Crux Review

Developed and Published - Blackout Softworks sh. p.k.

Crux is a fast-paced single-player arena shooter roguelike, where you face waves of enemies, unique bossfights and earn powerful magic abilities across 13 arenas. 

Master your fluid movement, trusty arsenal and the power of the blood gods to reach the top of the CRUX Champions Leaderboard!

Since the release of the original Quake back in 1996, there have been many games coming that are similar to that old-school classic, but Crux brings you to a whole new level.

With its roguelike mechanics, and 4-slot tech inventory, you'll be fighting through 13 levels of pure mayhem.

Quake 1996 was manageable in comparison to what Crux has to offer.

Will you come out on top, to be the living legend, or will you fall to the might of the monster spawns?

Gameplay

You don't start in a menu in this game, no, you start in the tutorial... The game throws a middle finger to your standard tactics of game, and throws you into the game, without a care in the world.

At least it is only the tutorial, so you can adjust settings and sensitivity, which is the biggest thing.

The tutorial can and will teach you all the basic things, Melee, Grappling, Shooting and jumping, if you are like me, you'll die in the tutorial... No jokes

After completing the tutorial, you are now in the lobby, where you can aim train, go into a practice range and look at all the different abilities that you can find and upgrade by interacting with the chest near the start portal.

By jumping into the start portal, your torturous adventure begins by trying to take on 13 stages of pure chaos.

You'll be offered a selection of 3 different abilities at the start of each stage, it's down to you to best select one that you think will benefit you the most. You'll also have 3 weapons.

A Shotgun with a grappling hook, an SMG with a pulse cannon and a Grenade launcher with a manual detention remote.

Bullets are not endless, they are very limited, luckily, there are powerups in each stage where you can refill your ammo. Yellow bullets refill your shotgun, Blue for SMG and Red for Grenades. You'll also come across health and Armour pickups, take note of these as you will get hit... A lot...

I'm not certain what spawns the boss of each stage if it's a certain amount of kills, steps, usage of a specific weapon or some other mechanic. This was the only thing that I think could have been better explained, and probably one of the only flaws that this game has.

Besides the bosses, you'll face a multitude of different varieties of enemies from Wolves, Skeletons, Exploding mutants and many more.

Dying in a stage sets you back to the main menu, but you gain hearts on each boss or special action in the game, you may also find hearts when picking an ability at the start of stages. They can also be used to upgrade your perks too.

These hearts unlock a perk talent tree from the chests, there are many to choose from, again pick one for your playstyle, maximum per run is 4.

I think you can also have more active perks if you pick them up in the dungeons. Stages are not randomised but are still troublesome regardless.

Final Thoughts

A roguelike Quake-style game is interesting, it's not something explored very much, or at least that I've noticed.

There's a lot of blood, spread body parts, and even slow-down time gruesome melee moments.

The graphics are Quake equivalent, but the sound effects are just horrible, I hit a bug where the sound caused a high-pitched continuous ringing, forcing me to shut SFX off from the audio settings.

There is enough consistency here for replayability, despite not having random dungeons, I did enjoy the game though, and will likely revisit in the future to discover more glitch spots for the Grappling hook.

The game is also not easy, prepare yourself for the fight of your life.

Rating

I would rate it a 4.

The overall gameplay feels smooth, despite some hiccups with the mouse acceleration which I couldn't turn off, the sound effects causing high-pitched ringing and that stupid sand worm that's just annoying to beat up.

Links

Steam