I thought Cultic was essentially theft when I paid just ten bucks for it but I just beat Zortch and it was only five dollars. I didn’t even hear anything about Zortch until the Steam Top 250 curator added it to their hidden gem category. The game deserves more love because this is in the upper echelon of quality of indie boomer shooter throwbacks. Zortch takes aesthetic and mechanic inspiration from the later 90’s shooters such as Quake 2, Turok 2, and most of all the original Unreal, and I think it exceeds them.
The level design hits the ideal of what I want these throwbacks to have with multiple ways to approach. Secrets are actually super reasonable and are mostly keeping an eye out in the environment for stuff like vents. I don’t even think this game has a map but I didn’t even need it the level design was such quality. There's strong enemy variety and the basic alien grunts are actually rather smart, their AI akin to the enemies of Unreal. They will jump around to try and get the high ground on you or flank you and they will shoot you through chainlink any chance they get. Unlike Unreal though this isn’t frustrating because they aren’t constantly juking all your shots. The weapons are mostly standard but are solid. Admittedly I didn’t even realize that the guns had alt-fire modes until I was in the final episode, which fixed some of the problems I had with the guns like how super bouncy the basic grenade launcher shot is.
The narrative is essentially non-existent until an infodump at the end of the game, but that’s not really a detriment for a game like this. The game also doesn’t have much in the way of a soundtrack, instead having more ambient sounds for most of the game. This does work as it adds to the atmosphere, but man games like Cultic and Dusk have just spoiled me on rad soundtracks.
As I’ve said Zortch needs more recognition, as it is, alongside Slayers X, one of the best throwback shooters that have come out this year.
The level design hits the ideal of what I want these throwbacks to have with multiple ways to approach. Secrets are actually super reasonable and are mostly keeping an eye out in the environment for stuff like vents. I don’t even think this game has a map but I didn’t even need it the level design was such quality. There's strong enemy variety and the basic alien grunts are actually rather smart, their AI akin to the enemies of Unreal. They will jump around to try and get the high ground on you or flank you and they will shoot you through chainlink any chance they get. Unlike Unreal though this isn’t frustrating because they aren’t constantly juking all your shots. The weapons are mostly standard but are solid. Admittedly I didn’t even realize that the guns had alt-fire modes until I was in the final episode, which fixed some of the problems I had with the guns like how super bouncy the basic grenade launcher shot is.
The narrative is essentially non-existent until an infodump at the end of the game, but that’s not really a detriment for a game like this. The game also doesn’t have much in the way of a soundtrack, instead having more ambient sounds for most of the game. This does work as it adds to the atmosphere, but man games like Cultic and Dusk have just spoiled me on rad soundtracks.
As I’ve said Zortch needs more recognition, as it is, alongside Slayers X, one of the best throwback shooters that have come out this year.
conman
10 months ago