Rustler’s “medieval GTA 2” formula could have been a real dark horse

Rustler has a great concept behind him. It’s Medieval Grand Theft Auto 2. That’s it. This is the game. I wish I could finish this post there. I wish there was no more to read than that. Because the theoretical Rustler that exists in your head, after reading the phrase “Medieval GTA 2”, is probably pure delirium. Alas, however. After six months of early access, Rustler will be released on August 31. And unless it’s entirely transformed from the iteration of the game currently available on Steam, you’re probably better off playing the version in your mind.

The good news is this: Rustler it’s true GTA 2 medieval fully separate game. Even the knights who act as the in-game cops, when alerted to your crimes, start flashing blue and red lights and emit a hunting horn version of a siren howl.

It feels like a novelty cover version of GTA2, in a way, in its almost perfect adherence to the crime of 1999. Which is fitting, I guess, because the game’s soundtrack – probably my favorite thing about it – is made up of tracks that manage to sound like backing hip-hop rhythms from the late 90s, but with medieval instruments and melodies. It’s really pretty cool (other than the opening track, where a bard does classic Will Smith rap about the protagonist, but I don’t want to step forward here.)

The bad news is this: Rustler it’s true GTA 2 medieval. And in that, it’s a stark reminder of how much less we expected from games in 1999. Obviously, it looks better – it’s pretty easy to watch, actually. But there are so many things that it seems brutally obsolete: a melee combat system, a save system that means redoing missions over and over again if you die in the process, indistinguishable characters, and more.

The illusions that hid shallow game worlds two decades ago have also dwindled. You can slaughter everything around you and, if you escape the inevitable chasing knights, you can come back after a minute or so and get everything back to normal. I know this is often the case with open worlds, even today, to an extent, but there is a real feeling here that nothing you do really has a consequence beyond attract more cops, depriving a lot of joy in your free chaos. Even the character progression system feels a bit pointless, given that most of the skills you acquire are simple digital buffs, offering nothing in terms of new features or toys to play with.

It’s so frustrating to say that. Because there were so many areas where Rustler’s tiny green sprouts of originality shone through the GTA reskin. The fact that horses behave differently from cars, for example, or the replacement of radios with in-game bards that you pay to follow you, and hit with a pole in order to change tracks. The more I saw this stuff, the more I felt like Rustler really could have spread his wings if he had tried to be his own game, rather than GTA2.

As it stands, however, there is simply not much to do or surprise. The main story missions are the work of a few hours to complete, and in the course of their completion you will more than likely have seen most of the minigames, locations, and hijinks on offer. Definitely enough to refuel, anyway. Unless you’re the type of person who loves to find collectibles, there’s probably a fun weekend here.

If that sounds dismissive, keep in mind that I only managed 17 minutes of play in my first session, before I couldn’t resist the urge to do something else. Because there’s a second problem with Rustler, and it grew out of his devotion to recreating a very specific flavor of the late ’90s game, which to me is his fatal flaw: Rustler leans very, very hard for be funny, to cover up how good it is in other ways. And while I know humor is completely subjective, I have to say that for me it fell horribly flat.

“If you find Monty Python and the Holy Grail so funny that even remembering its existence counts as a good snack, then get stuck.”

Almost everything in the game tries to be a gag. Unfortunately, a lot of it is benchmark humor, doing little more than saying, “Hey, remember that joke someone made in Monty Python? Or worse, “Hey, do you remember that pop culture artifact that … exists?” If you find Monty Python and the Holy Grail so funny that even remembering its existence counts as a real tickle to you, then get stuck. But if so, we’re probably just very different people.

When Rustler isn’t dropping dated references, he usually relies on the basics of shit, pissing, fucking, drugs, and alcohol to get a laugh. And while I freely admit that all of these things can make absurdly good punchlines, it’s important to remember that punchlines usually rely on being preceded by a joke.

Overall, the game made me feel a bit like I was in a room with a man, sometimes holding a card with “TURDS” or “WEED” written on it, and giving me a smirk as he was waiting for me to do it. absolutely lose my shit.

Honestly, I really want this to be all a case of a bad match: a perfectly good game, one that just didn’t consider me personally, or even just didn’t consider me the day I got it. ‘ve played. Because, if I haven’t made it obvious yet, I really wanted to love Rustler. In an alternate universe, a game designed to exactly the same brief as this one is one of my favorite games of all time. But that’s not that game.

I won’t tell you to avoid this one, arrive at the end of the month when it releases in full on August 31st. I will however remind you to enter carefully. Like I said, I knew this one wasn’t for me within 17 minutes. It just wasn’t the iteration of “Medieval GTA2” that did it for me. But maybe, reader, maybe he will do it for you.