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| I wish I could add in the sound effect that plays whenever that "KILL BOSS" thing comes up in-game because the sound effect is great too. |
Hyper Light Drifter is one of my favorite games. If you know me, you know this already because I say it all the time. It's a great game and it's just about unsurpassed in its ability to elicit a unique feeling through its use of sound, music, visual tone, and kick-ass gameplay. Ruiner, which I've been playing the past couple days, tries to do the same thing, more or less.
Ruiner is an anime-inspired cyberpunk game that looks and smells a lot like the robotic lovechild of the new Deus Ex games and Terminator 1. It makes for a great aesthetic, and one that's somewhat related to Hyper Light Drifter in that they both embrace design elements that have evolved from 80s and 90s nostalgia. Ruiner is a far more visually complex game though; it's mostly all 3D except for some very slick 2D visuals and the GUI of course. Does that complexity help the game stand out and give it a really compelling look? ABSOLUTELY! Despite the fact that a lot of the stuff in Ruiner is highly derivative, it comes off as more of an homage than a ripoff, rehash, or plagiarism.
One example of this that isn't even visual is the way the famous alarm from Alien loops and drones on in the background of the first stage. It's a diegetic sound, but it's also a clear allusion to the Alien franchise and media of that genre, especially considering you traverse a Nostromo-esque factory in the same level. Maybe it would seem like a lazy reference in another game with less going for it visually and a plainer soundscape, but in Ruiner, that Alien alarm is just one layer of noise that blends in with the great soundtrack and sound effects. All of that blends further with the visuals and violence of the story and game. It's a cohesive whole, maybe that's what's really necessary to transcend merely referencing things and create something transformative; the derivative bits have to at least be great parts of a larger picture. In Ruiner, the sound and visuals at least do this.
The gameplay doesn't though.
It's a top down, sort of 3D isometric style twin stick shooter. In that respect, it's also still similar to Hyper Light Drifter (can you see why I'm comparing them now?), which is a top down action game where, like Ruiner, you whack enemies with a powerful melee weapon and shoot them with a gun whose damage potential is kept in check by an ammunition mechanic. The comparisons don't stop there though, both games also allow the player to execute a dash move that becomes exceedingly important in higher level play. It feels pretty good to dash around clobbering cyberpunk gangsters and cyborgs with a metal pipe or blow them away with a shotgun. Enemy variation isn't a strong suit (at least as far into the game as I've gotten) but encounters have yet to feel stale. The game's got everything going for it, but I don't like playing it as much as Hyper Light Drifter, or Doom for that matter.
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| Hyper Light Drifter is at least as good at making you feel like a cyber-ninja as Metal Gear Rising: Revengence |
Why did I mention Doom? Well the game's also similar to Doom just like it's similar to Hyper Light Drifter. In fact, It's pretty much a crossbreed of those two games but playing Ruiner, I've found myself wishing that the game would commit to being either one of them; either fully 3D like Doom or fully 2D like Hyper Light Drifter.
I honestly think Ruiner would be improved if it was just a cyberpunk version of Doom while still retaining all of its current strengths. I say that because owing to a combination of the game's high frequency detail, dark and sharp lighting, and fast pace, it can sometimes be very difficult to feel connected to what your character is doing. Hyper Light Drifter, which really does have very similar gameplay to this game, doesn't suffer from this problem because of its clean style and more simplified aesthetic; Doom gets around the issue by being fully 3D. Ruiner's half 3D-half 2D style really does nobody any favors but the devs. Sure it's easier to design and plan a 2D action game compared to a 3D one, but they already went through the trouble of modeling everything in 3D. How much more effort would it take to make this an FPS, and even if it was quite a bit, wouldn't it be worth it if the game was fundamentally improved?
I also think hardly anyone would have been less likely to get this game if it was an FPS. Most of the reason anyone knows about it is because of its cool cutscenes presented in the trailers that show off the main character and his jumbotron face. The cutscenes are in full 3D and they are legitimately great and every time the game shifts from showing me one back into the dumbed-down 3D gameplay I sigh thinking about how much more I'd like to be playing the game Ruiner is showing me in those cutscenes.
So unlike the visuals and sound of this game, which don't reinvent the wheel but present a wheel so exquisite it must be experienced, the gameplay doesn't reinvent the wheel and thus it remains just a wheel, and I've played around with a regular wheel before. If Ruiner was the only twin stick shooter around, it'd be the best game ever, but Hyper Light Drifter, which does the twin stick shooter thing better, still exists and it's at least as good as Ruiner in terms of compelling visuals and sound/music.
To be fair, I only start longing for better games while playing Ruiner in the moments where the game doesn't have me entranced by its soundtrack or feeling like an absolute badass blowing away enemies with aplomb. Hyper Light Drifter doesn't have that problem though because there's nothing else like it. So while Ruiner may be really cool, you just can't escape the fatigue its derivative nature builds up in you. While its visual and soundtrack escaped that issue before by being fresh and compelling enough to make you feel like it's unique and great, the gameplay is simply to normal to elicit any such feeling
One last note. You've just read an entire post where I go on and on about how Ruiner is sub-par compared to Hyper Light Drifter. That is not to say it's a bad game! Hyper Light Drifter is amazing and most things suck compared to it! Ruiner is absolutely a really fun and supremely cool game, definitely worth your time if you at all like cyberpunk stuff or games like Hyper Light Drifter, Doom, or twin stick shooters in general.
So I may have trashed it in this pseudo review, but I definitely think you should play Ruiner. Not convinced yet? Watch this trailer:
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