SPRAWL zero: Run, tin can, run. Cyberpunkabilly

Speed is very important. The right measured, even tempo reveals many things, both in music and in other areas of life and creativity. But sometimes you want to rush headlong, not caring about everything! Today I’m going to tell you about a game in which a race with the devil is successfully won on your own pair of augmented legs. Someone who’s a machine himself doesn’t need machines. Ladies and gentlemen, today we will talk about the latest action movie SPRAWL zero 2026.

Rusty Debt

The long-awaited dystopian future has arrived. In an unknown year, a million cataclysms battered the old earth, painting the brave new world in the colors of a dust storm. The new world order, called the Junta, which seems to hint at the lack of humanity and other humanism, uses us, an unnamed super soldier with the call sign Fifth, for its military criminal activities.

The main opponent in this inhospitable reality will be the Imago Dei organization, religious fanatics who reject any cybernetic interference in human organisms. The world government can’t stand these guys. What’s next? Will they return the cash or will they refuse to pay taxes as a religious organization?

The main sources of inspiration for this story, that is, for its audiovisual part, were the first and possibly the second part of Deus Ex, as well as “Ghost in the Shell” by Mamoru Oshii. These sources need to be very clearly distinguished from their fellow franchises, as well as from other elements of their own stories. For example, Deus Ex brought a sense of working for the bastards against other bastards. But with a huge difference. Your hero is not a secret agent, but a soldier who has no time and no need to understand everything that is happening. The task must be completed, there is no time to dig up the truth.

It’s not just the obvious references in the soundtrack in the form of a chorus of ghostly Japanese kids that make the game feel like a Ghost. The very concept of a casually polluted world rhymes very well with Hosea’s interpretation. Just imagine what happens in less successful countries and cities. Well, the whole tons of near-philosophical wisdom that are scattered throughout the plot also evoke associations with his two feature films.

The characteristic yellowness, the very rust, evokes a certain mood. As Ross said, it’s much more believable to believe in such dirty cyberpunk, like Robocop, without neon streets and kissing androids.

These are not the only sources of aesthetic and narrative inspiration. The jointed limbs of Half Life 2 clearly stick out from the design of the flying opponents, and everything around them powerfully resembles the legendary and completely incomprehensible game of the beginning of the last decade, E.Y.E. But enough about aesthetics. Let’s see how it all plays out.

Gang Fu is grateful for everything.

The main feature of this retro shooter is disposable guns. Instead of the usual juggling of dozens of barrels through a wheel, any barrel, after it has used up its ammunition, is thrown directly into the face of one of the opponents, after which it is possible to squeeze a new one from the defeated using gravity gloves, which remind of games with physics engines from the noughties. This solution significantly increases the pace of the game, which I mentioned in the introduction. And it looks much more beautiful and logical.

Running is not necessary here. But, by God, it’s been a long time since I’ve abused the Shift key like that. The fact is that our super soldier does not have a stamina strip and can run almost always. You can’t shoot in a sprint, but it’s the best way to move from shootout to shootout.

And this is vital. Kill to heal mechanics are added to the mechanics of disposable barrels, and a high tempo makes any tactic, except for the most assertive and aggressive, completely ineffective. No hiding behind shelters, much less regeneration. You run towards the enemy to take his life and weapons as soon as possible. Sometimes it’s the other way around, but no hiding with one hp.

Another constantly used feature, raised from oblivion, is the classic and very intrusive bullet time. You need to slow down time here as often as possible. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to survive, and in slow motion, first-aid kits seem to fall out more generously.

There are also a couple of interesting mechanics, like a shield, which, with proper skill, returns damage to opponents, which is very effective when fighting helicopter bosses. Where is a retro shooter without helicopter bosses! Or the ranking of guns, as in an action RPG, is also a fresh idea in the context of the fact that a favorite barrel cannot be used indefinitely.

All this makes you feel like you’re in the shoes of a superweapon, a one-man army. And, unlike the same Robocop, an army of ultra-fast response.

The defeated Zeitgeist

I am very pleased with the current trend to bring back to life the style of the games of the noughties, and indeed any period I like. Unsophisticated but stylish graphics that don’t clog up our poor storage devices with useless textures. Time-tested and overclocked mechanics are finally bringing video games to the same level as music. They are also moving further and further away from their original time and becoming more and more independent, and the spirit of the era is turning from the dictate of specific rules into a voluntarily accepted identity. I think we all intuitively understand what it’s about, because our magazine is about this kind of time-free art.

SPRAWL zero is a compact frolicsome entertainment for several evenings that leaves only pleasant memories. It is absolutely necessary for everyone who loves shooting games from the noughties, and indeed for everyone who loves good games without frills.

P.S. By the way, this is the second part. I’ll tell you about the original SPRAWL as soon as I try. Unless, of course, it’s different enough, and my offline category doesn’t go beyond the bounds of reason.