Wrack Review

It’s time for some 90’s style arcade action. Wrack is an arcade-style first person shooter. It is developed and published by the independent games outfit called Final Boss Entertainment. As far as I can see this is their first ever game.

Wrack takes place in the future in the year 2037, where scientists at Osteron Research Inc, have developed technology that allows the creation of matter out of pure energy. This technology will alter and change the course of our future. With it we have the power to create an infinite supply of food, resources and anything you can dream of; meaning no more poverty, war and political strife. Unfortunately as always there is someone out there that wants the power all to himself and will do anything to steal it. This is where our story begins as the city is suddenly being attacked and your main character Kain runs of to see what’s happening and who is attacking his beloved city.

Wrack is a game that is definably inspired by the 90’s game Doom. You immediately see the resemblance once you start playing. The whole game has that feel to it. The cell shaded graphics are really nice and work really well. It looks and sounds fantastic in its full screen HD glory. Between each level you also have some hand drawn comic style cut-scenes that explain the story as you go. You also have pop up bubbles as the various characters talk to you during the gameplay that drive the story forward. The story itself is pretty immersive and helps keep you playing along. However it’s not so much the story that makes this a great game. The whole mechanics are great. If you ever played and enjoyed titles such as ‘Doom’ or ‘Quake’ back in the 90’s then you will love this.

You start of the campaign with a basic weapon that is a huge shiny sword. As you begin you are faced with some simple mechanical spider like enemies. These are very easy to kill and you will quickly find a pistol. There are lots of the usual weapons available; however I do quite enjoy using my sword to take enemies out as it is actually pretty powerful if you can get close enough to use it. Like other games of its type you don’t have an open world to play in you have a large mapped out area for each level that pretty much guides you to the end. You do have some area for exploration though as each level has a number of secret areas to find. It’s pretty good fun trying to find these as after each level you are faced with a stats screen that shows you what you missed. This leaves plenty replay value here as you to try and get 100% on each level; this works really well.

You also have some good fun features like combos. As you kill enemies one after the other you get rewarded more points for each kill as you build up your combo. That is nicely displayed in giant colourful writing. In fact all the messages and writing in his game are colourful. This really adds to the enjoyment of ‘Wrack’. You also have some great enemies as you play through the game; you have some huge boss fights that are very challenging. I must point out that ‘Wrack’ is pretty hard at times. You will die a lot, but I think that makes it much more challenging and enjoyable.

There is no multiplayer aspect to this game. There are two other game modes given to you for your enjoyment. You have Time Attack that is pretty much as advertised; you need to complete each map as quickly as possible. And finally you have Score Attack mode where you need to rack up as many points as possible. Both of these extra modes add some extra life to this great game.

I do think that ‘Wrack is a fantastic game. It does not really have any bad points apart from maybe feeling a bit repetitive, and also each map can look pretty similar to the last as they often use the same textures. However there is a level editor supplied for free where you can make your own maps.

You also have a growing Steam Workshop community that are already supplying some great mods that include a doom mod. I do love this game; it’s really good fun just blasting enemies and racking up combos etc. This is defiantly a game to buy, especially if you loved ‘Doom’ back in the days and love a retro feel to your games. It’s a modern take of that FPS classic and it works well. I can see this independent studio doing some great stuff in the future.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.