Is this retro-style FPS worthy?
God Damn The Garden challenges you to face the trial of Skeleton Bastard, which tests whether or not you’re worthy of becoming the next king of Badass Heaven. In a vast underworld, find a way to escape from the mysterious depths of God Damns World by fighting your way past aggressive creatures. Obtain ammunition from plants to grow yourself stronger and find the ultimate weapon to help you ascend from the depths.
God Damn The Garden looks and feels like an old-school FPS like DOOM or Quake but it does have a bit more to it than meets the eye including elements of humour and the odd puzzle to make things interesting. The AI is on the brain-dead side, but there’s a good challenge to be found here despite the game lasting around an hour or two. The good news is that the game is cheap at just £3.99 and comes with both PS4 and PS5 versions to boot.
The enemies have a nice design to them for a retro-style FPS, but the areas themselves do tend to blend and become similar over the short course of the game. Still, there’s enough here for fans of classic FPS games to enjoy and the random bouts of humour adds to the overall appeal of this rather bizarre entry into the genre.
The puzzles may be pretty simple overall but it is nice to see them included to add some extra dimension to the game other than simply “go in room, kill enemies, move onto next room, repeat” like you would expect from most retro shooters. Like I said, the AI is pretty dumb but I kind of expected that and it doesn’t stop it from feeling like a classic shooter.
The Verdict
God Damn The Garden doesn’t reinvent the wheel but rather pays homage to the old-school FPS with this humorous love letter to the genre. Despite its short playtime, it does come at a very affordable price and will scratch that retro itch for a little bit.