Publisher: Uppercut Games Pty Ltd
Developer: Uppercut Games Pty Ltd
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Tested on: PC
City of Brass – Review
The prince is dead, the Prince of Persia, that is, seeing as Ubisoft has buried him in favour of the money-making gargantuan series called Assassin’s Creed. Who will feed the masses’ hunger for games with a Middle Eastern vibe then? Uppercut Games Pty Ltd has taken up the gauntlet. City of Brass has been developed by senior Bioshock developers, so you know they’ve been around the block a few times and won’t make rookie mistakes when it comes to developing and publishing a game.
Story
City of Brass is about a city that’s been claimed by the sands. It didn’t fall into disrepair because nobody could be bothered to care about the upkeep of the city, but because the founders of said city were greedy overambitious dumbasses. They wanted to make the city great and found a way to entrap genies and bind them to the city, so they would grant them wishes. Of course the saying goes ‘be careful what you wish for’, but the founders didn’t heed it and bound three of the most powerful genies in favour of eternal glory and fame. However, its citizens started going a little bonkers and craved nothing more than shiny items, precious baubles and gleaming trinkets and attacked anyone that entered. Sure, no one with the right mind dared enter the city and the remaining citizens fell to famine, claimed by the now cursed city. Their remains wander the deserted halls and streets of what once was a very beautiful bustling metropolis. The story is told through the tutorial and isn’t thrown at you, you have to look for the ghostly remains of certain citizens that warn you what happens should you fall to enemies or greed and what happened to those who are foolish and overconfident. It’s a subtle way of storytelling and it works wonderfully, although there is a small grammatical error in one of the text bubbles, which is bound to be patched out, not a massive gripe.
Graphics
City of Brass looks amazing. Once you know that senior members of the Bioshock team worked on it, it’s something you won’t be able to put out of your mind. It becomes totally obvious and that’s not something that should be held against this game, it just works. The bestial monsters that roam the city and hulking fiends really look frightening and ghoulish, so they fit snugly into the part of the lore about the city having fallen into disrepair and having become a very sandy dystopian nightmare.
Sound
What makes the game just below an AAA game when viewed from the outside is the fact that there is no voice acting, which would add to the story quite a bit. What City of Brass does quite well is the environmental sounds. It’s so that the enemies all sound different from one another species wise and they all sound like they look, ravenous and murderous, so whenever you hear them skulking about but can’t locate them immediately, you’ll notice the heightened tension. The music of the game is quite forgettable.
Gameplay
City of Brass is an action/adventure dungeon crawler. It is up to you to make it to the centre of the city, which might seem like just a simple task. Pull up Google Maps and zip it over there. There are however quite some dangers between you and your destination. There’s the enemies that will come at you, then there’s also the traps left by the citizens before they went bonkers that will kill anyone or anything that steps onto or into them. This makes combat quite fun.
You have a whip and a sword, the whip can be used to stun enemies or makes them stumble, making it easier for you to run into the fray and end them off. The whip can also grab items from far away and used as a grapple hook. The sword is your way of damaging enemies up close. If you don’t want to dirty your sword, you can shove the enemies into traps, killing them. You can also pick up jars and throw them at enemies to stun them or canisters of oil, that explode like grenades. With all this there’s a lot of death you can bring upon the enemies. So with quite some creativity, you’re sure to finish a level without ever dulling your sword on an enemies’ armour.
Controls are simple, w,a,s,d move you around, left mouse button makes you use your whip and the right button makes you whack things with your sword. Should the controls not be to your liking, you can always reset them and bind the keys to your liking. Or just omit the whole keyboard and mouse and just play with a controller.
Conclusion
If you aren’t akin to taking on challenges in the form of roguelite games, then you’ll need brass balls to tackle City of Brass, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll definitely strike gold. So tread into the city filled with treasures, ghouls and traps at own peril if you are looking for a challenge, else, look elsewhere.
City of Brass - Review,
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