Feeding your dog an entire can of soda will usually make your dog very ill. However, in Cruel, filling your dog with off-brand Dr. Pepper grants you roguelike upgrades. During my first run of this crazy run-and-gun shooter, I earned a bonus that gave me extra ammo when deflecting bullets with melee weapons. To which I replied, “Wait, can you deflect bullets?”
Kicking open the door to the next level, I swung my ax at the first cultist who fired at me, the bullet ricocheting off the metal head of the axe. “Oh wow, you can deflect bullets,” I said, and then I shot the cultist with my revolver.
While this is a fair description of your actions in the game, Cruel has the wrong adjective in the title. It really should be called Cool because that’s what it is and it’s effortless. It’s a brutal, breakneck-paced shooter reminiscent of Monolith’s classic Blood shooter, as well as newer titles like Anger Foot, which have you tearing through the rundown halls of an apartment building that’s actively trying to kill you.
A round of Cruel begins in astutely stylish fashion, with your character throwing a revolver at a chalk pentagram on the table and a disembodied voice asking, “Who do you want to kill?” You will be asked to enter your answer and I won’t lie, a few different names went through my head before I decided to answer “You”. “Wow, really,” the disembodied voice replied. “Well, it’s disturbing, but who am I to judge?”
After this encounter, you are thrown into a glowing elevator that takes you to the first floor of an apartment building, where you are usually greeted by a cultist with a gun. Cruel will seem familiar to seasoned FPS fans for about thirty seconds, until you look over your shoulder and discover that the hallway behind you is on fire. As a result, each level becomes a flameout race where you break down doors and deal with what’s inside as efficiently as you can to advance to the next stage.
Cruel moves surprisingly brisk, and I don’t just mean how brisk your character moves. The game feels relentless from minute one, with highly kinetic, physical gunplay highlighted by a pulsating, bass-driven soundtrack. The stock pistol is satisfying enough to support the game on its own, while later weapons include double-barreled shotguns, submachine guns, and chainsaws. I especially like the way the damage is depicted as bullet holes on the screen, accompanied by an excruciating sound that makes you wince every time it triggers.
Cruel also tells you nothing about how it works, forcing you to learn as you go. New ideas and tactics are being discovered at an extraordinary pace. For example, reloading your weapon before entering a modern room is a necessary survival tactic, while ash spirits are better fought by hitting them with a melee weapon rather than wasting an orb. You can also throw enemies out of windows, headshot them for an instant kill, and throw melee weapons at them.
Finally, Cruel also offers a neat risk/reward mechanic that fits into the game’s rogue-like structure. The soda cans you devour to regain health can also be fed to your dog at the end of each level to gain indefinite upgrades such as larger magazines and a fire that burns slower. There’s even a third way to apply these sodas: stockpiling them to trigger a devastating soda attack.
Mechanically, Cruel fits into a deceptively compact package, costing just £8.50 in the UK. Coupleand less than ten dollars in the US. To do this, you have ten levels to complete, which may not seem like much considering you can complete them in a matter of minutes. However, since Cruel has a roguelike structure, the challenge builds up quite quickly, so it will take you some time to master. Speaking of which, it’s five after five on a Friday and Fido wants some sugar.
