Geeksos is a top down cyberpunk stealth shooter. When I first read the description of the game on steam, I thought that it was just a tongue in cheek critique on the video game industry, more of a parody rather than a real game. Boy, I was wrong! Geeksos puts you in the shoes of a recently fired game developer, who is then assaulted by men with guns. You then proceed to wake up in a strange clinic, or research center. Geeksos is developed and published by Steppe Hare Studio.
- Choose your own pace: You can play stealthily and sneak through the entire level. Or you can go in guns blazing! Throwing ‘nades and flipping tables (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. Okay, you won’t actually flip tables, but the gameplay feels smooth and fun, whether you try and be Solid Snake, or go in like a barbarian.
- The gunplay: I’ve had some time with the game, and it really improved this aspect in just a week’s time. At first, the gunplay felt weird, shots didn’t go on target and it was just a bit clunky. But Steppe Hare Studio must have fixed it because right now the gunplay feels a lot better! I rampaged through some levels, tossing out my guns when I got low on bullets and exchanging them with the guns of my dead enemies. It’s fun, fast-paced and feels rather impactful.
- The performance: The game runs great. Sure, it might not look amazing, but the stylized graphics are still rather nice and even when I threw a bunch of grenades, everything still ran smoothly.
- The music: This is the first time I compliment the music in my reviews! I really enjoyed the soundtrack, it fits the action perfectly in my opinion.
- The humor: I loved it! The entire plot is just a great reference to the recent developments in the gaming industry, but there’s also just a ton of small jokes hidden away in the game. It made the game that much more enjoyable to play.
- Doors: The doors in this game are actually really irritating! It’s not something I ever thought I’d complain about, but here we are! With the top down perspective, it can be basically impossible to tell if a door is open or closed. And those doors close automatically after a while. This created the situation where I was trying to avoid a camera by rushing through a door I previously went through, only to find the thing closed again. Bloody door got me detected by the camera…
- Hub style gameplay: I’m not a real fan of hub style RPGs, I much prefer open world games. In Geeksos you get all your missions from the CyberPussy club, I still find that name hilarious, to be honest. Once you get your mission, you get in a car and arrive at the building where your mission takes place. It’s all very linear, which is a shame in my opinion.
Control customization: This is a heartfelt plea to every
game developer out there. Let us change our keybinds. I’m from Belgium, and I
have an AZERTY keyboard. In Geeksos you can’t change your keybindings, so the
movement was stuck on WASD. You can’t imagine how frustrating it was trying to
play like that. QWERTY users imagine if your Z key was forward, your Q key was
left while S and D remain the same. It’s a cruel and unusual punishment.
The good news is that I eventually managed to change my keyboard layout to
QWERTY, Alt+Shift didn’t work for some reason. So after a few minutes of being
absolutely livid, I managed to play this great game without any difficulties.
CONCLUSION
Score: 85%
It’s a great game. It’s fun, fabulous, funny, flamboyant and I ran out of positive words that start with an f. Anyway, the game is wonderful and I highly recommend it! Steppe Hare Studio created a little gem and I’ll be keeping an eye out for their future releases.