A thousand cheers for the old-school FPS revival! Spearheaded by New Blood Interactive and 3D Realms (yes, that 3D Realms), the last five or so years has seen a slew of wonderful, ultra-fast, 2.5D shooters that have so successfully captured the mid-90s joie de vivre, while sneaking in modern ideas like physics, dynamic lighting, and functioning mouse controls.
While there are so many to recommend, like Gloomwood, Amid Evil, Cultic, and Ion Fury, we’re picking the poster child for the entire movement, Dusk.
Like most, this manic shooter pitches itself on that Doom-to-Duke Nukem axis, the best sort of nostalgic, where it plays how we remember these games feeling, rather than how they really were. Which is to say, a lot of clunkiness is removed, physics make the world more tangible, and the art is much more involved than was ever possible three decades ago.
But it’s more than nostalgia: Dusk is an extraordinarily good shooter in its own right, and one that gets progressively better the more you play. Level design begins great, but goes to majestic places, along with an excellent range of enemies, weapons, and even lethal soap.