Cthon
Developer: Gravity Games Publisher: Gravity Games Rrp: £3.99 (Steam), $4.99+ (Itch.io) Released: 31st December 2016 Available on: Steam and Itch.io Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard Among the dark reaches of space lie long dead civilizations of the past. Each has their own tragic story to tell, but some are far more terrible than others. This is something you've come to realize yourself as you run from the creatures that stalk the halls of the Pythos colony and the ancient ruins underneath it. Creatures that died long long ago and have been brought back into some semblance of misshaped life. The question is, what the hell happened here? Cthon is a first person shooter with procedurally generated levels and some light RPG elements to it. The game itself utilities 2.5D like that of the original Doom and System Shock. It also controls similarly to the aforementioned Doom, as it doesn't allow the player to look up or down, jump or crouch. Its clear that the developer has drank deep from the well of H.P Lovecraft in the design of this game. It has a very... eldritch feel to it, especially in design of the later levels textures. On top of that the ambient music, created by Burning_Mir, is fantastic providing a real sense of tension.
At the start of the game you get to choose between three classes, for the most part the changes between them are minor, such as an increase to grenade damage or a slightly higher firing rate. But those minor changes do mean something, at least in the early stages of the game before things start getting a lot more challenging and the upgrades make some of the flaws less meaningful. Throughout the game you will only have three weapons which are your trusty plasma rifle, a grenade launcher and an energy knife. You swap between your three weapons by using the mouse buttons [left click] is the plasma rifle, [middle mouse] is the energy knife and [right click] is the grenade launcher. The first click selects the weapon its the second click that fires.
When it comes to the combat... well Doom this ain't. This isn't a game for running and gunning, its a much more tense and thoughtful affair where each combat is actually a real risk, but sadly one you usually must take. That being said it doesn't mean that the combat gets a free pass, I will freely admit that it does feel somewhat unresponsive and that the weapon swapping could have been more intuitive. I've mentioned upgrades several times I suppose I should actually tell you something of them. As you play through the game you'll find items that you can pick up (or buy at a dispenser) that land in your inventory [I]. These items are upgrades that, once activated, can make your weapons and armour more potent or in a few cases increase your health and movement speed. The upgrades are modular and each one you add changes the look of your weapon (or HUD if you upgrade your armour) slightly. You can activate upgrades from within your inventory. Each one uses a unit of power and so it can become a juggling act trying to work out whether to upgrade your rate of fire, damage or armour.
At the start of the game your inventory starts with only one space, which is occupied by an upgrade, and one unit of power. Expanding your inventory's space and power is a matter of finding or buying framework nodes (space) and circuitry cores (power). Along with the various upgrades, health packs and ammo that litter the levels you can also find Nanites. Nanites are the currency for this game and are what allow you to purchase upgrades, ammo and health at the dispensers you find in the levels.
This is a game for those of us who love games like System Shock over those that want another Doom. If I'm honest its not a game you'll want to play through over and over because once you've completed it, that’s it, its over.
I'd also say that this review is based on the way the game was at the time of writing, I know that the developer is still patching and updating it so the issues I have could very well get patched out soon. If this appeals to you perhaps try; Doom System Shock Ziggurat
