Ruiner (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): September 26, 2017
- Release Date (EU): September 26, 2017
- Publisher: Digital Devolver
- Developer: Reikon Games
- Genres: Twin Stick Shooter
- Also For: Computer, Xbox One
Game Features:
Story
You start the game with amnesia more or less, even though they don’t come right out and say it. Your character wakes up with someone seemingly inside your head giving you slightly cryptic orders to “Kill Boss”. Because of the evolving form the story takes I won’t reveal much but the first mission reveals that your head was hacked and someone was trying to get you to perform nefarious deeds in their stead. A less chaotic evil hacker girl takes up residence in the void and guides you along in subsequent missions. You set off to find your brother since it was hinted that he was in captivity for leverage.
Presentation
Ruiner is a top-down, slightly off centre isometric twin-stick shooter (or beat-em up, depending on how you play). Its violent, bloody, and full of death. The graphics are modelled 3D and look pretty good from afar, which is good, because that is how will you be experiencing the game. There are a few points where I felt the game was too dark or too saturated in color to really tell what was going on. In a few places your entire screen is covered in neon red light which can be a slight problem as your warp jump cursor is neon red as well. Which it’s only a minor inconvenience at best, I feel like those few areas made it hard to look directly at my tv.
Human characters and other on-screen assets are best viewed from far away. There are a few times where you see a close up of a full body rig and its pretty clear that the models are not meant to be Pixar quality animation pieces, but are serviceable for the most part.
The music is catchy but largely forgettable at the same time. Again, that is a good thing as you need both halves of your brain to deal with the situations Ruiner throws at you. The tunes suck you in and while you notice them at first, they fade fittingly into the background of the game, almost acting as a tool to keep you laser focused on fighting.
Mechanics
Ruiner seems to aim at being a more technical (and slightly slower) Hotline Miami. Guns are not OHKOs, and most thugs need a least a couple of melee hits to finish off. Exploding barrels and traps set by street rats are around many a corner. You’re gonna die. A lot. Until you get the hang of things, and the game kicks it to eleven so you still die quite often. Luckily there are tools to help.
Your bread and butter will be the teleport dash/melee. You start with the ability to dash a short distance with a little cost of cooldown. In mere minutes you gain the ability to chain teleports around set by little makers on the ground you set. These are incredibly helpful for dodging traps and around enemy fire, especially since bosses can do this too. Better melee weapons come with a limited number of uses. While they dish out a ton of damage you will find yourself breaking them and going back to the pipe, wishing melee weapons didn’t “break” At least I did.
There are guns lying around almost every time you kill a thug. I didn’t pay them much mind except to get a few pot shots off on a boss, or if they were spread-fire types. Most of the guns I found to be largely useless. It’s almost too hard to tell which direction you are facing to make good use of them and besides, they do so little damage and that leaves you open for someone to rush you and get some easy health knocked off of your bar. Something to note, guns are one and done. Once you empty the clip, drop it and move on because there is no reloading in Ruiner.
There is a whole screen devoted to upgrading your character and your abilities. Almost everything you can do is upgradable or unlockable on this screen. And you are going to need it.
Something this game does not have going for it: cheating enemies. The first few bosses are not so bad, but they quickly up the ante. Within a few hours you are running into bosses with teleport dash abilities like you. Those fights get sweaty quick. But after that enemies gain the slightly more unfair ability to teleport anywhere. It’s certainly not game breaking, but enough to get under the average gamer’s skin. It’s one thing to have IA that cheats. Almost every AI cheats in order to stay ahead of the player. But when there is no effort to hide it is when it becomes irksome.
There were a few instances where I found myself dying because of a slight delay when changing from gun to melee or vice versa. I am not sure if this is intentional but other gamers have noticed it too.
Pressing up on the D-pad sends the MC into his idle animation, which is push-ups. There’s even a counter for how many he does. There’s a trophy for doing 1003 in a row.
Ruiner Launch Trailer
Verdict
- Frantic action
- Satisfying/punishing combat
- Extensive progression tree
- Cheap bosses
- Cheating AI
- Useless guns
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