$3 for one of the wildest-looking shooters ever? Yes, please
Post Void is the second coming of Devil Daggers, but with some of the wildest graphics I've seen in an FPS.
See Post Void in action, also available on YouTube.
Warning: Post Void features bright colors and flashing lights.
Post Void is a nauseating, disorienting shooter, a swirling mess of color and sound. It's also just a couple bucks so go buy it now if you love run-based shooters like Devil Daggers or roguelikes like Downfall. I mean, I don't like either of those games too much, but I keep playing Post Void anyway because it looks and sounds so goddamn wild.
Post Void is a primordial videogame ooze borne out of an ocean of cartoon vomit. It's beautiful and it hurts to look at. Staring directly at the sun: the videogame. Its challenge doesn't just come from mastering the gunplay and quickly navigating the maze of each level, but from making sense of the disorder as your soul, or HP, rapidly drips out of your disembodied head. Get hit and you'll lose more soul juice, but killing enemies refills it a touch too, inducing a panicked, constant seesawing tension.
I love how the hallways bend and warp, both a trick of the sickly FOV and level geometry. Floors curl over the horizon, dipping up and down like a Speed Racer racetrack. The brash colors and low resolution make it feel like the monitor is melting, which makes navigation and aim more challenging than most shooters, but it's never an annoying distraction.
You'll get to choose a power-up at the end of every level, whether it's a new weapon, extra health, exploding enemies, or whatever else is hidden away in the item pool. They all give you a little help in a shooter that gets more disorienting by the second. Levels get more complex and maze-like as you progress too, making the late game hit like a Doom level played back in fast forward on a VHS tape someone spilled liquor on.
Eventually, through the rapid pace of Post Void's forced trial and error (it's really difficult), I figured out what blotch of color corresponded to each blurry, distorted enemy type and where their heads were within the mess. Like all good FPS games, it doesn't take long for the muscle memory to kick in. Post Void put me in a nice flow state of rapid iteration and challenging shooting gallery sprints.
For some, Post Void will be a rad distraction, something to look at and have happen at you, violently, for an hour or so, but I'm looking forward to seeing those high-score runs, witnessing the superhuman instinct and wherewithal required to survive a stimulus explosion long enough to climb the leaderboards.
Steam says I've only played one hours of Post Void, but I feel like I've played years of it. That's 3 bucks well spent.