Recent reviews by iskender

The second to last level killed my family

The Citadel's a vaguely old-style ('boomer') shooter developed as far as I can tell by one fairly insane Japanese guy. I say "vaguely" old-style because its mechanics lean very heavily modern. Tactical reloads, leaning, grenade play, et cetera -- it feels closer to a 'tactical' Half Life mod or some modern re-imagining of Marathon than its other professed influences of Doom or Wolfenstein.

It's rough around the edges. It runs with way higher demands than a game like it 'should,' and the movement can sometimes be infuriating in that 'realistic' style... you don't have much influence over where you go after you jump, which lead to a lot of annoyance in specific levels (like the secret sniper rifle in the first chapter...) I've gotten some weird crashes, too, and the lack of manual saves can sometimes make them a little annoying -- but generally you're just spat out at the beginning of whatever fairly short level you crashed in, so they didn't drive me up the wall or anything.

The levels can get a little bland, too -- there's not much visual variety in the tilesets, which is kind of strange considering how much effort was put into differentiating the enemies and the player's weapons. For God's sake, you're telling me you could afford to make full animations for the player looking down at their own body, but not a new coat of paint for the walls every so often?

I think that roughness adds a lot of strength to the game, though. If you had pitched this to a professional game designer, they probably would've said to cut down on the weapons (14 + alt fire + upgrades + other consumables), the weird hunger system, the currency... I mean, why put in a lean system or kicking? Why make the pistol and shotgun reloads only put in one bullet per key press? It's fun. This game is a person's passion project -- probably their baby. And when it works -- it works well. It's viscerally satisfying. Maybe not on the same level as Ultrakill, but for me it beats out other similar projects like Ion Fury -- which is shocking, considering that Ion Fury is an objectively more polished and arguably "better" game.

It punches above its weight, especially at a 15-dollar price tag. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. Well -- not *whole*-heartedly. The protagonist needs to put on some damn pants.