["Goosebumps" theme] [approaching huffing] Welcome to “DUSK”! It’s going to be a very happy Halloween! “DUSK” is a retro 90’s styled shooter. A lot of those have been mediocre, but not this one. This one is good. In fact, this one is great! But before I get into why this game is so great, I’m guessing you wanna know what it’s about, so I’m just gonna go ahead and play the intro. [sound of a blade being pulled out of flesh] DISEMBODIED VOICE: “Kill the intruder…” Alright, now we can start. On the technical level, “DUSK” looks very authentic to the kind of game it’s trying to portray. Though it does have some effects and features that would probably obliterate your computer back then. If this still looks too modern for you, then I have good news: this game is highly customizable. You can knock down the pallet, up the pixelization and make the game look a lot older. You could also mess with colors, or use a preset filter. Alternatively, you can remove a lot of these things to make the game look newer, but… why? This video’s just using the regular settings. If you want the game to look like Gameboy Color, you can do that on your own. It’s set out to look like a classic FPS, and it succeeds in that. But that didn’t hold them back from adding visual flare and lighting effects. It does look older, but authentic to a time when they were still trying to push the visuals. For example, this forklift. In a different retro styled game, it’d probably look like this. It always comes across as a talented artist paying homage, and not subpar work being called “retro” (if that makes any sense to you…). So let’s talk about the art style. The first levels are grounded locations, but not afraid to use some dramatic lighting. There is a reason this is the Halloween video. It can be bleak, but not afraid to use a variety of colors. It also changes as the campaign goes on. At first, you might go “Oh, it’s a swamp”, or “Hey, this reminds me of another game”. And then, it starts taking a turn, and you realize you’re on a verge of unknowable madness. Especially the last third of the game. I’ll be showing the least of that. Okay, looks like another cave. Guess, I’ll just keep going for the- OH MY GAH-!! So, yeah, the levels have a lot of variety, and it just gets better and better. This is a game that has a haunted farm with a corn maze filled with cultists in the beginning of it. And evil scarecrows with shotguns. For me, that’s a high bar to pass. The same can be said for the enemy design. It also has the same kind of escalation the levels have. You START OFF fighting a strange cult and their demonic allies. Then a corrupted military, who seem to be taking notes from the Strogg, and then horrors from beyond the colors of time. It borrows a lot of visual design elements from older games, but it still ends up being it’s own thing. You have the soldiers and scientists from “Half-Life”, but I really wanna focus on the “Quake” elements. You fight soldiers and monsters in gothic environments, with a lot of Lovecraftian touches. This is very much “Quake 1”. You also fight a military using gruesome bio-mechanical cyborgs, and that’s “Quake 2”. While I did grow to appreciate the Strogg in “Quake 4” and eventually “Quake Wars”, I found them and their busted city a lot less interesting than “Quake 1”. I like cyborgs. Usually... They’re not quite up to the detail of “Quake 1” enemies, but it’s a good homage. Honestly, if I had to sum up the game in a sentence, I’d say that it feels like the “Quake 2” that we never got. There’s still a lot of other influences, and it’s not afraid to wear those on its sleeve. ENEMY: “Heretic!” ENEMY: “Blood!” Also, this game has no hit-scanning dickweeds in bath robes. They can just stay over there in “Blood” forever. Okay, let’s move onto sound. Especially the music. There’s a lot of it. [DUSK OST - Beautiful Blasphemy] [DUSK OST - The Beginning] [DUSK OST - Anesthetized] What blew me away was how often it would sync up to what was happening. [ominously rising track] [appropriately unrelenting metal track] After buying the soundtrack version of the game, I found out why. “DUSK” has over 40 tracks of music. And I don’t mean a looped track that’s 15 seconds or whatever – I mean 43 original pieces of full-length music. Including secret ones, the game has 33 levels, so you have enough to give each area a unique theme, but also enough for special events, like unique enemies spawning in, or maybe a boss showing up. It has a fitting metal soundtrack to its core, but branches out a lot. The sheer amount of music with the changing levels and enemies kept thing feeling fresh the entire way through the campaign. On top of that, the sound design in general is solid. SCORNFUL VOICE: “Another sacrifice…” [disturbing gasping and wheezing] The weapon sounds are also very strong and impactful. [*BAM*] "Oh, my shoulder!"
[*BAM*] [*BANG*] [*BAM*] [*BAM-BAM-BAM*] [punchy shots] [loud gunfire and enemy noises] Okay, we gotta get to the gameplay. Our hero – Duskdude – has come searching for precious metals and gems. He also shares his own metal with the locals. The campaign takes place across 3 episodes. They can be played in any order you want, though, obviously, you learn the most about the story and have a better experience playing it in order. There are 5 difficulties to choose from, and they don’t just affect damage rates. The lower difficulties are incredibly generous. On the lowest, you can tank enemies all day, and their projectiles are extremely slow. It actually makes for a solid option for someone’s first FPS game. When you crank up the difficulty, enemies and their shots will move faster and hit harder. On the Duskmare difficulty you die in one hit. The runner-up difficulty – Cero Miedo – is recommended to twitch-shooter veterans only. I’ve played a lot of these kinds of games, but it has been a while. That said, I beat the game on this difficulty, and it was a decent challenge. Once again, this ramps up, and most of my dying is in the later parts of the game. I had actually started playing the game at Normal, but I found it WAY too easy. I’m not a high skill ceiling for these, so you might wanna try it at Hard to start out. The first thing I noticed about “DUSK” is how good the movement and controls feel. You can strafe-hop and flip around at the speed of Sukhoi 37. You also have great air control, and I never found myself overshooting or undershooting anything. It’s hard to describe these kinds of things, but it just feels really natural to play. As a bonus, there’s additionally a crouch-slide. This is ideal for swoocing right in under obstacles, or popping a bad man like you’re playing “Vanquish”. I have no idea why, but these crushers are my kryptonite. I get ketchup IQ just by being near them. Okay, cha-cha real smooth… ♪ Let's go to work! ♪ GRRRR!! I’m usually not big on speedrunning or time trials, but I tried it out a few times, because it’s just so fun to do. DISEMBODIED VOICE: “Kill the intruder…” ENEMY: "Blood!"
ENEMY: “Kill him!” ENEMY: “Kill him!” ENEMY: “Heretic!” You can beat this game without killing anybody. Bosses included. There’s a lot to interact with, besides shooting your guns. For examp- For example, if you wanna get over a ledge, you could find a box or a barrel, get it, run it over and then use it to jump up there. Very reminiscent of “Half-Life” or “Deus Ex”. This is a game that’s filled with secrets, and secrets within secrets. The game is filled with objects you can interact with. You can dig up graves, drink beer, use the toilet, try to use a chair as a shield (eh, don’t do that, by the way), throw objects at the bad men, cook food and eat it… Hey, wait a second! This is like “Arx”! And here we have Constantine’s mansion from “Thief”. Rather than classic twitch-shooters, “DUSK” reminded me of immersive sims a lot more. You still have colored doors and keys to find, but sometimes you can say “I don’t need a key!” “A shotgun is the ultimate guest key!” Why use a switch when I can rocket-jump? I did things like this a lot, and it never locked me out or get me stuck. The game doesn’t lock you out as a punishment for not going through things "the right way". More often than not, you’re awarded for thinking creatively. It’s a refreshing feeling. And it shows how carefully thought out and planned the level design was. Enemy placement can be interesting, but sometimes, the actual geometry of the levels will just go crazy. And at the same time, it never becomes a maze. Then you have additions like powerups – like the one that lets you move on any surface, and also fight from them. A nice taste of the original “Prey”. Don’t even get me started on the rotating map. Don’t get me wrong: there’s still many times when there’s only one way to do things. It just seems to give you more options for experimenting than the games it’s emulating. And I like that! It gives the game a lot of replayability. Like I said before, you can beat it without killing anyone. But killing is fun! And “DUSK” is a game of intolerance, so now is a good time to talk about the combat. For starters, you never need to reload, but you can press “R” to spin your weapons. If more FPS games had a dedicated gun spin button, we’d be in a better place. No big surprises here: the combat is great. There is a fantastic variety of enemies and locations. Some have powerups like the Fast Fire Totem that will let you to just vomit up bullets, or the Serum of Blistering Heat, which turns the game into “Superhot”. There are cheat codes to make this essentially last forever, so you can almost have the gameplay of “Superhot”, without the story, and… a lot of other things in “Superhot”. Anyways, these powerups can stack. [megafast gunshots] What I really enjoy about the weapons is that they all feel useful. None fell completely to the wayside, like some games. For example, the melee sickles. You think you may be done with those when you get a gun, and then you find out that, with the right timing, you can deflect projectiles. TRINITY: “What is he doing?” MORPHEUS: “He’s beginning to believe!” Melee weapons deflecting bullets is something dumb that I hope stays in video games forever. Weapon selection is good, and the combat is a blast, but it does lead into a few disappointments I have in the game. One of the most fun and interesting weapons in “DUSK” is a crossbow that can pierce through anything. It will go through every enemy in the game, it will go through every wall in the game, and you can propel yourself up. I love using it, but, really, it’s the only unique weapon to “DUSK”. Well, there is the cigar that makes the “middle school S”, but I don’t know if that counts. It’s an effective selection of weapons, and satisfying to use, but there’s nothing really out there. No “Blood” voodoo doll, no “Half-Life” Tau cannon. It’s more safe than it should be. What makes this worse is that I found every weapon in the first episode of the game. And I’m not the Indiana Jones of treasure finders – these secrets were fairly obvious, where I just stumbled on them. New levels did bring a lot of new enemies, but never new weapons. So that was a shame. The mortar and the rivet gun are both explosive weapons, and sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it could be hard to tell the difference between the two. I dunno, maybe one could have some markings added on? One boss fight was a rehash, and I thought it was a setup for a different boss, but it just lead to another rehash, and that felt weak. Let me think… Oh! I hate the rats. It’s not an actual problem with the game or anything – I just want everyone to know that I hate them. Oh, the game knows that too… I think the AI gets dumber around staircases. Really, I’m just nitpicking at this point. My biggest issue was the weapons, and it’s not that huge of a deal. More missed opportunity than anything. [*BAM*] The campaign is still a joy. There are jokes sprinkled here and there, references to cult movies. One of the greatest boss fights of all time returns… "HEH-HA-HA!" …and some ridiculously obscure shoutouts to other games. And it’s all being delivered through a really enjoyable FPS campaign. It pays respectful homage to other games, not dumps on them while being a much worse one. When you’re done with it, there’s also the Endless Mode to try out, which puts you against waves of enemies, and, of course, the Duskworld deathmatch multiplayer. Actually, while working on this video, Duskworld got changed around to be Halloween themed. I’m not sure how long it will last, but it seems to be easier to aim when everyone’s head is a pumpkin. I’ve still got some learning to do, but it is festive. There is still co-op for the campaign and modding tools on the way, so I think the best of this game is yet to come. It might not scratch the supreme challenge itch that “Quake” and “Doom” wads have out there, but it’s enjoyable on its own. This is an easy recommend for me. It’s a fun game. The GOG version has an extra map for the Endless Mode, and crossplay, so you can still beat up people who have the Steam version. It’s an ideal Halloween game. I usually play “Dead Space” every October, and while I didn’t have time this year, next year I think I will, and I’ll probably play “DUSK” as well. I’ll see you next time for a long-awaited trip to space. So, have a happy Halloween! After today, Halloween powers will die down a bit, so things will be slower. On the questions. Resstarr: “Any plans on doing “Amid Evil”?” Well, I did beat “Heretic”, but to this day, I haven’t finished “Hexen”, so I need to go and do that first. I’d like to though! ILoveTheFederalGovernment: “What’s the biggest last minute change you made to a video before uploading?” “Return of the King” is still the champion. I had to keep switching out game scenes, because YouTube thought it was the movie. In the last video I cut down some things about Replicas’ voices being different, and other little things that didn’t matter in the overall picture. I usually edit down. Invictus Cordis: “What moment in a game scared you the most?” In recent memory, I wanna say the beginning of “Cry of Fear”. It was cheap, but it got me, and there’s uncountable moments in “Alien: Isolation” that did the same thing. That’s also what I’m itching to do a video on. Cody Stratton: “Have the October videos been stressful?” Not really. I’ve just had more time to work on them. Some regular contract work fell through due to the injury, so I’ve had more time to just work on stuff. Of course, I was also planning ahead and gathering a lot of footage in advance. It was a glimpse of doing nothing but YouTube, and it is enjoyable, but the website is too unreliable for me to wanna do that. Alright, I’ve got candy to hand out. Have a great night! DISEMBODIED VOICE: “Who did you expect at the end of all of this?” DISEMBODIED VOICE: “God…? The Devil, perhaps…?” DISEMBODIED VOICE: “No... it’s just… ME.”
Highly recommend DUSK. It’s a great old-school quake shooter that throws some interesting surprises at you. Just a warning about this review, it shows some things I’d consider spoilers. There’s some surprises that happen that I’d recommend just experiencing while playing the game.
Absolutely love Mandalore reviews. His indepth takes on games that I haven't heard about in years, or played so long ago are a trip. They make me either want to play the game immediately, or go back to my fond memories of playing the games.
Is it just me or is Mandalore really cranking up the rate of reviews?
If you like DUSK (and you really should tbh,) You may also dig AMID EVIL that just came out by the same publisher*. While DUSK is more of a Blood/DOOM style game, AMID EVIL is pure Heretic/Hexen. And again, the soundtrack is phenomenal.
EDIT: Same publisher, not same dev. Andrew Hulshult did do the music for both, so if you like DUSK's OST you'll probably like AE's.
Haha that Tzeentch artwork in the beginning. I'm sure people won't draw some crazy conclusions upon seeing it.
I instantly got the deluxe version as soon as it dropped on GOG, worth it for the soundtrack alone imo. But the gameplay is nice as well. I should give it another chance, I didn't much appreciate the first "halloween" styled levels.
Any news on Dusk ports for console, by some chance?