Art-style is zany and whatnot but it can't carry all.
Gameplay-wise I'd describe cruelty squad as a puzzle-y arena type shooter, because levels require a degree of trial and error to nail and controls and movement momentum are something you'd find in quake clones. You've got a wide range of mostly expensive upgrades that sound cool but require a LOT of dough to unlock. There's a stock market system that's sometimes affected by your missions kinda like GTA's, you can loot enemies for organs to sell, and an esoteric (see random) fish market.
With that aside, you came for the art direction like I did, and you may find out it's being over-sold. The setting is a satirical post-post-post-post-post-post capitalism but it's ironically not worth discussing. The real meat of this talk is level design, you've got rooms with visual gags, ambushes, "fuck you" death traps, and empty rooms, mileage varies from one level to another.
It grows stale because it feels dileberate, it isn't so out of touch that it amuses like what outsider art could be. It is a blend of just enough schizo-core that it sells, like an NPC that is spewing a "funny" equivelant of a twitter thread because his fans think he's "Debased and blacksuppositioned". Stuff like this come off as derivative references instead of humor standing on its own. Guess you could call it a current year game.
But yeah it's a mediocre game that caught headlines
Gameplay-wise I'd describe cruelty squad as a puzzle-y arena type shooter, because levels require a degree of trial and error to nail and controls and movement momentum are something you'd find in quake clones. You've got a wide range of mostly expensive upgrades that sound cool but require a LOT of dough to unlock. There's a stock market system that's sometimes affected by your missions kinda like GTA's, you can loot enemies for organs to sell, and an esoteric (see random) fish market.
With that aside, you came for the art direction like I did, and you may find out it's being over-sold. The setting is a satirical post-post-post-post-post-post capitalism but it's ironically not worth discussing. The real meat of this talk is level design, you've got rooms with visual gags, ambushes, "fuck you" death traps, and empty rooms, mileage varies from one level to another.
It grows stale because it feels dileberate, it isn't so out of touch that it amuses like what outsider art could be. It is a blend of just enough schizo-core that it sells, like an NPC that is spewing a "funny" equivelant of a twitter thread because his fans think he's "Debased and blacksuppositioned". Stuff like this come off as derivative references instead of humor standing on its own. Guess you could call it a current year game.
But yeah it's a mediocre game that caught headlines