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Brutal John, Duke Nukem Forever in Unity

  Brutal John, The Most Brutal Ever With the awesome comeback of the boomer shooter FPS genre into the scene, There are many studios entering the hall with big dreams and efforts, and today's game is a prime example. With the market starting to get the fun out of the fast paced games, many new indie studios are jumping into the scene for this genre, and many more are getting there quickly and efficiently thanks to the commercial game engine market. With Unreal Engine, Unity and the newest Godot Engine, most of indie games were made possible. Brutal John, is a boomer shooter FPS developed and published by OldSchool Law Interactive , using the Unity engine to its most to deliver a good old boomer shooter experience that bring back the nostalgia of Duke Nukem Forever , the 2001 experience that we wanted to play. with a personal art style that defines the game, good gameplay and a lively vivid world. Brutal John is set in a parallel universe, where a cyborg invaded earth for mining c...
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Trepang2, fast paced indie FPS review!



 Trepang2 is looking fresh, challenging and fun

    Trepang2 is a fast FPS, with slow motion elements. This game is a mix of contradictions, in a way you can't imagine. Fast blazing guns, tonnes upon tonnes of enemies, infinite bullets, non lethal headshots, different enemies with different challenges to kill and the choice that sums up the game. This is Trepang2 developed by Trepang Studios and published by Team 17, the publishers behind the renown name of Overcooked. This is Trepang2 on GamerFlux.

 Before I write this post, I snitched an hour to try the game demo. The game had issues on fedora Linux to start but restarting steam fixed the problem and I jumped on to play the game. Starting it off with a cutscene of a prisoner kept in a building that looks like an abandoned building. The story then progresses into what to be a stealthy beginning. Someone has tried to help you, someone most likely from the organisation you worked for. While moving with cuffed hands, you try to sneak behind soldiers using a little element of hiding in the shadows and cloak ability. Moving through the air vent systems and the shadows, you get to the keys and uncuff yourself and get a gun. Walking past dead enemies bodies, I noticed that the environment was actually very responsive around you, you can break glass while walking through it and so much will be covered later in this article. The moment goes very fast to start the fighting action. The game gives you the choice, use stealth and keep it silent style or the Rambo style blazing guns at everyone. I love the Rambo style in gaming cause why not. The stealth in this game is good as the areas you go through are prepared for this. so you can see things like air vents and secondary passageways that help you get behind the enemy soldiers.

a screenshot from the game

Trepang2 caught my attention for the carnage that is presented on the screen. The game gives you the tools and you just hop in and deal with the bad guys. The physics in this game supports the Rambo style with run and gun. I had no problems using slow motion to jump behind the enemy to melee him whatsoever. Combat feels awesome, and the guns feel good as a game. You use stealth to break the enemy's sight, then boom shoot. You use the slow motion to get the chance to improve your aim for god sake and try to shoot the bad guys. One thing caught my attention is that headshots really doesn't guarantee one shot one kill principles. I once use slow mo to hit an enemy in the head and his head cap just fell, I hit him again and this time he fell. Speaking of bad guys, this game has a lot of them, in case of numbers and variety. With one hour in the demo on steam, I saw about 5-6 types of enemies. there are the standard guys, others with goggles that can see you in the dark whom if you shoot, the cap will fall off first then another headshot to kill. Other bad guys I saw where I stopped the demo was was the heavy dude. These enemies are basically prone to hit from anterior as they carry a shield, which was easy to dismiss by shooting legs and using cloak to sneak past them. In terms of guns, the game offered a gun that you can add a silencer to them, a MP-5 like gun that can also has a silencer, an AUG and shotgun. The shotgun was my favorite for my Rambo run and gun style. Grenades is a feature in this game, as you can throw it and use the slow mo ability to trigger it mid air right at your enemies faces.

a screenshot from the game showing gore and carnage

Into the environment, this looks like a dark game with more content in the indoors. This is a good thing as indoors are well built, they had many props with good texturing. I once kept staring at a cup placed on top of a wooden crate next to a plate with food leftovers. This is great details for me that I like to see, making the environment tell the story not the cutscene or gameplay. The demo environment for me was good and polished. The world also is filled with intel in various forms that you can collect to know more about what is happening. there were some minor issues here and there that I will discuss later. The gameplay is great, with some changing modes in the middle. The game starts with corridors and rooms, then quickly change into a trap room wave style, where you are trapped in the room and enemies attack in the form of waves. I like this idea, to give some spice to the gameplay and prevent repetition as much as possible. The 2 abilities you have provide you with two gauges. You have a basic shield and health bars, and a nice flavor of a stamina bar. Your stamina is not unlimited so use it carefully. Hopping into the AI, it is UNBELIEVABLE. The moment you go invisible, they start hipfiring, trying to hit you and keep moving looking for you. They are smart enough to always hide behind a wall and keep shooting you instead of just staying in the open. They are aggressive and always always looking for you. Once you are spotted they literally don't leave you alone. You can't just sit and hide. 

A screenshot from the game

For history lesson now, Trepang2 has got a lot of ranks stated here:
  • "2017 Top 100 Indie Games" - Voted top 100 out of 49,000 indie games on IndieDB.
  • "2018 Top 100 Indie Games" - Voted top 100 out of 49,000 indie games on IndieDB.
  • "2019 Top 100 Indie Games" - Voted top 100 out of 49,000 indie games on IndieDB.

Bugs I encountered:

These issues I saw in the demo, I don't know if the devs have already fixed it or not. Firstly and for most the cloak gauge/timer resets even if I cancel the cloak. I don't know if it is a feature or a bug. Secondly the world is very interactive but some chairs kept moving with me for a long distance that was not fun. there were some minor AI movements that was questionable, but giving the current state of the game, I don't mind these and personally I don't find these really that big turnoffs.

The Verdict

Trepang2 is an amazing game built surprisingly on Unreal Engine 4. Good graphics, great world and run and gun in slow motion action fast FPS. This is what I call a bang that looks better than AAA games. The game is still in development. You can try the game demo on steam. To support the developers ofthe game make sure to wishlist the game on steam and follow them on twitter.

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