SlavicPunk: Oldtimer – PS5 Review

SlavicPunk: Oldtimer is an action-shooter adventure game from Polish developers Red Square Games and it’s based on a series of books by Michał Gołkowski.  It released on PC back in the Summer of 2023 but now its time for us PSN folk to see what we’ve been missing out on.

In the game you play as Yanus, a hardbitten private detective who is investigating some stolen data in a futuristic but dystopian city which is under the control of cynical corporations and heavily armed urban gangs.  He’s the titular ‘oldtimer’ all grey hair and moustache but he’s also set up as something of a badass too.  We got total Trancers vibes but if you’re not up on your ’80s b-movies, that reference will mean nothing to you.  Although if it does, dry hair’s for squids!

Once you get past the opening story, you’ll be out in SlavicPunk‘s world.  Here you’ll get the basic instructions for how to move through the city and defend yourself.  It’s pretty straightforward stuff but the implementation is slightly odd.  Clearly, the influence here is our previous game of the year contender, The Ascent.  That had the same ‘isometric’ viewpoint and Bladerunner-esque setting but SlavicPunk‘s controls do take some getting used to.

The game uses a twin-stick control system but while the left stick is used for movement, the right is used to control the camera.  To finess your aim you have to hold L2 and you shoot with R2.  It’s  weirdly unintuitive at first.  Instead of aiming Janus’s gun, you feel like you’re just rotating the world until you’re lined up with your target.  In more intense firefights, you feel like you’re on a slippery kitchen floor rather than in full control.  It’s really not ideal.

Also, while you can duck behind cover, the game doesn’t have the same finesse and clever enemy AI that The Ascent had.  The cover system seems to hinder you more than actually protect you and the AI is easily confused by things like doors.  There’s a section where you walk into a room and get absolutely besieged by enemies who seem to just be able to appear out of nowhere and with the controls being the way they are, we kept dying (indeed we got the trophy for dying ten times on a level).  So, in the end we went and hid in a small room, hoping to bottle neck the enemies.  Well, they must be Slavic vampires or something because they politely stood outside as we systematically took each one out.

But once you get into the game’s rhythm, a process that admittedly took us a few days, there is fun to be had here.  The combat isn’t awful once you get used to it and there are a few things that it does to keep things interesting.  For example, you can remotely hack enemies which allows you to either stagger them or apply damage.  The first option is important for taking down shielded enemies.  It’s awkwardly implemented and feels like a liability in the situations where you most need it but it’s nice to have a bit more complexity to things.

There is also an upgrade system which isn’t brilliantly explained but allows you to apply mods to weapons, such as extra damage or fire bullets.  There are strict limitations to the levels of mods that you can equip, something that isn’t explained and won’t be apparent until you find your first workshop which, for us, was quite some distance away from the upgrade shop.  But upgrading weapons in a game like this is always welcome even if, again, it’s not a well-implemented as it was in The Ascent.

Why do we keep mentioning that game by the way?  Well, that’s mainly down to the setting and the presentation.  This game uses a very similar look and to be fair it does it quite effectively.  Sure, The Ascent was an absolute stunner in the graphics department while SlavicPunk is a little less detailed and interesting but it still looks effective and really gives you the feel of being in a real, living city.   That said, we were disappointed that the story is told in occasional static screens.  They are voiced but it’s not the best way to get across the story.  Especially as the story isn’t immediately all that interesting.  We don’t know enough about Yanus to really care much and the ‘missing data’ plotline is a little bit low stakes.  The game also does that awful thing of separating out your comms with other characters.

That’s particularly badly done.  These are essentially phone calls but they aren’t voiced and are, instead, shown as text conversations in the top right of the screen during gameplay.  Even on our 65 inch television, it was really hard to follow.  Come on, guys.  This is basic stuff.

So while we’re just absolutely full of complaints that isn’t to say that SlavicPunk isn’t good.  There’s a lot to like here.  The combat can be intense and challenging and while it can spike in difficulty, when you do finally get past a tricky encounter it does feel pretty rewarding and while it isn’t anywhere near as good as The Ascent in any facet, the overall look, feel and playability of the game are pretty good.  A believable world and the opportunity to just go ham with a shotgun on mobs of futuristic gangsters is always going to result in something we want to play.