Early Doors Vol 1.

Early Doors is Otaku Gamers UK’s new article where we take a look at early access games and let you know if it’s worth getting in on the bottom floor of a title before the price goes up or if it’s got all the red flags of a dodgy Tinder date. 

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Gloomwood

Gloomwood is the latest title from New Blood, creators of other titles such as Dusk, Ultrakill and run by Big Dave of Rise of the Triad remake fame Dave Oshry.

Gloomwood is an immersive Sim set in a Victorian style world, you take control of a Doctor who’s been kidnapped by a cult and have to try and escape captivity and solve the mystery of the town and why you have ended up there.

Graphically Gloomwood has that PlayStation 1 era throwback style but oozes style with various lighting effects and some fantastic texture work married with the smoothest of animations that really give the game that “retro/modern” style.

The game drips atmosphere akin to that of the original Thief series, there are plenty of conversations to overhear and so much environmental storytelling it really is a love letter and masterclass to the genre. 

There is no on screen indicator of your ammo meaning you have to manually check. An inventory like Resident Evil 4 and all the environmental traversal options you would expect from the genre that houses Dishonored, Deus Ex and Thief.

I was consumed by this game on my playthrough of it, my only issue was how short it currently is clocking in at around 2 hours before you hit the “end”. There is alot to love about Gloomwood and I have no doubt the more of the game the better the package will be, just note how little of it there is now you may as well just be playing a demo of the title again. 

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Incision 

Incision is the latest title published by Hyperstrange who published titles such as Postal Brain Damaged, Blood West and Jupiter Hell, to say I’m a fan of their titles is an understatement.

Incision sees you playing as a one man army, stopping a growth turning everything into grotesque meat/metal monsters, you grab your handy revolver and take the fight to them, removing the tumor and causing rivers everywhere to run red. 

Incision is seemingly very inspired by Quake, fast movement, brutal combat and plenty of the red stuff, heck I would go as far to say this could easily pass off as a “midquel” between Quake 1 and 2 both visually and thematically.

It’s a balls to the walls, tough as all hell classic boomer shooter affair, 8 weapons to collect and a mountain of meat to work through, one of the most unique melee weapons and some deliciously tasty feeling gunplay, no cutscene and dialogue nonsense bar the optional story you can find. 

The game features a Life system instead of checkpoints which means you’ll be exploring the levels trying to stack up as much as possible as they reset per level and the game isn’t a walk in the park on the higher difficulties.

My only issue with the game so far is it just feels like it’s in a debug state, where quick save and load should be are a camera option and “god mode”, it’s not a major issue and something I assume will be patched out but the game just feels a little “too early access” in some points. 

If you’re a boomer shooter fan, Incision couldn’t scratch more itches if it tried, you get the full episode 1 which lasts around 2 to 3 hours and there are plenty of secrets in which for you to find.