Old Dog, same tricks.
SlavicPunk: Oldtimer is a twin-stick shooter developed by Red Square Games. This team was founded in 2020 and while it consists of 30 people (according to their own website), many have come from various places across the industry. From CI Games to Flying Wild Hog to even CD Projekt Red; there is a solid amount of talent here to be sure. SlavicPunk is the studio’s first game, and while it can be a tad limited and lack some quality-of-life features to make it stand out, I enjoyed my dip into its world, even if it was only a brief stay.
SlavicPunk: Old Timer tells the story of Janus, a private investigator tasked with tracking down a data drive for Sonia, a woman Janus has known for years. While this does remain the central plot of the game, I honestly expected this mission to be solved early and tie into far more interesting ideas and themes than what was present. With so few characters, the game could have dived into them more and while Janus can and could have been an interesting character, they repeat too much of his personal issues that it felt like they didn't know how to evolve his character. Eventually, his arc lost my interest, even when the cause of his issues was truly revealed to him. However, by that time, the game pretty much wrapped up with an ending that sort of comes out of nowhere.
SlavicPunk has a lot of the tropes we expect with this type of story, which can at times be charming, but how it is presented here is a tad disappointing because you’ll guess most of what's going to happen within the game’s first few minutes. The game has some well-executed comic book cutscenes that convey the bulk of the game’s story. This is where you’ll take in the game’s voice acting, which is sort of all over the place. While it does lean into the proper accents and dialogue that you should expect from a Slavic game, it is the voice direction that doesn’t quite land for me, especially as the actor for Janus comes off as extremely amateurish and cringy. One thing to note here is that if you leave the game on via Quick Resume, your audio for these moments may not work as this reliably happened to me every single time I returned to the game, forcing me to restart the game and load my save.
What hurts the overall story the most is that while much of it is told via text messages at the top right of the screen, the font is rather small to read them in time as you are often in combat or exploring. The real harm; however, is that these conversations are not logged anywhere to read, they just vanish entirely. I would have loved a menu option to archive those conversations so that I could have access to them. On the same topic, I would have loved a menu to track my weapon upgrades, character bios, or even how much cash I had on hand. Honestly, these seem like features that should have been here, and had such features existed, I likely would have gotten on with the game considerably more so. While I do enjoy it, I don’t quite love it.
SlavicPunk takes place in a dystopian city based upon the works of Michał Gołkowski, a famous Polish sci-fi writer. While the city has all the hallmarks of a cyberpunk metropolis, including giant holographic erotic dancers available for view across most apartment patios, abandoned vehicles, sparse outings of its population, and sex being sold on the occasional corner, the city can at times feel a tad lifeless. You'll find people occasionally, but it is largely the same guards patrolling. The few shops you can browse for weapon upgrades and healing supplies could have benefitted from NPCs engaging with you.
Across the years, we have had numerous games depict a cyberpunk setting. While Cyberpunk 2077 is the de facto standard now, a better comparison to make here; however, is The Ascent. Sharing the isometric viewpoint, a sequel for SlavicPunk could benefit from the detail and noise present in The Ascent, giving the city more life, character, and things to see. While I do enjoy the aesthetic the SlavicPunk offers, I would love to see more to see, explore, and interact with.
Across the roughly 5-6 hours, you’ll guide Janus across a few districts as you attempt to find the data drive she requires. From gang-infested apartments to the streets of the city itself, you’ll also storm corporate offices, all in an attempt to pull off the objective. Visually, the game is pretty great with plenty of detail where it needs it, even if there were a few moments where the textures took a while to load or the background elements got in the way when I turned the camera in certain areas of the city. I do wish there was a bit more variety to break up some of the apartment aesthetics being used multiple times. That said, I can understand that it was likely a budgetary reason for such a reuse of assets and one that likely couldn’t be helped. Still, it’s something that I do want to point out.
Combat and the mobility Janus will provide are easily the stars of the show, even if the game doesn't really introduce a few mechanics properly, leaving me to discover them accidentally. Janus has a cyber-enhanced rush sprint, a dodge, and a few guns that pack a punch. One mechanic I found by accident was the ability to hack enemies and turrets, pulling off a series of up, down, left, and right commands to stun or damage them. It's an interesting system but does feel a tad clunky. Despite Janus getting up there in the years, the sprint and dodge systems work well, as well as being able to crouch behind cover.
Shooting is a tad different than your typical twin-stick shooter in that you need to turn Janus’ body to aim. It's typical to needing to turn a stationary tank’s barrel to line up a shot. This prevents SlavicPunk from being a twitch-shooter as you'll need to position Janus to face your adversary. Shooting feels crunchy and satisfying across the few weapons you'll find. There is a mod system that feels a tad undercooked as you'll have three slots to fill and certain mods take one, two, or three slots, such as increasing your ammo amount across various tiers.
Weapon selecting and consuming medkits are applied via the d-pad, and enemies will drop more ammo and medkits pretty constantly, allowing the action to continue to ramp up. You'll have a small assortment of weapons from a revolver, rifle, and shotgun, to a railgun that I never really bothered with too much given I just preferred the main three options. The weapon mods can assist in some variety, but given you have to find the work shelf to even customize them, made me opt to ignore most of this system.
Exploring your surroundings will allow for discovery of chests, locked doors that require a switch to be flipped, and not much more. There is a rinse and repeat of many of the ways you progress with a lot of the same scenery constantly used throughout your brief stay.
The enemy variety is pretty slim as well. You'll have the standard grunts, those with a shield, a mini-gun guy who I rarely saw, and the turrets that are simple to deal with when you simply hack them and then unload a full clip to destroy them. Honestly, the hack system works well, especially with the shield guys; however, they are very susceptible to your melee attack as well. I would have loved to see more unique variety amongst the main fodder as you'll feel like apart from some outfit changes, you're fighting the same dudes over and over again.
Despite the forgettable story and disappointing vocal performances, SlavicPunk has a rather enjoyable combat loop, even if the enemy variety is certainly lacking. While the parts that are here are wildly inconsistent, the foundation of what Red Square Games has built here is solid enough to build upon, allowing for a potentially great sequel if we should return to the fractured mind of Janus.
Developer - Red Square Games.
Publisher - Red Square Games, Gaming Factory. Released - November 6th, 2024. Available On - PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC. Rated - (M) - Blood and Gore, Language, Partial Nudity, Use of Drugs, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X/S. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.