While Boltgun isn’t the first retro-stylized modern boomer-shooter, it is one that exemplifies the genre. It plays the part and goes above and beyond to look it, too. This doesn’t mean it feels dated. Quite the contrary, actually. It’s a very modern take on what looks like a game you’d boot up in DOS. And yes, just like DOOM, you need to find those colored keycards to advance through the levels.
I played on PC with difficulty set to what I would consider “Normal”, and it felt fairly easy to get through. That was, of course, until the final 3rd of the game. After making it through every area without dying and not much more than a scratch, I was suddenly hit by a train filled with, and conducted by, every single enemy the game could manage to spawn. I made it about 5 steps into the room and died immediately. It was the most egregious “difficulty spike” that I had ever encountered, but I persevered. The rest was more of the same – Enter the area, die immediately, repeat until I figure out how it works. It was frustrating at times yet wholly gratifying when completed – like completing a test chamber in Portal 2.
The term “DOOM Clone” applies here, but not necessarily in a bad way. It brings a lot of the same nostalgia but modernizes it, sometimes to its own detriment. It’s the perfect representation of games like DOOM which, to some, might be a good thing, but to many gamers of [current year] it’s just stuck in the past. There isn’t much more to do than run around, shoot bad guy, collect card, open door, rinse and repeat until credits. It’s got the loop down to a T which can feel a bit mundane at times. The only thing that seems to change things up is when you encounter a new enemy for the first time, and that’s pretty short-lived as you’ll soon see them around every turn.
Playing through Boltgun I didn’t feel that way, but I can understand why some may see it as “boring” or “repetitive” by the end. It’s because it is, but that’s why I love it. It doesn’t try to modernize the feel of the game, instead it keeps it locked in 1993. It’s a nod to games much older than itself and it wears it proudly. It’s not the longest game so it doesn’t feel like it drags itself to the finish line with the “single concept” gameplay (read: Early 90’s first-person shooter). It ends right when it feels like it needs to – with a good old-fashioned boss rush. The absolutely toughest fight in the game and the perfect crescendo.
