SPRAWL Reviews

Fantastic boom shoot

Nice fast-paced retro-shooter

I'm late to this one but it's good. Bullet time, slide jump, wall jump, animation cancel the shotgun reload, and click on guys.

Muito estiloso, trilha sonora muito boa e gameplay super satisfatório.

I keep coming back to it for another playthrough. The gunplay, wallrunning, and slow-mo mechanics are packaged into an extremely clean and satisfying experience and, combined with the perfect soundtrack, it is very good at getting you into the "zone". I definitely recommend it as a quake/boomer shooter/cyberpunk homage that absolutely stands on its own. My one complaint is that I was obsessed with Act 1 - its more realistic aesthetic, rooftop-to-rooftop platforming, rarer but more memorable arena fights, and more grounded sense of level progression - and very disappointed you never revisit the titular Sprawl after that. I really think the retro, pseudo-low-res graphics really shine in Act 1 and Act 2, and less so with Act 3's gunmetal, tron-esque design. However, this is mostly a complaint of vibes, and I think everything else about the game - the difficulty, intensity, soundtrack - all escalate perfectly all the way through to its climax. (my bias: Ghost in the Shell (1995) radically changed my neurochemistry as a teenager and defined who I am today).

Enjoyable fps with a focus on bullet time and movement. Combat is easy at first but get more challenging by the final episode. The starting pistols and shotgun are the standouts with the smg feeling the weakest. My only complaint is I wish there were more things to shoot while in bullet time besides the weakpoints and the few times there are grenades/missiles, also the boss fights are kinda lackluster and could use more enemies to spice them up.

If you love movement shooters and have $15 to spare I highly recommend getting Sprawl. It's a short game about 4.5 hours long but it's fun as hell and has a great story.

A little rough but it's at the very least $15 worth of enjoyment. I have a lot of problems, mostly balancing and stylistic choices. There's obvious Ghostrunner influence EVERYWHERE even down to the level layouts being 1:1 like they were designed by the same team. Give ghostrunner a gun instead of just a katana and that's basically what this is. The levels are designed well within the mechanical combat sandbox but they occasionally do a horrible job of leading the player. I didn't have too much trouble with most of them, there was obviously some consideration given to framing and scene organization to give players hints, but there were still times where even with the guy in my head literally [i]telling me where to go[/i] (another red flag) I'd get lost for like seven minutes. The night club area on mission two is probably the best example of this. Some enemies can one-shot you (the riot shield) but the bullet time just lets you cheese all of the depth in any of the combat. Deaths take annoyingly long before you can revert to your checkpoint. I don't think it's balanced very well. I like the shotgun. They knew what they were doing there. The SMG seems like it's supposed to be a side-grade to the pistol by making it easier to kill but harder to get decapitation bonuses. But the aforementioned bullet-time mechanic makes it essentially worthless, because the handguns you start the game with are objectively less wasteful and do more damage. You are rewarded the same for going all headshots. Making adrenaline an actually scarce resource could address this, as-is the game hands it to you like it's freakin' candy. The motion blur is atrocious and there is no slider for it, only on or off. The bloom is also turned up way too high on some emissive materials to the point I felt like I was going blind. In the room where you unlock the shotgun, I couldn't even tell what was supposed to be there in the CENTER OF THE ROOM, first thing you see when you enter, because it was so bright. There was clearly an intent to show the player "hey look at this cool thing locked in this cage" and they sabatogued it. I can't see this being your go-to game, but from what I hear the campaign is short, so it can't be that bad to finish. Obviously a lot of talent and effort went into it. You can do even better next time I'm sure.

It's good, but get it on sale. $15 is a bit much for one playthrough being only about 4 hours.

Fairly short game (I personally am not done yet, but am approximately half-way through the game). Despite that, the game is beautiful. Sprawl features fairly amazing graphics despite the low poly models and textures. The game itself is incredibly well optimized and I can envision it running on potato rigs. However the meat, the gameplay is even better. It doesn't depart too far from classic shooter movement while incorporating sliding and wall-running seamlessly. I'd describe combat as being "ghostrunner with guns". High paced, requiring good reaction time. Sprawl highly incentivises precision, hitting weakspots not only kills enemies dramatically faster, but also gives additional pickups; rewarding the extra effort. In short: wallrunning + popping heads = dopamine