Cruelty Squad was great. It looks ugly by design but it's a shockingly addictive mission-based shooter, and one I find myself coming back to in order to discover more secret shit. It's even pretty good gun porn, which came as a surprise. The guy knows his obscure weaponry.
Ill have to give it another try but it was just so obtuse. It reminded me of the mock shooting game that the terrorists played in the Polytechnique movie.
Yeah, I'll admit I nearly gave up on it the first time myself because it was that obtuse, and I hear pretty much everybody do exactly the same whether they gave up on it hard or eventually picked it back up and loved it. Even the main menu takes getting used to. But then things start to kind of connect the more you play and even fuck with it. I found the more I talked to friendly NPCs and read the weapon/equipment descriptions the more I started to see that there was a real consistency to the world I was in. It also kind of wants you to try to break it at times. Hunting for secret levels, events, and weapons/tools through replaying stages after you beat the game the first time are necessary. The reason, to mildly spoil things, is because the first ending and even the second ending are really just cutscenes, and all to help you go toward the actual ending. It's a weird fucking game that forces you to get used to it at its worst before you start to see it at its best. I think the best review I read on it was that the developer spent years lovingly crafting it, and then more years working to hide that it was lovingly crafted. As for gameplay it actually ends up being fun, too. About half the powerups are literal jokes, but the other half have real use and really affect how you play it. The grappendix for example is a grappling hook that makes you swing around like a madman and helps you get to hard to reach and secret areas, which ends up making the game very different from just running around. The weapons are also almost all some kind of good with nice drawbacks mixed in with each, and most of them are based on real weapons, and usually either obscure or experimental weapons like the H&K G11 or the Interdynamics MKR. It even has the ZiP .22 hidden somewhere, and it works just as badly as you'd expect. It was hilarious trying to win a gunfight with that POS. The AI's janky as fuck, but it's made up for with force of numbers and some decent enemy variety. Headshots for the majority of human enemies also actually count and damn that's satisfying. You just have to shrug off lot of ugly and at times disgusting sensory assault to start really seeing all that.
Yeah, I dunno. I tried it again for you and I actually have a headache now. All I could think of was this was Deus Ex with ass cancer (if you liked CS, play the original Deus Ex. Over a decade old and mops the floor with a lot of games today). I just don't understand the suffering when there are copious amounts of FPS that are really amazing with out the shards of glass getting fucked into your eyeballs. Hell, even a replay of Perfect Dark or new Doom WADs would trump it. I really didn't get the weirdness of it either and this is coming from a guy that loves Suda51 games; Killer 7 is one of my all time favorite games. Faces on doors, textures on walls like a child created it in MS Paint.... A lot of the playable area is worthless too, like, I would try and stray away from the targets intentionally to find secret stuff, of which a lot of the time there wasn't any, or at least for my unaugmented body and then a single bot would rape my ass quicker then I get fucked in COD Warzone and I would say "Okay, fuck this, I'm just killing the target and getting out" and I did that and it felt like I was cheating or missing out on something. I dunno, dude. I may be missing out but I really, really didn't get it. Like at all. I suffer from severe clinical depression and the weirdness and putrid audio, visuals and music kind of pop off garbage feelings in me. It's awesome you really enjoyed it. I sort of feel like an alien though since I never thought anyone could ever like this. I know subjective tastes and stuff but often there are mutual acknowledgment of poopoos. I'll just let the people enjoy it and not dog on it. lol
As for me, I've played just about every FPS worth playing from Wolf3D to Dusk. Deus Ex 1 is one of my favorite games period, too. The answer to you question is "why not just play those" in my case is because I've pretty much already played them all lol. As for Suda 51 I've played nearly all of those as well and consider Killer is Dead underrated, and I will say that as much as I loved CS, Killer7 did do it better at the end of the day. Back to gameplay, as for killing the target and getting out, that's all you really can do at first while finding ways to make enough money for the particularly traversive augmentations like the grappendix (to get where the more important shit is hiding). You really weren't missing out on anything by rushing to the first ending, since the real meat of the game is arguably found after unlocking most of the stages first. The first "ending" even hints that your next step is to go back and look for an avenue for the real ending. "DEATH" mode especially is as hard to find as it is vitally important, and the "cursed" difficulty is unlocked in a very bizarre way as well. At one point money is meaningless and you'll learn how to make millions in very little time one way or another. That being said, clinical depression is all you had to say. I suffer from it myself, but back when it was at its worst, I wouldn't have been able to handle Cruelty Squad and would probably say exactly what you're saying about it. Even with an ending that I consider bittersweet, the overall plot is very depressing, and the pilotredsun-tier visuals, grotesque bodyhorror, atmosphere, and story are all intentionally depressing themselves. It's a game that doesn't really like the player, and honestly that's something I liked about it. Usually when you play a game you're defeating the antagonists in it. With CS it felt like the game itself is the main antagonist. When I called it an assault, that wasn't an exaggeration. It really is fucking with you on purpose, from the soundtrack to the visuals, to the hitscanners (Christ, the hitscanners). While I do suggest to people to pick it up a second time (since it took a second attempt for me lol), I really don't blame you if you're put off by it on that second time. In any case, sorry about that headache.
https://youtu.be/Wd5OFpP3N8c
https://youtu.be/orG_oRtQg5I
https://davidbcooper.itch.io/doomed-love
https://assets.rockpapershotgun.com/images/2019/08/IonFury4.jpg
It's even pretty good gun porn, which came as a surprise. The guy knows his obscure weaponry.
Even the main menu takes getting used to. But then things start to kind of connect the more you play and even fuck with it. I found the more I talked to friendly NPCs and read the weapon/equipment descriptions the more I started to see that there was a real consistency to the world I was in.
It also kind of wants you to try to break it at times. Hunting for secret levels, events, and weapons/tools through replaying stages after you beat the game the first time are necessary.
The reason, to mildly spoil things, is because the first ending and even the second ending are really just cutscenes, and all to help you go toward the actual ending.
It's a weird fucking game that forces you to get used to it at its worst before you start to see it at its best. I think the best review I read on it was that the developer spent years lovingly crafting it, and then more years working to hide that it was lovingly crafted.
As for gameplay it actually ends up being fun, too. About half the powerups are literal jokes, but the other half have real use and really affect how you play it. The grappendix for example is a grappling hook that makes you swing around like a madman and helps you get to hard to reach and secret areas, which ends up making the game very different from just running around.
The weapons are also almost all some kind of good with nice drawbacks mixed in with each, and most of them are based on real weapons, and usually either obscure or experimental weapons like the H&K G11 or the Interdynamics MKR. It even has the ZiP .22 hidden somewhere, and it works just as badly as you'd expect. It was hilarious trying to win a gunfight with that POS.
The AI's janky as fuck, but it's made up for with force of numbers and some decent enemy variety. Headshots for the majority of human enemies also actually count and damn that's satisfying.
You just have to shrug off lot of ugly and at times disgusting sensory assault to start really seeing all that.
A lot of the playable area is worthless too, like, I would try and stray away from the targets intentionally to find secret stuff, of which a lot of the time there wasn't any, or at least for my unaugmented body and then a single bot would rape my ass quicker then I get fucked in COD Warzone and I would say "Okay, fuck this, I'm just killing the target and getting out" and I did that and it felt like I was cheating or missing out on something.
I dunno, dude. I may be missing out but I really, really didn't get it. Like at all. I suffer from severe clinical depression and the weirdness and putrid audio, visuals and music kind of pop off garbage feelings in me.
It's awesome you really enjoyed it. I sort of feel like an alien though since I never thought anyone could ever like this. I know subjective tastes and stuff but often there are mutual acknowledgment of poopoos. I'll just let the people enjoy it and not dog on it. lol
As for Suda 51 I've played nearly all of those as well and consider Killer is Dead underrated, and I will say that as much as I loved CS, Killer7 did do it better at the end of the day.
Back to gameplay, as for killing the target and getting out, that's all you really can do at first while finding ways to make enough money for the particularly traversive augmentations like the grappendix (to get where the more important shit is hiding). You really weren't missing out on anything by rushing to the first ending, since the real meat of the game is arguably found after unlocking most of the stages first. The first "ending" even hints that your next step is to go back and look for an avenue for the real ending. "DEATH" mode especially is as hard to find as it is vitally important, and the "cursed" difficulty is unlocked in a very bizarre way as well. At one point money is meaningless and you'll learn how to make millions in very little time one way or another.
That being said, clinical depression is all you had to say. I suffer from it myself, but back when it was at its worst, I wouldn't have been able to handle Cruelty Squad and would probably say exactly what you're saying about it. Even with an ending that I consider bittersweet, the overall plot is very depressing, and the pilotredsun-tier visuals, grotesque bodyhorror, atmosphere, and story are all intentionally depressing themselves. It's a game that doesn't really like the player, and honestly that's something I liked about it. Usually when you play a game you're defeating the antagonists in it. With CS it felt like the game itself is the main antagonist. When I called it an assault, that wasn't an exaggeration. It really is fucking with you on purpose, from the soundtrack to the visuals, to the hitscanners (Christ, the hitscanners). While I do suggest to people to pick it up a second time (since it took a second attempt for me lol), I really don't blame you if you're put off by it on that second time.
In any case, sorry about that headache.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJiSg_hs9Hc