VLADiK BRUTAL Reviews

As a passionate gamer, I can't get enough of Vladick Brutal! This game has completely captured my heart with its dark, immersive world and adrenaline-pumping gameplay. The combination of intense combat, gripping storyline, and jaw-dropping visuals makes it an unforgettable experience. What I truly love about Vladick Brutal is the attention to detail—every environment feels alive, every character adds depth, and the soundtrack? Absolutely killer! It’s as if every element of the game is designed to pull you into its brutal yet mesmerizing universe. The gameplay mechanics are incredibly satisfying, whether you're delivering devastating blows in battle or strategizing your next move. It's challenging in the best way possible—rewarding skill and persistence. And don’t even get me started on the boss fights—they’re epic showdowns that keep me coming back for more. If you’re someone who thrives on action, creativity, and a touch of the macabre, Vladick Brutal is a masterpiece that deserves all the love. For me, it's more than just a game; it's an experience I’ll keep revisiting, eagerly anticipating every twist and turn.

A fun, Soviet era FPS inspired by OG Half Life with some of the best shotgun implementations - almost up there with FEAR - in a modern game. Excellent work by a largely solo dev based on the credits. Minor niggles - the NPC AI tends to be a bit simple (converge converge converge) and the levels could be a bit shorter. Great value for money.

The game is pretty unclear when it comes to directions. As impressive as it is that this game has been made by a single developer, I cannot recommend it for the way this game plays.

It's alright. Plagued with bad balancing, an annoying flashlight you have to keep turning off to recharge tha also keeps flickering for no reason, a boring story, and a single section where infinite enemies spawn in a corridor you are supposed to pass through I recommending turning cheats on and passing by. In short, I would say an easy pass. Gun play is nice but that is about it. Story is meh, you're a god who heals instantly or some crap going after a dictator. If you get curious, get it on sale.

[h3] Highly recommended! [/h3] Vladik Brutal is a game that knows what it wants to be, knows it's limitations, and hits it's mark. It is visceral and unapologetic. It is respectful of the way it portrays its inspirations. Is it rough around the edges? Yes. Yet this game stands as a testament to what can be achieved when one man puts his heart and soul into a project. [b] Most importantly, Vladik Brutal is fun. [/b] This game left me wanting more, and left me feeling satisfied with the money I spent. Is it for everyone. NO. Yet everyone should try it. In an industry that is increasingly bereft of any authenticity, Vladik Brutal stands as a beacon of hope.

[h3]Obviously I want to like it, and it has a lot of good things to it, but there are issues I can't ignore.[/h3] This is clearly a Russian half-life 2 and it makes no secret of it. It has clunky ladder and puzzle mechanics like oldschool FPS games, but I can look past that. The problems arrive once you get your hands on the flashlight and the prologue concludes. I've said it before, but almost no game does stamina meters correctly. This game is no exception. This game also use a flashlight meter that runs out after a few seconds. It also recharges itself within a few seconds, but that combined with the flashlight randomly flickering even while charged annoyed my eyes severely. I do not have epilepsy, but I am sensitive to light. The level design isn't bad, the story (while clearly being a half-life 2 clone) is not terrible either. But my eyes cannot deal with this game and the constant flickering of the flashlight. For most people, this probably won't be an issue and you can go ahead and give the game a try, but if you are like me, I would say it's probably not worth it.

[h2]Have you played Half Pife?[/h2] [b]VLADiK BRUTAL is, first of all, blood.[/b] Countless liters of blood and [i]tons of premium choice meat.[/i] It is a brutal first-person shooter inspired by none other than Valve’s first child, [b]AKA Half-Life.[/b] I am so glad that Moist Critical shined a light on this title, and with the praise it got from him, I surely knew that I was making the right call by getting this game. I’m not gonna touch on the plot. [i]It’s there[/i] - something about a dictator and experiments I considered it secondary during my playthrough just cause, even if a setup and resolution are there, [i]the dialogues are just plain bad[/i] and don’t make any sense, even in the original language. So, I’m moving straight to the gameplay. [b]ГAMEПLAY[/b] If you’ve ever played Half-Life, well, that’s all you need to know. It’s a good recreation in a Russian setting with detailed environments, gorgeous models, and mostly good level design. I don’t wanna go full journalist mode, but I really, really wanna say it has a bit of Half-Life, a bit of Metro 2033, Black Mesa, and Atomic Heart thrown in. And well, [i]if you didn’t[/i], then don’t worry - I got you. It is a linear shooter game where you traverse very linear locations from arena to arena and just shoot hundreds of the enemies’ brains out with a vast arsenal of unique weapons (from crowbars to RPGs and even a BFG lookalike). The level design is sometimes very good, and sometimes I'd wander around like “where the hell do I go?” [b]ПEPФOMAИCE[/b] Not only does the game look really great, but it also runs well, which is surprising cause this game was made by a single guy using Unreal Engine 4 and still performs better than the most recent AAA releases. Played the entire thing on [b]Steam Deck OLED[/b] and a [b]MacBook Pro M4 via CrossOver[/b] and had solid performance with little to no dips all throughout. And considering that the action gets so tense the entire room gets painted with blood and torn-off limbs, it doesn’t drop a single digit FPS at all. Good job, comrade! [b]VEЯDICT[/b] [b]IMO, all the praise is deserved[/b]. I am so pleased that the western part of YouTube got to know about this game cause otherwise, I wouldn’t have found out about it in the first place. And the fact it was made by a single guy is by far the most impressive thing that I saw. So go ahead and click that “Add to Cart” button and have a full-on meat fest in VLADiK BRUTAL! [h3] 10/10 - "Sign here, and you’ll live like a king... as my weapon." [/h3]

This is literally that one game that every single Eastern European kid wants to make after they first beat Half Life 1/2 at age 14 but no one actually goes through with the crazy effort required to make a Source mod/game, awesome job dev, its beautifully chaotic

[h1]Overview[/h1] [i]VLADiK BRUTAL[/i] is a hyper-violent first person shooter that takes heavy inspiration from the [i]Half-Life[/i] games - and that is a good thing for the most part - even though the story is mostly not very interesting or unique and the main antagonist is very forgettable. The game apparently was created by a solo developer, but with some additional help for voice work and testing. Considering that, what is on offer here is extremely impressive, but there are certainly also a lot of flaws that could be improved upon. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The gunplay feels very good - and that is a crucial aspect since shooting is the central pillar of the experience. Weapons have a lot of punch, great sound design and the feeback from hitting enemies is very satisfying with lots of blood and gore. But, it could be argued that the balancing is a bit off and the strongest guns by far are the two shotguns you get along your journey. The deal out insane amounts of damage and can deal with more or less any enemy in seconds. [h1]Technical side[/h1] [i]VLADiK BRUTAL[/i] runs on the Unreal Engine 4 and it looks very presentable overall. Performance, for the most part, was also very impressive - with two major exceptions. [list] [*] There was one level in the game with a larger body of water in it, that just absolutely obliterated the framerate. Luckily it is not a combat heavy area. [*] On the highest difficulty level, the amount of enemies you are fighting at any given time is increased drastically compared to lower levels. In these instances, the game also starts to slow down considerably. [/list] It should, however, also be pointed out, that the options menu is fantastic with a large variety of graphical options grouped by their impact on performance. [h1]Nonsensical design[/h1] There are certain aspects of [i]VLADiK BRUTAL[/i] that make no sense at all in my eyes. For example: There is a flashlight that has limited battery before it needs to recharge. The recharge time however, is only around half a second or so, begging the question why its not just an infinite flashlight from the get-go. In addition, the light keeps flickering on its own, which is really annoying and serves no real purpose. Changing these things would instantly improve the experience. [h1]Enemies[/h1] There are bossfights in the game, but I think they are very forgettable and some of them are borderline frustrating because of questionable design choices. Enemies in general are not really the brightest and will very seldom pose a severe threat. In some cases I would argue that they are overused and spawn in too high numbers, especially on the higher difficulty settings. [h1]Final complaints[/h1] Finally I have to point out that you can see the lack of polish more and more, the longer the game goes on. Especially towards the end of the game the quality of the levels drops and a lot of them tend to be large and empty, while the early ones are filled to the brim with details. The same goes for the music: There are some nice, if somewhat generic tracks playing during some combat encounters, but there are also many moments where it is eerily silent. [h1][b]Verdict[/b][/h1] Overall [i]VLADiK BRUTAL[/i] was a surprisingly competent shooter, despite having more than one carbon-copy of moments and levels from the [i]Half-Life[/i] games. It feels very good to play and at the very reasonable price point of around 10€ I am comfortable recommending it.

[i]---see where this game landed on my FPS ranking List beneath this review!---[/i] It's a decent enough indie russian FPS heavily influenced by [b]Half-Life[/b]. At first I was a little worried about the motion blur in the game, but it didn't bother me much, not like it can in some other games. There were some music loops that felt too short/repetitive, but was otherwise alright for setting the mood. Blood/art sometimes looked a bit cheap but it does the job. I started to enjoy the game more after the first few hours when they changed up the environments a bit. Pretty solid and fun enough FPS. ===================== [b]Singleplayer PC Traditional FPS[/b] ===================== [i]Simply personal taste. I’m excluding RPGs, roguelites, immersive sims, etc.[/i] [b]Loved it:[/b] Doom | Doom 2 | Final Doom | Half-Life | Half-Life 2 | Shadow Warrior (Classic) | F.E.A.R. | Far Cry | Nightmare Reaper | [b]Awesome:[/b] Boltgun | Duke Nuke’em | Doom 3 | Unreal | Wrath: Aeon of Ruin | Ion Fury | Ion Fury: Aftershock | Zortch | Crysis | Dread Templar | Sharpshooter 3D^ | Turbo Overkill | Chop Goblins | [b]Fun/Decent:[/b] Return to Castle Wolfenstein | Wolfenstein: The New Order# | Quake | Quake 2 | Quake 3 | Dusk | Hrot | Forgive me Father | Doom 64 | Hexen^ | Heretic | Hexen 2^ | Herald of Havoc | A.W.O.L. | Sprawl | Prodeus | Halo# | [b]Vladik Brutal[/b] | [b]Meh:[/b] 77p Egg: Eggwife^ | Slayers X | Calcium Contract | Devilated | Trepang2*# | Crysis 2# | Fida Puti Samurai | Adaca | Bears in Space | RoboCop: Rogue City# | Forgive me Father 2 | [b]Didn’t Like (OR I did, but it has aged too poorly to recommend):[/b] Wolfenstein 3D | NAM | Blood | Blood 2 | Blake Stone | F.E.A.R. 2 | Catacombs 3D | F.E.A.R. 3 | Carnal | Aliens vs. Predator | Aliens versus Predator (Classic) | Painkiller | Project Warlock | Metro: Last Light# | Rise of the Triad | Hard Reset | Eradicator | Ubersoldier# | Chasm: The Rift | Requiem: Avenging Angel | ========================== * = Some technical issues that irritated me: e.g. Motion Blur. ^ = Has some gameplay elements that make it more of a hybrid than straight up FPS # = Feels somewhat like a console FPS.