VLADiK BRUTAL Reviews

I give this one a 7/10: Imagine you told your Russian friend about Half Life 2 and they made a game based on what they remembered. That's what Vladik Brutal felt like to me. Pros: ===== - Graphics are smooth - Gunplay is fun Mids: ===== - Character models look janky - No clear narration/story - AI shoots the second they see you with near perfect aim Cons: ====== - Level design is convoluted - "Horror" parts full of needless jumpscares - Whole game could use some polish to make it feel less like a homebrew mod Summary: ========= Game is fun overall especially when you're just able to run around blasting enemies, but some jankiness and lack of polish keep it from being something better.

A real diamond out there in the rough lof low budget indie games on Steam. Would never have found it without the Worth a Buy review on YouTube. The raw core gameplay is as good as there has been in any first person shooter, period and is way better than most, although there are a few bugs and level design oversights that betray the games low budget credentials. Also, some people say the story is $h1t but: A) Who Cares? B) There is definitely humour at work in the narrative and in the game in general. They certainly don't make them like this anymore, but be reassured, this isn't just some 'Half-Pife' remake. After all, the developer isn't a complete moron!

Strong Half Life vibes, Great gunplay, old school run and gun with some horror involved. I finished the whole thing and enjoyed doing so, definitely worth a buy.

Vladik feels like a semi-obscure Half-Life 2 TC mod. It's not bad, it's got some highlights for sure, and it's impressive for a mostly 1-man operation. Ultimately, it's kind of just "okay." Overall, I'd say if you want to get it, get it on sale. [h1]The Bad[/h1] Some of the level design is outright bad, some of it feels incomplete and way too big, and the guns are only okay. The story also sort of just ends abruptly, with no real build-up to who or why you're fighting (maybe lost in translation though), only ever really introducing a main antagonist towards the last 10% of the game. The game functions mostly, but there are definitely some eurojank hallmarks like: -music not looping properly -textures that are way too high res directly next to textures that are way too low res -enemy animations playing too early or too late, looping when they shouldn't, -enemy pathfinding breaking when you're on a box or whatever, -enemy corpses staying still after falling off of a train (when they should, you know, disappear behind the train as if the train is moving away from them) -sections where there is mandatory damage and you may not have enough HP to survive. I mean, sure it's janky, but most of the above can be overlooked. I never really had any game breaking problems. The game itself isn't exactly challenging. I died to combat a few times, but mostly only when I got stuck on geometry while circle strafing. [h1]The... okay?[/h1] The weapon select system is clearly borrowed from Half-Life, but is less functional. Firing sounds are okay, and some of the weapons, especially the super weapon, sound great. Some sound sort of generic. None of them sound "bad" though, and at the very least they aren't annoying. [h1]The Good[/h1] The atmosphere in some of the "horror" chapters can be decent. The invisible enemies are particularly cool, they do a sort of "hit and run" tactic that can feel pretty intelligent actually. There are also a lot of references to other games in the map design. There are moments where I'd be walking around and suddenly recognize the geometry of an area as a reference to, say, TimeSplitters, Half-Life, or STALKER. It's clear the developer had fun making the game. There's also a certain charm to the level design. Unlike other modern games that import meshes from 3d modelling software, it seems like this dev used brushes (something more akin to Half-Life 1 or Quake). This is charming, and although it creates some issues, it feels classic. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] That's really about it. I don't regret buying it, nor do I regret playing it, but it's not exactly groundbreaking or revolutionary. If you like Half-Life and Eastern European stuff, get it on sale. I don't really recommend it otherwise. There are better recent boomer shooters out there.

Excellent game overall. Very strong Half-Life vibes. You have two sorts of opponents - monsters and humans. Combat against each faction has a completely different dynamic, and the two settings alternate so that you don't get bored by the same setting. Gunplay is satisfying, and each weapon has its use, none of them get obsolete apart from the pistol. For me it's 10/10. A memory trip to the past where games were done by the players for the players, not by committees of accountants advised by woketards.

Pretty cool game and kudos to the single dev. It's inspired by classic FPS linearity like Doom, Duke Nukem and Quake, and looks and feels a lot like early Half-Life and Stalker. The game is simple but very detailed for a clearly low budget project under Unreal 4. Gun play is very satisfying and there is some pretty cool moments when there is a whole war going on with allies and enemies, and also a lot of tense/scary scenarios. In my playthrough I didn't experience any bugs but the ladders can be very buggy and confusing to go down sometimes. Played since beginning on Brutal difficulty and I thought it was just right, even though sometimes I felt the game helped too much with ammo and med-kits. There is literally "vending machines" which give away ammo and med-kits everywhere in the game lol. Just thought that regarding that matter it was a bit much. Oh, the platforming is completely unnecessary. Recommend it on sale.

Not bad but nothing memorable. Took about 8 hours to beat on normal difficulty. Unfortunately there is nothing captivating here especially with the story. I see a lot of half life comparisons and it gives the vibe in quite a few places but it has enough to distance itself from a half life clone. Game play was fun especially blasting away everything in your path, boss battles seemed straight forward as well. Not a whole lot of major bugs or crashes but some performance inconsistencies. For 12$ and also being made mostly by a solo developer, I would say it's decent to pass a few hours on.

What if Half-Life events happened in Russia? What if shotguns actually shot bullets and were able to kill an enemy from the other side of the map? What if games contained other games that are more fun to play? Just how much enemy soldiers are able to fit in a small room? (Hundreds. I'm not joking) Vladik tries to answer it all. The story starts with accident that caused mutations and zombies but by the second half people decide to ignore it and start a revolution. Enemy intelligence also could have been better, as I was begging for the next soldier to stop running towards the same door where so many dead bodies of his comrades were piled that it was hard to see anything behind them, but no. Even if it is realistic, it's not fun. Bosses come out of nowhere and can die even before spawning animation ends. Some enemies leave toxic trails after death so you can contemplate your life choices while waiting for it to go away. It's nice that all the graphics toggles had a visual representation of what they do, and also description. Dev actually modified Unreal Engine 4 to make this game. The only thing that is left to do is to add developer commentary, but I'm too afraid to listen to that. This game gave me a headache for the whole day. Recommend.

Went in blind without knowing anything about the game and it got me hooked instantly. What a blast this is, feels just like Half-Life days, and, speaking of Half-Life, VladikBrutal intentionally takes direct inspiration from this series. The game has plenty of customization options regarding display settings, and the difficulty, at least on normal, feels absolutely right, not easy nor hard, just right. Молодцы, мои русские братья! this game is fully worth it! I was expecting copper but I found gold! Buy it, you won't regret it!

Awesome game! My Half Life 3 fix. Excellent ending. Thankyou Vladislav Meshcheryakov, you put those so called triple A developers to shame!