GAME REVIEW WI
was just about hip-deep in corpses
and spent shotguns shells when I
read the writing on the wall. Scrawled
in blood, a message: ‘Don’t go in the
ruins.’ I heard a raspy noise behind
me. It wasn’t quite an animal sound,
but it wasn’t human, either. I turned
and found something much worse
than a bad guy. A closed door marked
Ruins Access. The raspy breathing
came again from just behind it. I felt an
actual chill run down my back.
Dusk is a homage to late 90s corridor
shooters like Doom, Quake and Half-
Life. It’s also a love letter to weird cultist
horror films like The Hills Have Eyes and
Deliverance. More importantly, it’s great.
Waking up hanging from a meathook
is at least the third-worst way to wake
up. At the beginning of Dusk, I’m
meathooked, trapped in a hostile world,
and mostly unarmed. Like the 90s
shooters it draws inspiration from, the
first tool Dusk gives players is speed.
Pressing the forward button zips me
along the ground, and, charmingly,
bunnyhopping adds momentum just
like it used to in the old days. With a
heavy W-finger and a lot of jumping,
exploring the creepy farmhouses and
industrial buildings of Dusk’s first
chapter felt like touring a videogame art
museum on a motorcycle.
It’s not speed for speed’s sake; I’m
moving fast because it’s the only way
to survive. There are a lot of different
enemies in Dusk, from possessed
scarecrows to hooded Klansmen
throwing dark magic, but almost all of
them charge straight ahead with melee
attacks or shoot swarms of projectiles at
me. The variety of enemies, some big,
some small, shooting bullets that move
at different speeds, makes every fight
a constantly changing obstacle course.
The only way to navigate a crowded
field of shooty monsters and bullets
is to move, to run circles around the
bad guys, kite them into big groups or
toward explosive barrels, and shoot as
fast as I can.
Speed is the first, but it’s not the only
tool. Starting with a pair of sharp sickles
and moving up through the traditional
FPS loadout closet, I shot demons and
bad guys with pistols, lever-action
rifles, double-barreled super shotguns,
assault rifles, sniper rifles, and grenadeWHY
SHOULD
I CARE?+ You think the
90s is the best
decaade.
+ Hint: you are
correct
+ You never met
a corridor shooter
you didn’t like.Dusk
perfectly captures and reloads the joy of classic ’90s shooters.
DEVELOPERDAVID SZYMANSKI • PUBLISHERNEW BLOOD INTERACTIVE
https://jefequeso.itch.io/Dusk is broken into three campaigns.
Starting from that first moment in that
weirdo’s murder-dungeon, I fought my
way through farms, industrial zones
and apartment buildings until I had
completely wiped out the cultist and/or
demon population of Dusk, Pennsylvania.SEEK AND DESTROY
This is where Dusk became more than a
parody or homage to a once-ubiquitous
genre and started kicking ass on its own
terms. The bare, pixelated corridors of
yore have been replaced by low-poly,
but recognizable and memorable, level
and environment design. I only ever
discovered hallways in classic Doom,
but in Dusk I fought bad guys in bars,
bookshops, bedrooms, labs, hay lofts, gas
stations, and convenience stores.
Dusk insists on using the classic trope
of locked doors and colored keycards.launchers. The most unexpected
weapon I’ve found so far is the Riveter,
a bulky steel box that launches hot
construction-grade welding rivets that,
for some reason, explode spectacularly.
I’m not sure why a rivet driver might act
this way, but it is extremely enjoyable.
The blocky graphics in Dusk are its
most obvious throwback reference to
the era of games it idolises, but damn
if they don’t look great anyway. The
sharp polygons of enemy bodies might
be two decades out of date, but very
modern takes on advanced lighting and
particle effects did a lot to make me feel
interested in exploring and blowing
up the world around me. The limited
polygons and low-res textures have a
jagged, unreal quality that makes corn
mazes look creepy and country churches
look properly cursed by evil magics.
The singleplayer portion ofIs it a ghost? Not
sure, but it
dies if you shoot it.ɂȗȗȤíî MORE GREAT RETRO-STYLE SHOOTERS
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