SPRAWL

Review

SPRAWL is a hardcore first-person shooter set in a dystopic city in the future that takes a lot of inspiration from old classics like Quake and Doom, but also from recent cyberpunk titles like Ghostrunner. You play as Seven, a super soldier who ends up being betrayed and chased by a military regime known as Junta. After being saved by Father, a mysterious voice in her head, she accepts to free him if he helps her to find revenge in The Spire. Much of the story is narrated by the Father via text descriptions shown during each mission-loading screen, and QR codes that can be found in-game. Unfortunately, the plot of SPRAWL is not deep as I first expected. It can be often very generic and cliché, which is a pity considering what a setting like this can offer.

The first thing that will certainly leave you impressed is the soundtrack. It really sounds like “Making of Cyborg” by Kenji Kawai (that’s the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack, for anyone who doesn’t know). I was actually surprised to hear a similar music theme in a videogame and I think the only time I did was in NieR Automata. I tried to find the lyrics as I’m genuinely curious to know what they say, but at this moment I don’t think they are available anywhere. It seems like a lot of attention went in the music department because even the other ‘90s industrial/electronic music tracks available in the game are fantastic and they enhance all the action sequences. The same cannot be said for the sound effects, unfortunately. There was an annoying sound bug capable of damaging your ears, suddenly increasing the volume on respawn. Fortunately, this was fixed with a very recent update, though it definitely had an impact on my playthrough. Other than this particular issue, the different weapons’ sound effects are decent enough to differentiate them.

Starting the game and after a short cutscene you will go through a brief tutorial before jumping into non-stop action. The tutorial mostly focuses on wall running and shooting but, unless I missed a few messages, it doesn’t explain how to crouch, how to collect ammo (you will realize soon after that some enemies drop ammo) and how to switch weapons. If you have played enough FPS you probably don’t need a perfect tutorial, but I’m thinking more about those players who enjoy the cyberpunk setting but can be pushed away by the lack of complete info on how to play. Anyway, wall running is clearly the most important mechanic in the game. You will do that a lot and I must say it still feels a bit clunky and uncomfortable. Even when I jumped correctly, sometimes I had to double jump on the same wall because with my first jump I was about to fall down. The game has some serious difficulties starting wall-runs after jumping. Thankfully, there are no penalties for falling as you don’t receive any damage, but it can become quite annoying when you lose the momentum and you are being shot at from all sides.

Other than wall running, combat requires you to be fast and shoot everything that moves. You can temporarily use your ability to slow down time, which helps to aim more precisely at enemies’ weak points (highlighted in orange), such as their heads and jetpacks. You can also attack them using your katana (which is also clunky) and more weapons will unlock as you progress through the story. Sometimes you can try to ignore the enemies and run past them, if you are good enough at wall running and dodging their bullets. Overall, combat feels good enough as it constantly requires you to mix real-time shooting with bullet time. The difficulty is mostly well calibrated, but you must avoid missing your targets and wasting ammo because in some chapters they are hard to obtain and you will need many for the boss fights.

Visually the game looks really nice and I appreciated the retro FPS art style mixed with the cyberpunk setting and its neon lights. The performance is also nearly perfect; I didn’t run into any serious bugs or issues other than the ones mentioned above.

SPRAWL is a fun and engaging FPS, also thanks to the incredibly good soundtrack and the fascinating cyberpunk setting. The shooting is good enough, though the clunky melee combat and the imprecise wall running can make it less enjoyable at times. It took me around 6 hours to complete the game. A decent length, perfectly in line with the content offered and the price tag. There isn’t any replayability though and the story is not worth experiencing twice, but if you are a fan of the old Quake and Doom games you will certainly appreciate SPRAWL’s fast-paced gameplay.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

SPRAWL Steam Store Page