Is there room for more dystopia?
SlavicPunk: Oldtimer is an isometric shooter video game, based upon the works of Michal Golkowski, a renown Polish science-fiction and fantasy books author. It is him who created the story of Yanus – a private investigator with a troubled past, now trying to solve an unexpected case revolving around a stolen data carrier, all this while fighting his own inner demons, the urban gangs and a nigh-omnipotent corporation responsible for the downfall of the city he used to call his own. SlavicPunk story goes to show that there is more than meets the eye to this dystopian version of the future is, and it is only up to the players to discover what lies beneath the neon glow and the concrete streets – helping Yanus unravel his last case and find out just how brutal and ugly the truth may actually be.
If you’ve played a game like The Ascent, then you’ll be right at home with SlavicPunk: Oldtimer. It’s an isometric shooter placed in a dystopian future that has a good amount of side-quests, exploring and dramatic storytelling. I was impressed with the story overall despite incredibly small text boxes outside of cutscenes, but what about the gameplay?
The gunplay is a bit chaotic and the enemy AI can be brutal if you aren’t first, so the best advice is to go guns blazing if you can and heal at any given opportunity. It came out on PC back in June 2023, so they’ve had a good amount of time to optimise it for consoles and it feels that they haven’t really done that. Again, why is the in-game text so small? It’s insane that a console game in 2024 would have such ridiculously small text.
There aren’t hordes of enemies to deal with, it’s more tight-quarters combat and either 1-on-1 or against a small group. The AI can be pretty accurate, but things like crouching and hiding behind cover don’t seem to work very well. The enemy can still shoot you, but you can’t seem to shoot them. So again, go in guns blazing and hope for the best. It’s a shame because I can see the potential for a decent combat system in here, but it’s just let down with whatever this is.
I finished the game in around 4-5 hours, so it’s not particularly long either. But for a game that’s relatively cheap, I don’t mind that. I did come across a few glitches through that time though such as enemies spawning out of nowhere, which is far from ideal. The visuals are good but can’t compete with similar games like The Ascent, The Last Stand: Aftermath and Aliens: Dark Descent.
The Verdict
SlavicPunk: Oldtimer has that classic twin-stick arcade shooter feel to it. It has a decent story and has its fun moments, but ultimately is let down by poor console optimisation, glitches and poor combat.