2 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 20.9 hrs on record (16.0 hrs at review time)
Posted: 8 Aug, 2021 @ 11:33pm
Updated: 9 Aug, 2021 @ 9:41pm

Early Access Review
Deriving most of it's inspiration from 90's shooters, ULTRAKILL is an exhilarating FPS with an excellent array of movement. Dashing, sliding, ground-pounding and wall jumping are all at your disposal in any given moment, allowing for much freedom in how you approach hoards of enemies, while you scale stages and obstacles. Combining the ample move-set with the classic variety of weapons that you unlock throughout the campaign, (which as of writing this review, is still in development) provides many interesting play styles and pure, fast action. Like in DOOM, you gain health from the blood of your enemies, however unlike DOOM, this is the only way you regain health in ULTRAKILL. Ensuring that an adept player is one that does not hesitate, ULTRAKILL is always keeping you in the action.

Building off it's solid gameplay, ULTRAKILL delivers excellent presentation with it's ost, ULTRAKILL: INFINITE HYPERDEATH. The ost is very complimentary to the action and tone. During the campaign, each new location has a theme and feeling it captures through stage design and soundtrack, helping immerse the player in every scenario. Music also appears to be responsive to the level of action, increasing with intensity to reflect the insanity you're faced with. ULTRAKILL also features an additional mode called The Cyber Grind, a classic score based mode where you slaughter hoards of enemies, seeing just how many rounds you can manage to surpass. The Cyber Grind is pure ADHD heaven, and if you enjoy it, you will waste a lot of time trying to beat your high score, or your friend's high scores. Though the graphics are simple, they are excellent, and their simplicity aids in allowing the game-play to be very smooth. Great care was brought to the textures, of which each new environment has it's own.

When it comes to difficulty, there are currently four degrees available, with Violent being the most challenging. For experienced FPS players who enjoy a good fight, I would recommend Violent. I can't elaborate too much on what varies from difficulty to difficulty, as I personally only played on Violent, and tried the standard difficulty mode briefly. The only major difference I could determine was that special/big enemies would become enraged more frequently. While enraged, big enemies have certain boosted attributes or reduced cool-downs, making them more lethal to the player. They also each have unique requirements to become enraged, that become evident after some game time.

The campaign has great level variety, never feeling stale. Though still in development, the campaign features unique stages, music, bosses, and events, that all make for a compelling mode that's granted replayability through it's rather in-depth scoring system. The player is scored on time, kills, and style. The first two are rather basic in concept, complete a stage quickly to score better in time, kill more or all enemies to score well in kills. It's the style rating that gets interesting. There's a variety of trick-shots and weapon combos that build up style score. There are eight degrees of style, ULTRAKILL being the highest. Maintaining this rating frequently during a level will grant you an S rank in style for that stage. This isn't a guide by any means, but learning to do the ricochet move reliably is a sure fire way to S rank most any level.

All in all, ULTRAKILL is a surprisingly cohesive, varied, and outright awesome single-player FPS game. Action packed destruction, that utilizes what it's borrowed from other FPS games in unique and engaging ways. Never overlook a game because it appears simple. ULTRAKILL is a well thought-out experience, with a lot of care given into it. This translates into a quality game that I think you should give a go at. The campaign may not be finished, but the game-play does not feel like it's missing something, and with endless the Cyber Grind mode, you'll have time to waste.
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