Glitchpunk asks you to remember the old days of Grand Theft Auto, when it was a top-down simulator of carnage instead of the online monster it has become in recent years. Set is a dark and edgy cyberpunk world, Glitchpunk introduces you as a newcomer to town, an android, and that instantly means most people hate you.
You are special, however. You can go against your programming, which means you can do whatever you want. Well, theoretically...
You'll actually have to align yourself with the factions as you complete their missions to advance the story. There are no real good guys in this world because it's a cyberpunk story, so you just have to decide which version of nasty you're going to be, rather than how heroic you are.
And every time you complete a mission for someone, you'll end up upsetting everyone else, so there's a good balance to strike.
Glitchpunk Early Access Review: Pew, Pew - But Futuristic
Since this is a GTA-inspired game, you'll be happy to know that guns are sold in vending machines everywhere, and if you want to, you can shoot down just about anyone. Combat is enjoyable, weapons make satisfying sounds, and things die if you shoot them. But Glitchpunk lacks some of the feedback that helps games really stand out among the sea of titles released these days.
There's no real nuance to his combat aside from pointing your gun at objects and pulling the trigger, or hitting enemies in the head with a stun baton or other melee weapon. It's pretty simple stuff, though it's enhanced by your ability to hack things around you.
One of the first buffs you get lets you put nearby people into a rage state, where they'll basically attack anything, and that's pretty fun.
I'll take you for a ride
The world of Glitchpunk is, even in its early access state, absolutely enormous. Walking from one end of the city to the other takes a while, and because it's futuristic, the roads often don't make sense. There are very few places where you can't get run over by accident if you're not careful.
Of course, you can always go ahead and get yourself a vehicle. Driving is easy, although the vehicles are never very pleasant to control. I don't know if this is supposed to be because older GTA games are just as difficult to control. but it's either very relevant if it is, or just frustrating if not.
Well, it's actually quite frustrating anyway, because driving almost always ends in a crash or accident with multiple people. It could just be me though.
An aptly named game (at least so far)
As you can probably tell, I'm pretty mediocre at Glitchpunk as it is. I know it's Early Access, so I'm definitely taking that into consideration, but there are a few small technical bugs and hiccups during my time with the game that were pretty shocking. The frame rate sometimes suddenly stops, and there were several times when I had to Alt+F4 the game because it stopped cooperating properly.
Outside of the technical stuff, the writing is unnecessarily aggressive and edgy. I get it, cyberpunk is a genre about dystopia, but it all kind of feels like everyone is a teenager mad at their parents for putting them to bed too early. They are not people crushed by the weight of inevitable capitalist ruin and a complete lack of hope. They all feel a bit grumpy.
I don't like Glitchpunk, but I'm not in love with it either. I feel fairly neutral about the whole thing, but I think the gameplay loop, while fun for half an hour, eventually becomes stale. There's not much to say that things will get more complex as the game progresses, but hopefully I'm wrong in this case as I'm sure there are a lot of people hungry for a throwback to the old school GTA games.
[Note: Daedalic Entertainment provided the Early Access copy of Glitchpunk used for this EA review.]
