Developer Reikon Games’ Ruiner is a gruesome tour through a vivid cyberpunk dystopia, dripping with neon-soaked style, that will satisfy fans of old-school isometric shooters.
Ruiner is a top-down action game that channels classic isometric shooter Crusader: No Remorse as much as it does any other modern “twin-stick” style shooter. You take control of a mysterious stranger concealed by a digital mask, dropped into the action in the moments of lucidity that follow a mind-hacked massacre in a corporate HEAVEN.
It is not a game about subtlety. From the moment you dip into this synthesized hell of blood and neon, Ruiner makes the rules of your continued existence all too clear: If it moves, kill it before it kills you. Only seconds after you begin, you will have painted your surroundings crimson with the remains of those who seek your death. That is Ruiner from beginning to end, with precious little room to breathe.
And it is glorious.
Beneath the gritty 1980s cyberpunk aesthetic is a relatively simple game. You travel through corridors that are very similar in design, moving to a masterful soundtrack that is relentless and haunting by turns. Weapons abound, placed liberally throughout each environment, as well as those dropped by your unfortunate foes. Every battle is a dance of improvised brutality that will force you to frequently exchange one emptied weapon for another, all the while dodging a hail of deadly projectiles.
At no point in Ruiner are you a tank. Your vulnerability is never more than slightly or temporarily mitigated, so you will rely on the blinding speed of your superhuman dashes to delay the inevitability of your death. Progress will award skill points that can be fed into a loadout which can be reassigned to your heart’s content. Some upgrades are significantly more potent than others, but there are enough options on the table to tailor the experience to varying playstyles.
The game’s setting is “Rengkok,” an Asian-infused slice of urban decay typical of the genre. It is here that the game slows just enough to reveal more of its personality; Rengkok is a spray of acidic color across darkened alleys, where a seedy nun will promise to reward your pain with pleasure or a businessman will rope you into exploiting HEAVEN’s recent losses for material gain.
Unfortunately, that abundance of personality does not always translate into the forces arrayed against you. Enemies are largely the same, and their tactics become predictable. While the game is a thrill ride from beginning to end, it would have benefited from some additional tactical variety.
Still, the game remains engaging for all of its relatively brief stay. At $20, Ruiner will present you with a meaty and consistently entertaining 6-10 hours, depending on your skill and difficulty setting. Publisher Devolver Digital has made assertions about post-release content that may well expand on the game’s replayability, but even now I feel that it is easily worth its asking price.
As part of the inaugural wave of 2017’s autumn release schedule, Ruiner has already made its mark. If you have the stomach for its unapologetic violence, an affection for its seedy futuristic styling, and do not mind a concentrated burst of quality rather than a grand sprawl laden with mediocre filler, you owe it to yourself to take this bleak and hallucinatory trip.
Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.