A Blast From The Noughties
Nostalgia is a powerful thing. In an era of remakes, re-releases and reboots there’s certainly plenty of it to go around. However, SPRAWL zero is a completely new experience (which is in fact a prequel to SPRAWL) that harks back to the noughties at a time where FPS games were evolving.
In SPRAWL zero you play as FIVE, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier working for an authoritarian military group who are looking to track and kill a rebel leader known as SILAS. You’ll quickly become familiar with him, as his almost deafening propaganda messages soundtrack numerous levels. What follows are skirmishes between the authorities and the radical IMAGO-DEI organisation which rage right across the mega city known only as the Sprawl.
SPRAWL zero looks and plays like a shooter from the mid 2000s, similar to the likes of F.E.A.R., Deus Ex: Invisible War and Half-Life 2. It’s fast paced, fairly linear, and all about getting from A to B without any detours. There are some perks to exploring, which come in the form of codex entries and relic pieces, along with weapon and health crates to be found.
A Familiar Campaign Structure
The campaign itself is fairly typical for the era it echoes, taking around eight to ten hours to complete. Things kick off with a brief tutorial before you are thrust into the first of ten levels. The story which ties the action together is fairly typical, yet feels familiar and a natural fit for SPRAWL zero. After all, it’s all about the guns.
On that subject, there are lots of different weapons available to FIVE, who unsurprisingly is proficient with them all. These are colour coded and tiered, with the more powerful firearms dropping only occasionally from enemies, or spawning in weapons crates. SPRAWL zero keeps you on your toes thanks to the lack of a reload option. Instead, you’ll need to quickly pick up and discard weapons as you exhaust ammunition because relying only on your fists won’t keep you alive for long at all.
FIVE Has Some Tricks Up His Sleeve
It’s a good job then, that FIVE has a few other tricks which come in very handy. FIVE’s gravity gloves are used to interact with the environment in place of a “use” button as well as picking up weapons and items from a generous distance. When it comes to combat, FIVE can use them to chuck debris and lob live grenades back at enemies.
Our loyal soldier can also enter bullet time, which allows FIVE to quickly take stock and gain the upper hand by wiping out numerous targets in quick succession. Enemies killed during this phase also drop health and farming this resource is crucial for survival as you get deeper into the game.
FIVE will gain additional abilities throughout the campaign, as well as finding upgrades for those already acquired. The gravity shield catches enemy gunfire when FIVE activates the protective shroud, before propelling the suspended ammunition back at the assailants. The rushdown upgrade is perhaps the most satisfying to use, as it grants FIVE a brief period of invulnerability with which to charge enemies and deal massive damage.
Fighting Through The Sprawl
The persistent IMAGO-DEI group have plenty of recruits, ranging from the standard grunt to hulking great warriors, as well as access to gunships which relentlessly pursue you through the sprawl. If you take your eye off the ball, it’s easy to quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies who will flood into the area.
Gameplay wise, SPRAWL zero does a great job of emulating those iconic shooters which inspired it. It’s tight, frantic and shamelessly straightforward. The addition of extra abilities as you play through the campaign is typical of the genre, adding a sprinkle of strategy whilst not distracting from the main attraction: shooting stuff.
The risk with this, of course, is that while shooting stuff is great fun, without enough variables it can become something of a grind and risks running out of steam. As the campaign is fairly generous in length, there were spells when playing SPRAWL zero where I felt the repetition creep in, but it wasn’t enough to make me lose interest largely thanks to how much fun I had wielding different weapons. Getting hold of a chain gun from a downed chopper was particularly entertaining.
A Faithful Retro-Inspired Look
Visually speaking, SPRAWL zero fits the era perfectly, offering plenty of performance and quality options to fiddle with too. However, most if not all of the levels look and feel very similar, that being a rundown, cyberpunk concrete jungle. If you do fancy stopping and taking it all in, there’s a photo mode that can be accessed from the pause menu.
The campaign in SPRAWL zero gets gradually more difficult and I have to admit to dying several times over. Thankfully, there are plenty of green energy fields around which act as a checkpoint every time you pass through them and replenish your health. There are three difficulty options, but I found the middle one offered a good challenge even for experienced FPS players like myself.
SPRAWL zero Scratches A Familiar FPS Itch
SPRAWL zero does exactly what it says on the tin, paying tribute to the type of FPS many of us used to play in years gone by. It may fall short of being a classic in its own right, but it is capable of scratching a certain itch, showing that sometimes less is more.
Important Links
SPRAWL zero Launches With Gravity Guns, Bullet-Time And Serious Y2K FPS Energy – https://www.thexboxhub.com/sprawl-zero-launches-with-gravity-guns-bullet-time-and-serious-y2k-fps-energy/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/sprawl-zero/9pkp8b81k6h0
