SPRAWL

Sprawl is Ghostless Shell. It cares not one bit for soul, and does not believe in the concept. What it cares about is imitating aesthetics that it has no real insight to and fails to connect to the game itself, along with some vague idea that cyberpunk is antiauthoritarian and transhumanist. The resulting game is a bunch of references to better media, which have been arbitrarily stretched over a painfully-written story and a bland Doom 2016-esque shooter with wallrunning to create an empty husk. Take Sprawl's titular Sprawl. It is a William Gibson reference which just so happens to be a skybox. That skybox decorates a series of linear paths punctuated by skatepark-style combat arenas. Sometimes you wallrun along the paths, you might jump over non-threatening gaps which respawn you with zero lost progress, and you may wallrun in parts of arenas. If you're very lucky, the game may let you parkour past enemies entirely, but more often than not the skybox could be anything else, and it wouldn't matter a wink. Now, you may not want to parkour over the combat. You may want to shoot the same couple enemies in the same weakpoints to drop ammo and slow motion pickups for several hours. Yo…

SPRAWL seems a bit like a glimpse into a better, more interesting game. Apparently, SPRAWL Zero seems to be just that - I haven't played it yet, but its reception seems to show that the developers learned from some of SPRAWLs mistakes. That's not to say it's a terrible game - personally, I think it just *is*. That's not to say you can't have a bit of fun running and gunning through the dystopian landscape, but even at a runtime of just 4-5 hours, the game already starts to be repetitive. Only a handful of repeating enemy types, 6 weapons and very samey environments past Episode 1 (which I liked so much more than 2 and 3 in visual level design and gameplay) get old very quickly. The gameplay loop of slowing down time to hit enemy weakspots while running around like a jackrabbit on Monster White so you don't get hit because you die almost instantly is fun at first, but that's really all there is to it for the entire game. Find keycard, do enemy arena, find another keycard, maybe do a small platforming section, rinse and repeat. It's not bad, like I said, it's just kind of repetitive and samey. The good soundtrack and the mostly satisfying movement are what keep it alive, but there …

Tiny boomer-shooter of twelve levels that has rapidly become probably my favorite entry in the genre, in spite of not hearing about its release at all, and having only stumbled onto it randomly via the Discovery Queue, and picking it up on a whim at extensive discount with the release of the sequel 'SPRAWL Zero' - now a must-buy title for me. It's 'Doom', with 'Titanfall' movement, bullet-time, and the aesthetic of Mamoru Oshii's 1995 'Ghost in the Shell' movie blended with early 2000's PSx graphics; all-in-all a conjoined series of facets which hyper-targets me and my interests specifically, and with a flawless soundtrack accompanying it. Only criticisms I could level at it would be the fairly-dumb enemy AI, which struggles to avoid being exploited by corners; and the less-than developed narrative, not especially inventive or iterative within the Cyberpunk genre, but still an acceptable vehicle for propelling the superb gameplay and atmosphere. Wholeheartedly recommended, but purportedly 'SPRAWL Zero' is simply the same game, made better, in every possible facet, and the better-developed entry point for all those previously mentioned strengths shored-up and even further polished…

I really enjoyed this game, im not the best at making reviews but if you like this style of game you have fun.

A decent shooter with fun movement and banger soundtrack, although quite short. Worth getting on a big discount.

Straightforward fun.