Sprawl Zero Fuckin' Rules

Oh hey there. Week got you down? Try playing Sprawl Zero, it might make you feel a bit better. It worked for me.

Just look at this:

I've seen Sprawl Zero compared a lot to 90s shooters, and I see that. There are touches of everything from Quake to Shogo: Mobile Armor Division in this trailer, but I think that sells Sprawl Zero a bit short, because it's less about throwing back to the 90s and more about throwing back to the best bits of every shooter you've ever played.

It's got Half-Life 2's mastery of physics. It's got Max Payne's (or Timeshift's, if you prefer!) bullet-time. There's some of Neon White's devotion to scoring the perfect combo in any given situation, a touch of Deus Ex in its interface and even a dash of NeoTokyo in the game's drab (complimentary) concrete, cyberpunk cityscape.

All of which I'm telling you not to suggest Sprawl Zero is some crude grab-bag of influences, but that it's simply a shooter that makes you feel all of those things during the course of a single level. It's a game that references the 90s not in some meaningless visual way, but in an understanding that playing a first-person shooter can sometimes just be about finding the fastest, most badass way to the end of a level.

It's a breathless experience, one whose recurring beats are extreme violence, empowering abilities (let us all throw a gun at a guy’s head) and joyous set-pieces where you get to string everything together (as you see repeatedly in the trailer above) in the most satisfying ways imaginable. It rules, I feel like strongest and fastest and smartest man on Earth every time I play it.

Also shout out to the city: For a game where you're moving around really fast, all the time, it pays to stop for a second and soak it in. It looks so much better than this kind of throwback experience could ever be expected to.