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Hello! This is my first gemlog post (and blog post in general for that matter), so I wanted to write about something decidedly not corporate. Well, I happen to be replaying Cruelty Squad! For those who aren't familiar, Cruelty Squad is a grotesque, biopunk, immersive sim FPS set in an absurdist corporate dystopia. If the onslaught of genres, tags, and descriptors I just spewed didn't confuse you, the game itself sure as hell will; make sure to bring some sunglasses and gloves if you decide to check out the game's screenshots, which I have linked for your viewing displeasure.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1388770/screenshots/
If you're anything like me, you will love how Cruelty Squad looks. Besides the highly unorthodox and distracting GUI, the most prominent feature is the texturing, which looks quite like LSD: Dream Emulator for PS1 in its most psychedelic states. Similarly to LSD, Cruelty Squad is made by an artist, and it shows. Every "out of place" design is created with such intention by developer Ville Kallio that you soon fail to notice doors with inhuman faces and storefronts reading "PUNISHMENT". This serves as excellent marketing for the game, with players curious why others are calling a hideous microsoft-paint-esque tactical shooter with fishing mechanics a masterpiece, and thus trying it for themselves. Additionally, the ability of the game to provide such a surreal status quo only sells the possibility of society accepting the unacceptable, as is the case in Cruelty Squad's anti-human, anti-virtue culture.
At times, Cruelty Squad feels like a $20 playable meme (and a great one at that), but then it wraps right back around to genuine criticism. Take, for example, an NPC found alone in the level Apartment Atrocity. After an immature, oversexualized political monologue, he greets you with feigned surprise and tells you his supposed thousands of followers say he is "blacksuppositoried and debased". This dialogue tree is unique in its closeness to current reality, and yet in the backdrop of total insanity, it completely fits. The refusal of Cruelty Squad to present itself as a terrifying reality, in my opinion, is what pushes the game into making you think exactly that. Strange terminology and equipment aside, connections can be made from almost anything in the game to current society: CEOs who don't do anything, exclusive groups which charge millions of dollars for entry, and even a man arrested for being seen naked in his own home through a window. However, Cruelty Squad is not always subtle (if you can even call that subtle)- some of its best lines are highly visceral, such as Neuron Activator's "When the beat drops I'm fucking killing myself." It's in these moments that we can discard niceties and agree that Cruelty Squad's world is god damn insane and so is ours.
Much like the rest of the game, the soundtrack of Cruelty Squad largely consists of songs so stupid that they become transcendant. "Depression Nap" sounds almost like the work of animator and ex-junglist pilotredsun, but with less complexity and more dissonant, concerning atmosphere. "Combat Cocktail" is not unlike raiding a dumpster for hard drugs, then making your escape from the local police by trying to crawl through a vent whilst coated in vaseline. Not that I would know, mind you. Of course, "Toxic Crisis" from the level Bog Business is the most extreme
example; with its varying toilet-like samples and changes in (or even removal of) musical structure, the track spawned its own (mostly) satirical musical genre, dubbed Slurpcore. To this day I occasionally see bandcamp releases tagged Slurpcore...
Now that we've talked about presentation and atmosphere, let's get to the point: a lot of Cruelty Squad's decisions are awful. Obvious examples include random cursor movement while leaning, dragging with right mouse held to reload, and entities of all kinds acting like decapitated chickens; but perhaps more importantly, Cruelty Squad is not a game that values its own content. It could be said that the haphazard approach to currency; what with rare million-dollar fish, stock market manipulation based on story events, and de-emphasis of level completion/rank bonuses; is a meta-comment on economic corruption. However, the game also completely disregards issues of balance, and even taunts the player by hyping up a rare gun which turns out to be completely useless. Once again, by undermining its own design, the game succeeds in providing the kind of directionless wasteland we so rarely see in gaming, even in titles literally meant to be directionless wastelands (such as Bethesda's Fallout). This also prevents any feeling of wasted time and makes the game feel very expansive, as you never need to grind or do everything. A run in cruelty squad is a descent into madness, and the more you try to achieve something specific the more challenged you will feel, in more ways than one (cue laugh track).
Really, this entire informal essay is just me trying to justify why I like a weird game which takes a lot of risks. And that's okay. By embracing my own flaws and desires, I can stay honest and move forward, just as that guy in the hot tub in Alpine Hospitality teaches us. That's it for this mental excretion page, let me know if I made any errors as I did not proofread to prevent rewrites. Thanks. Now I'm off to go play Gorbino's Quest for 500 hours :-]
- Sleeves