Retro throwbacks are a bit of a new trend in gaming. Most of them seem to get so caught up in the aesthetics of looking and playing retro, they forget to be their own game. The hype for Dusk hit like a megaton bomb, first hearing of this game back in 2017 from larger YouTube channels. The retro graphics, and references to oldschool “Boomer shooters,” like Blood, were much lauded by these channels who dissected as many as they could find after the first episode released. From the enemies, settings, toilet flushings, and other hidden or obvious references to past shooters, I re-watched many of these over the last week because I was on the fence as to whether I should take the plunge and buy this game off of steam.
The reason I was fence-sitting so hard on this was, despite the overwhelming praise this game received, I still wasn't sure it was all it was cracked up to be. I am very cynical about retro throwback games as many come off as inauthentic, getting so hung up on looking and playing like old games, they forget to design an actual competent game. However, in the case of Dusk, after many a review, and gameplay sample was watched, I finally made the decision to pick it up, and, while I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about it as other reviewers are, I still find it to be a solid shooter that was worth the $20 asking price.
I recently got around to building a retro Windows XP gaming rig out of two non working computers I had lying around. The reason is, I wanted to be reunited with my PC gaming collection, most of which won't work, or wont easily work with a modern Operating system. The vast majority of my PC gaming collection consists of, what else, First person shooters.
I also built an optiplex budget build for an editing/some gaming rig, opening the door for me to enjoy the best of the last 20 to 25 years of first person shooters on the PC market. Suffice it to say that I have been on a “Boomer” shooter kick as of late, playing my old collection, and even picking up Shadow Warrior classic for free on steam, and the remaster of Blood, Fresh supply for $9.99. Over the last couple of months, I have been immersing myself in the very games Dusk harkens back to.
I spent a day and a half playing Dusk on the “I can Take it difficulty,” and after playing through all three episodes, I can say this game plays like a well made Quake Mod, but with Quake III's controls, and speed. Looking past all the blatant or obscure references to past shooters, Dusk features enough fast gameplay, and it's own unique level designs to stand as it's own shooter, being an enjoyable experience for veterans of old shooters and newbies alike.
Dusk has a fantastic feel in both the movement and combat elements. I won't go through the exact list, but has all the genre's standard weapons as well as two different takes on the Quake Rail Gun/Unreal sniper rifle. The hunting rifle, and the crossbow. Yes, I know everyone says heretic for crossbow, but it reminds me more of Quake 3's gimped Rail gun (when compared to the terrifying Quake II rail gun that is).
The weapons have a weighty satisfying feel to them, but still not quite as weighty or satisfying as those in a number of the games it copies. They feel good to use, but, not to sound like I am dumping on Quake III again, feel slightly gimped like jumping from Quake or Quake II to Quake III. In fact, Quake III is the game Dusk feels the most like in motion, and controls, and even a few design elements like the feel of the weapons.
In fact, the freedom of movement in the game gives it a feel as if someone designed levels around the fast-moving pace of an arena shooter, which is elating when the levels open up enough to for the full range of movement to be unleashed, and still freeing in the cramped corridors housed in many others.
As with oldschool shooters, the levels in Dusk are packed with hordes of baddies, tons of hidden areas to find, and range from large open environments, to windy, twisty mazes. They are, for the most part solidly designed, with Episode 3 being the best designed ones of the bunch. In fact, the final episode, the hexen or Heritic levels are really where the game truly shines in the design standpoint. The first episode was good, but I kind of hated the second episode a little. Nevertheless, the third is where the game pushed past the mere throwback gimmick, and became it's own unique thing, featuring the best level designs, and more balanced gameplay than the first two.
Arena shooters, or even the multiplayer aspects of retro shooters were designed for fast furious gameplay, with weapons and ammo spread throughout the map. Take Quake II for example, picking up a weapon netted you new firepower, but with a small amount of ammo, causing you to hunt more ammo down on the map, or even wait for ammo pickups to respawn to get more. This move balanced the game out, because it meant that players didn't get the best gun on the map with a ton of ammo with which to spam the freshly spawning other players. The game also allowed players to pick up new guns, or ammo for guns off their fallen foes. This kept the game moving fast, discouraged camping, and made it more balanced for the other players. This concept works great for online maps.
However, the concept of limiting ammo, and keeping it sparse, specifically in the second episode which has the most scenes of enemies swarming the player, can be frustrating in the single player mode, the mode where you are supposed to be able to build up your arsenal, building toward the harder levels later in the game.
The second episode has big open areas, tons of enemies, and the constant need to stop and look for ammo, because the developers didn't give you enough to last the swarm. You might then say this makes it more strategic, meaning you have to make more strategic uses of your ammo, pick your targets, and don't waste a lot of ammo, which in a shooter that isn't geared toward the frantic mayhem speed of Dusk would true.
For me, running out of ammo, and only being able to collect one bullet here and there from your fallen foes, like you would in an arena shooter clashed with the hectic pace the game was striving for.
Even when the game was generous with certain ammo, it rarely gave you the effective ammo for these swarm segments. Nothing like having what feels like a hundred enemies shooting at you all at once, with incredible accuracy, from across the map, only to realize the only two guns you have enough ammo for are the useless pistols, and the shotguns for long range. Perhaps it was my fault for not finding all the secret areas along the way, but I found the second episode to be a bit tedious after a while.
I didn't have nearly as much fun with it as I should have because the crippling lack of ammo for the most fun weapons to use. Just a little bit more ammo, and these scenes would have been an absolute blast, instead, they felt more like a war of attrition, slowly grinding me enjoyment of the game down. It sounds like a small nitpick overall, but as the enemies got tougher, your arsenal of the two weakest weapons to deal with them bogged the game down into repetitiveness to the point I almost didn't want to play the third episode meaning I would have missed the best portion of the game.
I hope it doesn't sound as if I am completely bagging on the second episode, as I did enjoy it at times, I just felt as though there were parts of it I would have had a much better time with in it, had the developers had just been slightly more forthcoming on the ammo, instead of feeling a bit tedious, these scenes could have been some of the best in the game. I was was definitely ready to see it end, especially after this stupid boss fight here.
The last episode is where everything clicks, the levels have the best and most thoughtful designs put into them, and the ammo to weapon balance is perfect. Plus you get a sword, so heck yeah.
The third episode had me smiling, and just thoroughly enjoying the eclectic level designs, mixed with the carnage of the gunplay, and I enjoyed mowing down the diverse collection of enemies once again. Not only does it introduce a few new enemies for this episode, but brought back all the ones from the first two episodes, for a nonsensical mixture of enemies to turn into a spewing red paste-like material. While I limped out of the middle episode, forcing myself to move on for this review, the third brought back that frenetic in-your-face fast-paced hectic feel of Quake and Doom.
The fear of this just being a shallow retro throwback gimmick melted away as I grinded through horde after horde. I found that same groove and those same feelings Quake, doom, serious sam, Unreal, and so many other retro shooters provoke in me. Yes, it did take me a while to figure out some of the level puzzles, but that's a sign of the levels being just as much a part of the game as the combat, that true mixture of oldschool shooter, fantastic level designs, and frenetic combat melding together for an outstanding overall experience. Despite a few issues, I definitely enjoyed my experience with Dusk overall.
Once you beat the game, you have the option to go back and play each level, looking for all the secrets you missed, or even for speedrun practice. The game also offers Achievements, and multiple difficulty levels, so there are reasons to revisit the singleplayer mode. The game also offers an endless mode, or horde mode where players test their skills against endless waves of baddies.
Around 2005 or 2006, I put many hours into Quake II online, enough hours of hard-fought learning how to play the game, the end of which I became a painfully mediocre player who could get maybe a dozen kills at best. Dusk has an online mode that channels those Quake skills in all of us. I would say it's more definitely Quake III or the original Quake over Quake 2, but once you learn the way to move in one, you take those skills into the next.
It took me a while to finally find a game, but when I did, I had a lot of frantic fragging fun. It's just a shame there aren't more people playing it online when you can still find plenty of matches in the almost quarter century old Quake II to this day. Perhaps a testament to the popularity of that franchise, and boomer shooters in general. They tell you to join the Discord server in order to find people to play against, which isn't a good sign of the multiplayer's popularity considering this game is only a few years old. If you are a Quake or Unreal Tournament fan looking for another fun game to play online, give this one a shot, and even if you are a noob, the veterans will take it easy on you so as not to scare you away.
Graphically, the game uses an oldschool visual ascetic, one that can be tweeked to pure pixelation, or cleaned up to look like GL Quake. Your choice of pixelation, and color filters. The enemies are magical and nonsensical, but nothing has to make sense in this world, especially since many of them are throwbacks enemies in old shooters, mostly blood, because Blood is definitely the biggest influence on Dusk. The most important part is the game moves lightning fast.
As I said earlier, the controls, especially the ability to move in the air, and the entire overall feel of the game, mimic those of Quake III. Fast, furious, bunny hopping, sideways jumping, rocket jumping glory, and you can pretty much jump up the side of any slanted surface in the game.
The only wonky part of the controls has to do with the mechanic of picking up and throwing items, like the infamous soap. The items aren't locked in, and are too far away from the player meaning it's easy to drop them when going through a doorway. Players can pick up any item in the game in order to stack them to jump up to higher places, or to even throw them at enemies to kill them. However, the mechanic, while a cool idea was so hit or miss, I usually just ignored it's existence, even with the soap.
The music, specifically the tunes that play in the action segments, is the star of the show in the sound department. There is the ambient music that plays in levels, but the heavy metal tunes that play during the action are superb. There may be a little Sonic mayhem, and other classic shooter tunes as inspiration in there, but the soundtrack stands as it's own unique thing, and fits the action and scifi horror theme of the game nicely, giving the game an other-worldly feel. The grunts, guns sounds sound good enough, if not nearly as booming as those in Quake. And enemy voices (which have throwbacks in themselves, for example, the soldiers make a sound reminiscent of the strogg iron maiden, and the cultists say multiple things including heretic, get it) are well done as well. The overall sound package helps draw players further into the strange world of dusk.
The Bottom line: Overall, Dusk was an enjoyable throwback that goes beyond shallow aesthetics, taking the idea of a throwback mixed with classic style gameplay, and melding them into a solid overall package. I didn't come away from this game as enthusiastic about it as other channels, but am overall satisfied with my purchase. If you're a PC gamer who has yet to play this, pick it up, and party like it only costs 19.99. There is, apparently, a Nintendo Switch port coming down the pipe, sometime, and, assuming they get the mechanics right in the switch, no pun intended, from PC to console, Switch gamers should definitely buy this when it hits.
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