What would happen if you merged Hotline Miami and Deus Ex is a question I’m sure no one will ask but Reikon games has attempted to answer anyway in RUINER.

RUINER is an isometric game taking elements from Hotline Miami in combat and using the futuristic setting with human augmentation from Deus Ex to try and make a game that is at the very least: interesting.

Story:

It’s the future, life is cheap and cities are dilapidating. Corporations use machines as workers and protection. Girls will sell their bodies for a few dollars more and if they get enough will augment it so that they can sell themselves further. Children are sold into slavery, third children are unwanted and often abandon. The human brain is augmented and weak to hackers.

In this dystopia a poor man such as yourself is often denied his freedom of choice, when his brain is taken over by a hacker what can he do but follow orders? The question is: If that freedom is returned to him what will he do? Run to where no one will hurt him again or seek vengeance? This is a video game so you know the answer to that already.

Graphics:

RUINER has Nail’d the dystopian look, the world looks exactly what you would expect a dystopian future to be. From the darkness to the little bits of steam coming out in different parts of the world it is dark and gritty. The game uses the color red to point out different things and while not bright the red is a good way to see things you otherwise wouldn’t.

I especially love the cut-scenes which are in a dark noir format and the art style is really impressive.

The graphics though are also the biggest let down because there are too many of them. The guns fire brightly, explosions are bright, lasers are bright and all of them look really nice but add a huge problem which is that it takes effort to find yourself in the chaos which means you are probably dead and already restarting by the time you do.

Sound:

The sound is okay. The voice communications are clear while a little distorted to give you the feeling that you are in the future but technology isn’t perfect yet in every area and this helps the theme overall. Though the gun sounds are not bad I wouldn’t call them good either, they are there but leave a lot to be desired.

Gameplay:

In the initial stages the game feels like an isometric Hotline Miami with health and that is a good thing. You run at armed enemies, you quickly switch to your ranged weapon and shoot them just to add to the combo and that is good. Even better: as you level up you can improve your skills and get new ones.

The problem is that the game tries to get smart. In the initial levels you feel like a badass using your dash, melee weapons and ranged weapons to handle the crowd but in the later levels you have to deal with suicide bombers who are dropped in without you noticing leading to you trying to bash their heads in with a lead pipe only to die in the process because they blow up when you kill them. It forces you to use very specific augmentations to fight some bosses and if you swapped out that augment for another or never invested in it: be prepared to die over and over and over again.

While you can tell there are some inspirations from Hotline Miami, RUINER’s biggest flaw is that it does not understand Hotline’s simplicity. It adds augments to your character which are cool and you can set 3 of them at a time but it is a matter of chance which one you choose to use at a time and if you choose wrong…. you be dead. So in Hotline you change attack strategy but in RUINER you change attack strategy and take a guess on what augment you need at a specific time and since the energy to use these augments is limited you will die if you choose wrong so it becomes a long and illogical round of trial and error which is not fun in the least.

Another problem as already mentioned is the amount of stuff going on with the graphics: Yes, I like explosions and lasers but if I have no clue where I’m in the chaos, it is just one more factor playing against me and that is just not fun when all the factors mentioned play against you. It looks nice but that’s it.

When fighting a boss all the problems above join together along with the game voiding your augments. Your mind control augment is completely useless since you can’t control them and your close range explosive augments are also useless since if the boss gets close enough they are going to kill you. As a result you are stuck in a one on one fight where you have no advantages against a much superior enemy besides well placed shots which you can’t do because something decided to randomly explode.

My last complaint is the lack of feedback from the weapons, all of them feel like they have no recoil in the least and just fire so sometimes you might be holding the fire button down thing you are shooting but in reality you’re just standing there looking like an idiot.

Conclusion:

While pretty and thought out RUINER is ruined by an over favouring of graphics and unnecessary complexity leading to a game which like Hotline Miami will make you rage quit a lot but unlike Hotline Miami will make you hesitant to return.

Pick it up on a sale to see the world but otherwise pass

Finale Score: 6/10