Supplice – Preview
There has been quite a rise in the popularity of boomer shooters these last few years. The developers will go above and beyond to give us gamers the same experience as it was in the nineties. With titles such as Forgive Me Father, KINGDOM of the DEAD, Fashion Police Squad and Ion Fury it looks like this genre is more active than ever. This time around we go back into space and try to save our colony in Supplice, a title that tries its best to compete for a spot in the spotlight.
The flashback to older shooters starts the second you launch the game. You are greeted by this MS-DOS-inspired screen that shows the game booting up and then takes you to the main menu. Immediately here is where the game scores high on the nostalgia chart with the menus feeling really authentic and this really invites you to start playing the game. Mere seconds after launching, you are dropped right into the action. A crate falls down on a person in front of you, and you have absolutely no clue what is going on. As you make your way through the initial landing zone, the game will show some tutorial tips on how the controls work and how to interact with the environment.
As the intro is quite linear, you’ll find your way toward the first terminal quite quickly. On this terminal, a message from the president is shown that there has been a colony-wide state of emergency as an unknown alien life force is attacking the colony and all personnel with weapons training must report for duty. Quickly you learn that the terminals are the way to read up on the events of the colony, and later you’ll meet a friend that will guide you through this mess. This friend is the scientific A.I. Charon and it’s very possible that System Shock veterans will experience some PTSD as Charon and System Shock’s S.H.O.D.A.N. have quite a lot in common.
Visually the game looks amazing, every little aspect of the nineties boomer shooter is present with the pixilated graphics, reused map assets, and overall game setting. The attention to detail is immense as every single spent casing of your weapons will fall on the floor and stay there for the remainder of your time on that level. Talking about levels, these are pretty big and long in comparison to other games. It’s quite cool that you get to keep on exploring and playing without any loading screens but it also means that you can’t just quickly go for a single mission and quit. To ensure that you won’t lose any progress, there is the option to save in-game and load when you want to, so the developers did find a way to balance this out.
The genre doesn’t really need a thorough explanation, as boomer shooters are focused on shooting up as many enemies with the biggest weapons available in a fast-paced FPS. To dispose of the threat, you’ll have a range of different weapons available, each with an alternative firing mode. Getting versatile with the different weapons will be important, as you’ll blast through ammo faster than you’ll imagine and enemies can be vicious if not handled correctly. What might be a bit different than most titles is that you can seriously overcharge your health and armor, yet it doesn’t feel overpowered as enemies can overwhelm you if you don’t pay attention.
Generally, there is a simple setup for each mission. You will need to find the terminal that updates your quest, collect the keycards to proceed, and kill as many aliens as possible. Normally the gameplay in games such as this is always accompanied by a very catchy soundtrack that has been made with the same retro inspiration as the graphics but sadly here is where Supplice wants to be different. The music in the game just does not feel fitting to the action. You are on this colony dealing with an alien invasion yet the music sounds like something from a racing game. What makes it worse is that the game does its absolute best to get you to go back in time, yet the music sounds way too modern. Maybe this is a placeholder as the game is in Early Access, but hopefully, they change this to something more appropriate in the future.
Conclusion
Supplice is a fun boomer shooter with serious potential. From the moment you start it up until you get dropped into the game, it feels like you are back in the nineties and are ready to kick some ass. Visually it is a beautiful combination of retro graphics and assets with high attention to detail. The gameplay is simple yet really fun, and having a story that invites you to discover what is happening to the colony ensures that you keep on playing although the levels can get quite long. Fortunately, the modern touch here is that you can save anywhere at any time and continue where you left off. Sadly, when modernizing other items, it feels like the developers also wanted modern music but we found the soundtrack to be a bit underwhelming.
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