Hey Punk! What are you staring at? Me? Good. Always be vigilant, that’s the key to survival in the world of SlavicPunk: Oldtimer. It may be a top-down, twin-stick shooter, set in a cyberpunk world with a distinctly Slavic twist for you, but it’s real life for me!
I bet you’ve seen the flashy cyberpunk in other pieces of culture, but you won’t find it here. It’s a grim world I tell you – no bling, no glory, no perspectives, only survival in a city governed by force and lies. Don’t trust anyone and you’ll yet see the light of the day.
Now pay attention because I’ll say it just once. Do you see the guy in the picture? That’s Yanus, you’ll control him. He always stays in the middle of the screen, so you’ll never lose sight of where you are, even when the bullets start pouring on your head.
Those guns that you are holding – push the button at the right moment and you will not only reload faster but gain a damage boost. You can also modify them, to bring more strategy to the fray, but first you’ll need to put the cash on the table for mods. You can get them…
Hey, pay attention, I’m talking to you!
Where was I? Ah yes, strategy – use your head, not only your happy trigger fingers. You’ve been taking care of your body, so be sure to dodge and dash away out of harm’s way. Use the environment as cover and you’ll be good. Worst case scenario, use “synthad” to give yourself a boost just don’t overdo it, that stuff is bad news I tell you.
You’ve got your VR mod and not a shabby one either. Use it to hack your enemies and…
Hey!
…you’ve got the attention span of a six-year-old. Just watch the **** video and learn something.
Did anything useful stuck in your tiny brain? You know what, don’t answer, I don’t really care. I wouldn’t say you’re ready, but at least now you’ve got a chance. Your client is just a single step outside of your apartment. She’ll tell you that a data carrier is missing and she’ll want you to get it back for her. Simple? No, nothing is that simple. Something stinks here and this time around it’s not you. Take the job and always look behind your back.
Interested? I thought so.
SlavicPunk: Oldtimer releases on Xbox Series S|X today. Have a peek into my Stream and see what you’re up against.
You got that?
Today. Xbox Series S|X. Wishlist and buy. Make me a happy merc, Punk!
SlavicPunk: Oldtimer
Gaming Factory S.A.
☆☆☆☆☆
3
★★★★★
$17.99
$14.39
SlavicPunk: Oldtimer is an isometric shooter video game, based upon the works of Michał Gołkowski, a renown Polish science-fiction and fantasy books author. It is him who created the story of Yanus – a private investigator with a troubled past, now trying to solve an unexpected case revolving around a stolen data carrier, all this while fighting his own inner demons, the urban gangs and a nigh-omnipotent corporation responsible for the downfall of the city he used to call his own.
The game offers solid combat and movement systems, as well as a modular weapon upgrade system, thanks to which the players striding through the dark corners of the city may make every encounter feel and look different. Action-packed levels with stealth elements, hacking and environmental puzzle solving are intertwined with more slow-paced sequences of city exploration, side quests and storytelling.
A unique, inherently Slavic take on the cyberpunk world is sure to leave none indifferent thanks to its sharp, caustic sense of humour and a slightly pessimistic outlook at the neon-grey shades of the surrounding reality, at the same time providing a much needed breath of fresh air to the genre itself.
As a team, the question we asked ourselves was: what was the world going to look like in a couple of decades? How would a hypothetical Central and Eastern European city and its inhabitants differ from, say, Blade Runner ‘s L.A. or Akira’s Neo Tokyo?”.
The attempts to answer this puzzle has had a tremendous deal of influence upon the game’s artistic choices, including a mix of futuristic-esque and overly outdated technologies, the grim, brutalist architecture typical of the post-communist countries, the character’s not-so-obvious moral choices and the often crudely makeshift, yank-and-tuck character and atmosphere of an environment overpacked with people forced to cope with the uneven distribution of goods and wealth, often relying on their wits and sheer luck to make it to the next paycheck without losing their minds.
SlavicPunk story goes to show that there is more than meets the eye to this dystopian version of the future is, and it is only up to the players to discover what lies beneath the neon glow and the concrete streets – helping Yanus unravel his last case and find out just how brutal and ugly the truth may actually be.