly to compliment the vibe of the game. Fuck wendigos, by the way.

The sound design for a few of the enemies could use a little work, but besides that, the unique blend of grindhouse and eldritch horror on display is a treat to behold, but not without its tricks, of course. The opening level starting with you being thrown into some dark, dingy basement with a couple of chainsaw-wielding rednecks, armed with nothing but a couple of farming tools, has got to be one of the most badass setpieces in the genre. Shit's straight out of a late '90s slasher movie.

And like any good slasher movie, a good game can be easily identified by its weapons, and DUSK is no exception. One-upping Arnie by John Wooing cultists with a pair of Winchester 1887s, sending some demons to God with a hunting rifle that kicks like a mule and hits like a truck, and don't even get me started on the sheer annihilation you can dish out with the riveter. The sound design for all of them is super punchy, and they all feel unique and serve a specific purpose. Really wish there was a bigger ammo pool for the hunting rifle though...

But, of course, it doesn't stop there. The flexibility to look up or down further than 180 degrees, enabling you to perform front/backflips and shoot things upside down in mid-air. Picking up and interacting with physics objects in the environment, such as the soap bar, neatly hidden away in most levels with the ability to kill anything in one hit. Bullet time powerups that allow you to bob, weave, blast-jump and air-strafe around bullets and baddies. There are so many cool little facets about DUSK that make it stand out from the competition, and that is what makes it so solid in my eyes; the skeleton of a boomer shooter encased in the flesh and blood of a truly interactive and intricately woven FPS experience.

With DUSK being a relative newcomer in a genre with as long and storied a history as boomshoot, and with memorable music being what keeps the memory of a game alive, even with all the good I've talked about it before now, the game wouldn't be spoken half as highly of were it not for the contribution of one Andrew Hulshult, a man whose name is so synonymous with the genre that he even took over from Mick Fucking Gordon of recent DOOM fame to work on DOOM Eternal's DLCs. After all, you're gonna have to REALLY kick it into high gear to outdo something like BFG Division, so how does Keepers Of The Gate compare?

Overall, DUSK is irrefutably one of the best shooters released in the last decade, maybe ever. Every piece of the puzzle is laid out neatly; the guns, the goons, the banging tunes, all of it comes together perfectly. The constant tension and adrenaline from Szymanski and Hulshult's intoxicating blend of balls-out action and rip-that-dudes-balls-off metal riffs make for a truly one-of-a-kind experience, and I cannot wait to see what they both do in the future.

Dusk: Dusk was pretty loudly recommended to me by Steam frequently for years since its Early Access release and I finally gave it a go after seeing a nice discount and news of an HD upgrade. It's a good game, but ultimately I wasn't all too impressed.

I think my favorite thing about Dusk was that, from a level design perspective, it certainly tries to keep you guessing. You'll pass through a variety of sights, starting with the swamps and foundries and ending up in Escher-inspired labs and Hellish atria. There are the classic Doom-like levels with a couple colored key cards, some hallways and some rooms/areas clearly designed for shootouts, and then there are “narrative” levels that'll remind you of a faster paced Max Payne nightmare sequence: pretty on rails and maybe too much voice over work in the background, but it is never enough to really annoy you.
Problem is I don't think it's enough to ever really excite you, either. The intro is cool, with you just starting in a basement while three chainsaw-wielding psychos try to murder you and you fight back with dual sickles; an interesting melee weapon choice. But after this intro? It's pretty stock stuff.
Don't expect to learn anything about a plot except for two text dumps between the next chapters. I don't need a plot in a game which is focused on the gameplay, but that just means the gameplay has to be tighter than my uncle's grip in the garage that one summer, and I don't think it was. It never hit the highs of any good Doom game and isn't really all that clever, either.

Maybe it's partially the weapons, they're just not that good. The sword is overpowered, especially with its charge attack when you have 100+ health; the dual pistols quickly become completely worthless; the akimbo shotguns and super shotgun can burn through ammo very fast and have a low ammo cap (though the akimbo shotties were very fun); the machine gun is boring and so close to sounding punchy enough but not quite; the hunting rifle is fun, but like the shotguns has a low ammo capacity and not very practical in most of the close quarters areas; the crossbow is the hunting rifle but weaker/faster; and finally the riveter and mortar are very strong but almost identical to one another and probably should just be combined into one explosive weapon, or just lose the mortar entirely.

It has all the staples you'd expect with secret areas inside secrets areas, rooms that turn into enemy-spawning ambushes when you pick up a key, and lame bosses who don't know when to die. Fortunately, there's only one area in the game where you're stuck and deal with wave after wave of enemies, having you kill about 230 of them. A worse developer would have thrown in one of these per chapter, I'm happy restraint was shown because I was done after the one time.

So the gameplay is the game. Is it good? It's fine. I don't think you'll see anything in Dusk you haven't seen elsewhere, but that's not necessarily the worst thing as long as it's done well (see: Lies of P). Unfortunately, I don't think this is done that well. I'm certainly happy I got it on discount, especially since the HD upgrade looks terrible and its saves don't work with the original game, which I ended up sticking with. The worse graphics are better, who woulda thought.
I can see myself coming back to Dusk some day for a little bit o' murder, but no day soon.

I sorta recommend Dusk, but never at full price.

Dusk is a game that takes all the right lessons from horror-esque games like it, like Blood or Doom. Through and through it was a fantastic experience that constantly surprised me with how it presented itself. No hitscans exist, easter eggs are wildly fun, and playing on Cero Miedo truly got my adrenaline rushing, even when I started dying multiple times by the final levels. The horror part of it really got to me as well, trying to make me feel scared and brave at the same time like I'm an idiot who isn't supposed to rush in yet I do anyways. This is undeniably a must play, especially for massive boomer shooter fans.