SPRAWL is a Quake-like movement shooter set in the cyberpunk dystopian megacity known as The Sprawl. The game takes advantage of its hypermobility and grim setting to send players wall-running, grunt-blasting, and double jumping through a city full of pitfalls and government-kill teams. Though built on a strong premise, SPRAWL fails to execute on its full potential due to some design flaws and one big, glaring bug that made progression impossible.
What initially attracted me to SPRAWL was the artwork used to promote the game. The game’s promotional material and Steam banner features a subtle yet appealing sketch similar to the work of Yoji Shinkawa, the lead character designer of the Metal Gear series. This iconic look is one I’m super nostalgic for, so it was easier for me to gravitate towards the game.
This classic style is replicated somewhat successfully by the game’s simplistic, retro graphics, which closely resemble the bleak style of 1990s Japanese Cyberpunk media. The main set of pistols in the game, the Mateb Deck-Steir, is not so subtly named and modeled after the Mateba Model 6 Unica, a gun iconically featured in Ghost in the Shell. The game gets points from me for style.
Besides its Japanese inspirations, the game also really wants to be CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. You could argue that a lot of themes in the Cyberpunk 2020 setting created by Mike Pondsmith in 1988 and later expanded into Cyberpunk 2077 are common in all forms of media in the “cyberpunk” genre, going as far back as even 1982’s Blade Runner. SPRAWL starts to feel derivative of 2077, especially, though, when the game opens up with what is basically a one-for-one of Adam Smasher as the main antagonist.
The amalgamation of inspirations works better when you get out of the starting cutscene and into the game itself. The city looks straight out of Ghost in the Shell. Your basic grunt reminds me of Jin-Roh or Half-Life. There are mechanical dogs that remind me of Wolfenstein. There are a lot of little reminders that make the game fun to look at, but I’m not sure it helps to give it too much of an identity of its own. Though the game undeniably looks unique, the constant reminders of the game’s inspirations can, at times, make the world feel smaller, less unique, feeling almost like an amalgamation of things I enjoy rather than something entirely new. Perhaps it would help if I was able to get past the first chapter, but we’ll get into that more later.
The actual gameplay of SPRAWL is similar to Quake (or DOOM with movement physics, for the unaware.) There is a lot of wall running and wall-jumping to help navigate to and through sprawling arena-type scenes where you fight off waves of varied enemies. Running out of ammo in this game sucks, and it sucks hard, but thankfully ammo, health, and adrenaline resource drops are plentiful both around the map and after killing enemies.
Adrenaline is another resource alongside health and ammo used to fuel your Adrenaline Bar, which you trade for bullet time by holding the right mouse button. In bullet time, everything else moves slower, and enemies have their weak spots highlighted. The game wants you to be very generous with this feature, which allows you to dodge bullets and, more importantly, conserve ammo.
All in all, the gameplay is solid. Shooting is fun, and getting to a rhythm taking down foes feels great. There are plentiful weapons to be discovered, and even though I only unlocked the SMGS (again, more later), I had a lot of fun with them. Extended wall-running seems to be the main standout separating this game from Quake, which it definitely feels a lot like.
There are certainly flaws, however. That gritty look that gives the game so much hype can make some platforming segments a pain in the ass, with the area you’re running too shrouded in to much darkness to see where you’re going. Since you’re often on rooftops, this can lead to you falling. Thankfully falling to your death only sends you back a few seconds, but this often drops you right back in the middle of a wall run.
You can only jump three times when running along walls, which serves to make movement segments more challenging. In my opinion, it shouldn’t be challenging to navigate these segments, you should just be able to do them quickly and feel like a badass when you do. Maybe other players will, but I just failed a ton of platforming puzzles by not having enough jumps to make it to the final platform.
As I mentioned before, running out of ammo sucks, but not for the reason the developers intended. Having to run up and melee enemies to get ammo back is risky and can often lead to death. Unfortunately, every time I died, I was met with a game-breaking bug that made progression impossible.
Every time I died in SPRAWL, I was sent back to the beginning of the game. Not my checkpoint, the beginning of the game; Opening cutscene, and all. This was extremely frustrating, especially when I had seen myself pass several checkpoints along the way. Essentially, I was playing a roguelike without any of the rewards that come after death and having to listen to the same voice lines over and over each run.
Needless to say, I wasn’t able to finish SPRAWL due to this bug that sent me back to the beginning of the game every time I failed to notice an enemy or ran out of ammo mid-fight. This frustrating bug clearly holds the game back, and I’m disappointed to say so because it clearly has potential beyond it. Hopefully, this bug will be patched out, however, as it still exists the day before my deadline for this review, I have to mention it and deduct points because of how it affected my experience.
The Final Word
SPRAWL earns a lot of points for style. It pays homage to a period of time and media genre that greatly defines who I am and is undeniably stylish to boot. While great to look at, the game sort of lacks its own identity, with some good ideas in its otherwise familiar (and fun) gameplay. However, great style and good ideas can’t save a title from unbreakable bugs. If the game worked perfectly, I’d easily give it a 6 or 7, and while I’m sure this issue will be patched out eventually, it certainly affected my enjoyment of the game, and I have to rate it accordingly.
4
Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! SPRAWL is available on Steam.