GRINDLORE: THE 3D GAMING.
Developed by Protean Obligate Hardsoft.
Produced by Shay Dee Venture Holdings.
Published by Capital Dream Float.
$99.99 (includes pizza coupons and a self-sharpening keychain)
Review by Turbo2099 for NONCRITICAL.
This is a pretty cool-if deeply flawed-JRPG-inspired CRPG for modern systems. Basically, you play as a disgruntled vat-grown supersoldier known as the VIGILANTE SWORD MANIAC, who is trying to overthrow a frankly generic Evil Empire type outfit that's using black magic harvested from the hearts of angels and devils. In an amusing twist, Heaven has fallen out of fashion, and most people only really believe in Hell. One of your first quest-missions involves watchdogging a shipment of Heavenbound building materials to be used for the construction of a megabuffet to get the cool kids to look upwards again. Low-grade goofs on consumerism abound. At one point, you are able to buy a working copy of GRINDLORE: THE 3D GAMING at a gross chain video game store and actually start playing a second version of the game concurrently within your mainline game. This may create confusion within some players. Apparently, if you figure out how to beat both game versions at the same time you unlock the True Ending, but I found this to be a next-level hassle. You see, the deeper you get into the game, the more enemies you have to kill to increase your power. However, the more enemies you kill, the greater your reputation as a maniacal killing machine becomes, and everyone in the game becomes afraid of you. You really end up wasting time chasing down enemies to kill them and absorb their blood, although you can eventually purchase branded athletic wear that increases your movement speed. Once you're fully kitted out-shoes, sweats, ballcap, supporter-you can really zoom, but this takes forever and a day due to the bloated prices associated with athletic brands. You can also train to do parkour-themed assassinations. For bonus experience, you can take on various handicaps, such as ingesting an outrageous amount of hashish smoke before doing any of the parkour jobs. Please be advised that 'experience' does not mean 'experience points' it just means 'experience' as in 'that was an interesting experience.' Strong unpaid internship vibes abound within GRINDLORE: THE 3D GAMING. Most of the quests you take on-in addition to being dirty, demeaning, and dangerous-also pay less-than-squat. You do have the option of unionizing, but by the time you achieve union your Disillusionment statistic is usually so high that your player character is really only good for basic fetch quests under the influence of numbing quantities of cannabis smoke and/or grain alcohol. And even if you achieve union you may end up assassinated and buried inside the concrete foundation of a parking tower. If your Disillusionment statistic maxes out, you become incapable of further Gaming, and the sword-and-sorcery elements vanish, and you will suddenly find yourself locked into a punitively naturalistic office job simulator with strong elements of late capitalist post-satire with literally no end in sight. Essentially, you play through bewilderingly granular dialogue trees involving your co-workers' tastes in anime while filling in shipping and receiving data all set to a languorous vaporwave beat. All you can do is switch off at which point the program derezzes itself and you will be required to purchase another physical copy if you wish to start over from the beginning. One cool feature is that every time you die you get to burn in Hell, which sounds bad but actually the fires of Inferno are your most steadfast friends as they forge you stranger and sharper the longer and harder you burn. Of course, the more powerful you become the harder you are to kill and the less quality time you get to spend burning in Hell. This part frustrated me to no end. Overall GRINDLORE: THE 3D GAMING captures the 'damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't' essence of our times. It reaches for next-level tightness, but mostly grasps at brimstone's fumes. I give it a 7 out of 10.
