[TEST] VLADiK BRUTAL : Des Russes, Du Sang Et Half-Life 2

We came across the advert by chance VLADIK BRUTAL in 2022, and we almost immediately forgot about it. So it was with some surprise that we learned that it was coming out in early August. Indeed, even if the concept of being inspired byHalf-Life 2 for the artistic direction and to make a linear FPS a little gory seemed quite simple, the project was carried out by a Russian developer solo. What to fear an interesting game in its concept, but ugly and riddled with bugs – in a word, of theeurojank. In the end, despite the disclaimer on the Steam page, it’s not that broken, and we even had a pretty good time.

Genre : Rétro-FPS | Developer: Narko Games | Publisher: Narko Games | Platform : Steam | Prix : 11,79 € | Recommended configuration: Ryzen 5 / Core i58GB RAM, GTX 1050Ti/RX 590 | LANGUAGES : Russian, French subtitles | Release date: 09/08/2024 | Lifetime : about ten hours

Test performed on a commercial version

Half-Life 2, you say?

The developer does not hide it, to achieve VLADIK BRUTALhe was greatly inspired byHalf-Life 2. It borrows its atmosphere, conveyed by the rather successful artistic direction, showing a sad and dreary Russia, crushed by its buildings, its structures. brutalistes and its dictator whose resemblance to reality would be entirely coincidental. The enemies also seem to come from Valve’s game, with their white gas masks and similar radio exchanges. And it’s impossible not to see the reference to Gordon Freeman’s buggy and hovercraft escapades, when you cross levels at the wheel of a Dacia. On the storyline side, we necessarily move away from it a little, since here, we will play a prisoner who is simply trying to escape, by killing everything in his path. To do this, we will use a dozen weapons, ranging from pistols to assault rifles, including rocket launchers. It’s classic, but the gunfeel is very good. The developer has managed to give a great feeling of power, whatever gun is used. Obviously, the shotgun is one of the most enjoyable, but the AK type is also a model of the genre: terribly difficult to control, it is almost impossible to follow your target beyond a few meters with the weapon aimed. This sounds like a criticism, but on the contrary, it is really super fun to use, and very visceral. The enemies breathe their last in huge sprays of blood splashing the walls and ceilings, which then drip for long seconds, with a most evocative sound design, and deliciously gory.

As stupid as a stick

Half of the bestiary of VLADIK BRUTAL is made up of zombie-like creatures, translucent monsters, or abominations running on all fours. They just charge at you until you free them with a bullet in the buffet. It’s a little less consistent with the other half, the soldiers who are supposed to be human, but who will rush like morons in single file into the flames of your Molotov cocktail, thrown on the doorstep. In open spaces, they will just run like idiots, without trying to take cover. On the other hand, the developer has not skimped on the difficulty. Your opponents are trigger-happy and will almost always shoot you first. I died more than once, even on normal. As in games from the late 90s, all enemies drop ammo or life, the icons of which float above the ground. But we don’t really care, we understood that despite the relatively modern packaging, the concept is clearly retro. And if it doesn’t really spoil the fun, because the level design is thought like that, we can still regret having AI less smart than in the first Half-Life…And while we’re on the subject of legend, we’ll also come across bosses, which the father of modern FPS wouldn’t disown. While we usually understand pretty quickly how to get rid of them, I must have died a good twenty times on one of them, the time it took me to understand what the developer wanted me to do. Finally, to stay on the subject of minor hiccups, the weapon selection method is crap, a priori designed for consoles: you have to hold a key to display your inventory, then move your mouse over the desired item, all in a sort of slow motion. In the heart of the action, it’s frankly not practical. It clearly lacks the classic shortcuts used in all other FPS. Maybe the functionality will be offered in a future patch?

It’s not ugly, but not very pretty either.

As we said at the beginning, the artistic direction is rather successful. The atmosphere of a totalitarian regime oozes from the concrete of the apartment blocks, abandoned buildings or underground labs. But we can’t say that it’s really beautiful, despite the possibility of activating ray tracing. Obviously, with this technology, don’t expect to make the frames per second counter explode, even with a brute force PC. But by remaining reasonable – especially since it doesn’t bring much visually – the game is surprisingly well optimized, as I was able to see on a mid-range laptop in 1080p. I was also quite surprised not to encounter any bugs, despite thewarning from the Steam page.

A nice little solo game

VLADIK BRUTAL is very inspired byHalf-Life 2 : we find very marked references in its atmosphere, its artistic direction, its enemies, and even its gameplay phases. A beautiful homage embellished with a delightful gunfeel and very amusing gore. We can criticize the aesthetics that are not necessarily always very successful, an AI at ground level and a scandalous weapon wheel, but it is clear that we still have a lot of fun. And what’s more, it is developed by a single person, which commands respect! If you want to dive back into the early 2000s for about ten hours, this may be the game for you.

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