It's finally time, kids, to talk about 2018's game of the year - the incomparable, the one and only DUSK. I talked about it in a video a little while ago, and I wasn't even gonna do a series on it. But then Episode 3 dropped, and my eyes were opened to its majesty. Having all three episodes gives you a good perspective of the game as a whole. We can't just go straight into Episode 3, though. We got to really dig in deep. Dusk is a shockingly intricate game - This ain't some fly-by-night-five-bucks-on-Steam-retro-FPS-throwback where it's a bunch of sparse maps and some boring guns and endless waves of enemies. I mean, there's plenty of guns and monsters, don't worry. And if you're worried about spoilers, I would suggest clicking away from this video, buying Dusk, playing it, and then coming back and watching the video. you can get Dusk from waste.money. I'm not kidding. That's real. So Dusk comes from New Blood Interactive - more specifically, from these three madmen: David Szymanski, designer, Dave Oshri, producer and doggo enthusiast, and returning champion Andrew Hulshult doing the music. And if you want a quick review of this game, it's amazing. If it couldn't stand tall among the other giants of the FPS genre, I wouldn't be doing a series on it. I'm not calling this "Pro Dusk". I'm not a pro yet. I've had the full game for like a month and a half. We're still playing on 'Cero Miedo", though. What the fuck do you think this is? When you boot up the game you're greeted with this - [Classic game startup beep] - and it's like nostalgic acupuncture in my brain. Render mode: software? Soundboomer card? Headphones are a good idea, though. The sound of the music, uh, How could I do one of them chef kisses, only in audio... *chef's kiss* Okay, story. There *is* a story: You are "Dusk Dude" (Not "Dusk Guy" like I said in the other video), and you're a treasure hunter, looking through the abandoned town of Dusk, when you get jacked by some sack-headed hillbillies and put on meat hooks, but since Dusk Dude is an absolute badass, he breaks free, retains 200 health, and melees these rednecks carrying chainsaws using sickles. These guys are called Leathernecks. They're simple enemies that charge at you with a chainsaw, and if you're playing on "Cero Miedo", they close the distance quick. You have about a second between the swing of the chainsaw to get out of the way. The mages are a little easier to deal with. They throw fireballs and shout the name of classic FPS games at you. [Mage: "HERETIC."] [Mage: "BLOOD."] Then we get the Black Phillips...who I hate. They're not as bad on lower difficulties, but they have these projectiles that go absurdly fast, making them a priority target. One well-placed shotgun blast can usually take 'em down. Dusk Dude, while not being shown off much in the game itself, fan art (and fan art that became official art) shows him looking like a cross between Caleb and beta Gordon Freeman. The game introduces you to a bunch of important mechanics in the first room, like secrets, which are everywhere, and necessary to your survival. There's a pistol hidden right over here... [You found a secret!] Just like in classic FPS games like Trespasser: Jurassic Park, You can pick things up and throw them, like this saw blade. This barrel. This gas canister. What's this doing here? Well, like in real classic FPS games - specifically Build games - there are cracks in the wall that can be blown up to reveal secrets. This gets you your first shotgun, and destroys the intended level progression. I'm not complaining. So you pick up health packs. Your armor isn't armor, it's morale, which you get by picking up treasure 'cause you're a treasure hunter. Skipping the first areas by way of this
secret that takes you to the surface, that's not what I do - I go back. Cause there's other secrets and a second pistol.
Of *course* you can dual wield pistols. Now there's a shotgun in this first secret, and I encourage everybody to find it so you can go upstairs and get a second one. [Mage: "SACRIFICE," then promptly dies] Cause you can dual wield those, too - in that Terminator 2 one-handed way that Arnold nearly broke his hand doing on set - but this is a video game, so it doesn't matter. The pistols don't do a ton of damage, so now you've got two shotguns that are just right, exactly as impactful as they should be. They have just the right rhythm: [Double Shotgun rhythm] Instead of reloading, you can press R to twirl your guns around. Sometimes this is an effective melee attack. Sometimes it gets you killed. [Death groan] But here's the most important game mechanic: [Flush] [Drops book in toilet] [Flushes book] [Flushes TP] Right next to that, however - and I'm going for the achievement in this playthrough so you're gonna see this a lot - the soap. Pick up the soap; throw it at enemies. It's an instant kill on pretty much everything. You'd think this would destroy the game's balance, but it takes a certain amount of precision to be able to grab this stuff while moving. I don't know if the movement in Dusk is the star of the show. It's like classic Quake movement turned up to 11. You're already fast and agile; strafe hopping takes you straight to Plaid. [Dusk Dude hups] [Dusk Dude goes Plaid] The game encourages moving this fast, and somehow the [Dusk Dude: "Hup, hup, hup"] doesn't get annoying. I can't explain it, good sound design? Not to mention when you're in midair, you can flip around so you can strafe jump a hundred miles an hour while backflipping and shotgunning cultists in the face. Don't be fooled into thinking you're playing some Quake clone, cause I was at first too. That's what I thought. I thought it was a really tightly-designed Quake clone with some Blood influences, a little Redneck Rampage over here. That's one of the tricks the game pulls on the player. Fundamental to understanding Dusk is that it lulls you into thinking it's a cheap retro FPS throwback that rides on the coattails of the classics. It knows what you're thinking. Special mention goes to doing a slide when you're running and you hit Crouch, I love it. Back to the first secret, though, where you get your first power-up: the Fast Fire Totem, Which is self-explanatory and lets you go nuts on the enemies for maximum cathartic bloodshed. [Fast Fire Totem heartbeat] [Rapid shotgun blasts] There's so many little details in this game that I have to talk about. I'm not finding all the secrets cause I don't know where all the secrets are. I know where all the secret *levels* are, and we'll get to that really soon, because the first secret's in E1M2: Down on the Farm. If you didn't catch the secret Fast Fire power-up in level one, you get it right at the beginning here, and since you've got two shotguns... [Rapid fire shotgun blasts] [Fast Fire Totem heartbeat] [More shotgun fire] [Black Phillips become aware of Dusk Dude] [Fast Fire Totem shotgun fire cleaning up the stragglers] If I ever need to point out how low-poly or low-res graphics can be a legitimate art style, the first game I'll bring up is Dusk. Everything is so cohesive that I barely notice it when playing. All the trees are a flat texture? I didn't notice, I was too busy blasting cultists with my cube-barreled shotgun! These windows that are just textures? I didn't even think about it till I was rewatching the footage. The atmosphere is *too* good. Okay, here's a protip: Light a fire. You don't need any tools. You're Dusk Dude! Just look at it and fire happens. Pick up a certain kind of viscera lying around, hold it on a fire and eat it - EAT IT - for 25 HP. Now let's not spoil everything here... ...except this entire level, because even though the secrets aren't that hard to find, they're important. This one, especially, because you get the most powerful weapon in the game out of it: the Riveter. It's your multi-purpose, death-dealing, explosive-barfing murder machine. You want to get it, cause it's gonna come in handy for the Scarecrows. Yeah, those come to life. And you know they're gonna, you've played a video game before with scarecrows in it that just pop to life. You pass by this one near the start of the level, and it does nothing, But then *this* one shows up and'll wreck you if you're not careful. He's got a fucking double-barreled shotgun! He hits hard, especially on Cero Miedo, and my prescription is two Rivets. [Administering two Rivets as prescribed] Riveter ammo is everywhere in this episode if you're willing to look for it. You even get it in non-secret areas pretty frequently. Your first somewhat big battle in Dusk is in this level and I don't like to do it without a Riveter. ["Bleeding Out" by Andrew Hulshult plays] ♫ Also: [Dusk Dude Riveter jumps] [Secret chime and Hollowed Health pick-up sound] So we're going to the secret level, "The Dim Slough" - a little swampy level that gives me the opportunity to talk about something really cool, Which is "six degrees of freedom' water movement. Sure, it's not a huge deal. It's cool, and I enjoy it a lot. I don't know why more games don't do it. Oh, dammit, I forgot about the cigar with the "S" cross hair. You know, the "S" thing you used to draw in school. The cigar gives you a point of health from every puff, which is not how cigars work. Ten points off. Fucking raw. Nice fucking model *honk-honk*. "Old Time Religion" - this level gets a lot of love from me. First, because its atmosphere and color palette are beautiful. Second, it's when the game's awesome music started hitting me. Just listen to this ["Ashes to Ashes, Dusk to Dusk"by Andrew Hulshult plays] ♫ This level is important, because it really gives you your first taste of what Dusk has to offer in terms of gameplay that's not your standard "retro FPS" fare. Just a taste though; Dusk doesn't want to show its hand too early. A good decision, because it makes those later episodes hit even harder. So you're just digging deeper and deeper into this town, and suddenly the Intoxicator shows up. Shoot at him till he dies; that's really all I can say about that. You might have noticed that you get a slight morale boost from "quaffing" beer, so I made it a rule to get as drunk as often as possible. [Intoxication Count:1] And it's not like Duke Nukem where he gets drunk off one tall boy, the fucking pussy. [Duke Nukem drinks tall boy, burps] [Civvie]: Uhh, Makes it kind of hard to aim and shit with the, with th- with the camera moving like this Yeah, I forgot about the-the rats. There are rats and they're like, they're in the sewer, So, uh, I'm gonna do a-do a sewer count on that one too [Sewer Cunt: 123] [Civvie]: Yeah. [Jacob]: "My pet." "You'll pay for that." [Dusk Dude quaffs beer in defiance] That guy talking to you is Jacob, by the way. He's the cult leader. We'll see him later - much, *much* later. In the "Steamworks", you get a Super Shotgun. I'm sorry, you *seize* the Super Shotgun. Don't think you're getting those Rise of the Triad jokes past me, Dusk, uh-uh! The Super Shotgun is everything a double-barreled shotgun should be in a video game. It's big, it's powerful, it's got a really meaty sound to it: [Super Shotgun fires] And it turns anything weaker than a leatherneck into giblets, sometimes more than one at a time. God, yes. Like I said before, there are secrets everywhere. Steamworks has the greatest one in the episode, in my humble opinion, and I'm showing it off to you out of love. Good secret. Ton of shells and machine gun ammo. I didn't even talk about the machine gun. It's an FPS machine gun. It does what it needs to and is satisfying to use. I'm not knocking it. Further into that secret, there are six rivets. Cool. Nice. The Dusk symbol. "He is all around you". Creepy, sure. Creepy because this room is lit like a death scene in Creepshow: [Scene from "The Crate" plays] So maybe you won't notice this ladder here that brings you up to... Oh baby, there it is. Swim swim hungry motherfuckers. Okay, this game's been pretty easy so far. Episode 1, as you'd expect, is easier than the others. Since this is Cero Miedo - Spanish for "No Fear" - enemies and projectiles are faster, and you're gonna start feeling that right about now. Hordes of Black Phillips. Fireballs from every direction. Four - *FOUR* - Scarecrows coming at you. You get the Hunting Rifle in this level, a practical addition to the arsenal for long-range combat. Let's simplify it and say that it does the same kind of damage as the Super Shotgun does, except from across the map. It's great for two-shotting Scarecrows and one-shotting lower enemies that might be giving you trouble. This game is so cute, it spawns like a dozen wizards down there, thinking I'm gonna snipe them. [Rivet-snipes wizards into chunky salsa] Hunting rifle ammo is precious and I'm not wasting it. You might be asking yourself, "What is the crystal of madness?" I didn't know at first either. Let's kill two birds with one stone. [AX3]: "Actionable pun detected." [Drill spinning, Civvie is clearly happy about it] Hup-hup-hupping all the way to the end of Level and...shit! Here we have the Fork Maidens, who fire green shit at you that hurts a *lot*. They take like three hits from the Super Shotgun to go down. Not these ones, though. Because that Crystal of Madness makes whichever monster you throw at it turn on the others. [Fork Maidens attack each other] It's awesome here because I lose track of which one I threw it at. That'll do, ladies. The Cutty Mine is a dark, haunted, dangerous place. Look at that spooky ghost! But take a listen, let the game really sink in here, when you get the key and open a door to a walled-off passage where Jacob laughs at you. [Door opens, revealing a wall] [Jacob laughs] Get to a room, you have it spawn a bunch of monsters. You plow through them only to here at the very end before you leave - No rather before he *lets* you leave - [Jacob]: "Impressive." Next is Dead of the Night: a nice little arena of a level, unless you count all these secrets. Pretty fun, jumping around, sniping, getting the crossbow - a weapon I severely underestimated at first. Don't be stupid like I am. It shoots through walls and enemies. And it tells you that when you pick it up. Check this out: [Mage: mutters but is cut short by crossbow bolt] ♪ [Roar of chainsaws as six leathernecks wake up] ♪ After this, you enter the Sanctum of the Worthy, which still another hole in the ground in a shitty backwoods town. And ooh boy, looks like them Duke boys is at it again! [Fiddle music plays ♪] [Jacob]: "They were..." "..Unworthy." [Civvie]: Damn straight. Again, me conserving Rivet ammo because there's always good use for it besides bosses, like this: [Dusk Dude uses jump pads, shoots Rivets at Scarecrows] Oh, I can go through this cool secret here and find the sword, which can block projectiles. It has a super attack if you have enough morale. But then the game pulls the rug out from under you again, because when you exit this secret, you're going straight to Frag Town. [Black Phillips attack, machine gun fire] That town being Dusk, population 666. It's fine, New Blood; I'm just busting your balls. You do you. You get the mortar in this level, too. That's the last weapon you get for the whole game. Yeah, you can get every weapon in Episode 1 if you're a decent secret hunter. Don't take that as a knock to Dusk. It was rumored that they had a BFG-like weapon in earlier versions and it didn't work out, and because the balance and implementation of these weapons is so good, I don't care. New monster: the Soldiers. Easy - couple of stray bullets and they go down like they're made of straw. I mean, not *magic* straw. The next one is my personal favorite level in Episode 1. Good thing I don't start the level on Intruder mode. Really helps to have a sniper rifle. Oh wait, no, there's one right here next to the start. Thanks, Dave. Great map. Lots of little secrets. Lots of environmental details I really like. [Intoxication Count: 2] [Intoxication Count: 3] [Dusk Dude]: "Hup-hup-hup" "You aren't supposed to be here, go away" Yeah, okay, but since I am... The crossbow shoots through walls, so we can hang out here and deal with this Fork Maiden and she can't do shit about it. There's a teleporter out here that takes you back in-bounds, so...this isn't cheating. Now, there's one fight in here that I want to use as an example of Dusk's more frantic moments: Where you walk in, the walls open, and you're surrounded. But not in the Serious Sam way - in the Doom and Quake way. You even get a Fast Fire power-up and forget what I said about the machine gun earlier. It's awesome. It's great! [Fast Fire Totem-enhanced Machine Gun fire] There's such good sound design in this game, honestly. Even in Episode one where it sounds like backwoods horror, it's... [Dusk Dude hups around with Crystal of Madness in tow] ...Really unnerving. I'm gonna get deeper into this stuff later. You guys have to understand. Episode 1 of dusk is a blast, but Episode 1 is the weakest episode. By design I imagine, since I played the rest and I can see what's been built on the foundation. We've still got one more obstacle between us and the second episode: Creations. The bosses. You'd better know how to strafe hop, or else kiss your ass good-bye. You even get a taste of the crazy scientists from episode 2. Aww, just look at him, isn't he cute? Dusk Dude demonstrates how cute he thinks the scientist really is] Now, I'm not saying that you guys should be cheap about this, but I'm gonna be. Well, half-cheap. I'll kill the first one. [Rivet fire with first Creation] [Soap acquired] [Second Creation arrives, is immediately soaped. Wise move.] [Lo Wang]: "Lo Wang soap you good, ha ha ha!" [Jacob]: "This is only the beginning." ♪
Great video. His other Pro Blood and Pro Shadow Warrior videos are absolutely great too.
For anyone looking into playing dusk, play Cero Miedo with intruder mode on! It changed the way you have to aproach certain levels and makes for a much more fun and challenging game. Otherwise, once you figured out the way movement and enemies work, the game can become a bit too easy ( if you are a seasoned fps player)