Reviews
[Review] Nightmare Reaper is a Retrotastic FPS War on Dreams
Blazing Bit Games manages to stuff an awful lot into Nightmare Reaper. On the surface, it appears to be the latest in a growing procession of retro-inspired first-person shooters. Instead, it’s a delightfully bizarre fusion of that, a rogue-lite, mini-games, and looter shooter that goes to some interesting, if sometimes incoherent, places. After several years of development and Early Access, it’s ready to face its demons and the general public.
Players are put in the gown of a psychiatric hospital patient who suffers hellish nightmares. She has a unique way of handling them though, as they generate first-person shooter levels with enemies she can slay with all manner of weaponry. Every time she falls in her dreams, new ones are created, offering up different locales, enemies, and weapons each time. There’s a story behind the patient and her incarceration to unravel in between, but the meat and potatoes of Nightmare Reaper are in the blasting of demons, undead, unearthly beasts, and much more.
Each level is standard fare to begin with. Through corridors of various shades and textures, you fire away at whatever flavor of foe the game has deigned to throw your way. You collect the treats and treasures those enemies drop to help you upgrade your skills down the line, and you uncover secret loot within the levels. The procedurally-generated nature of the game means there’s no true pattern to get used to in any given level, so there’s a freshness to each run, but tempered by a little frustration when the roll of the virtual dice goes against you.
You need to find weapons in each level, and can only keep one of three at the end of them, with the other two at least giving you a small cash settlement as compensation. While there are the usual flavors of weaponry such as shotguns, knives, explosives, and the like, they come in a variety of tiers, so it makes exploration a worthwhile cause with the hope of finding a juicy Legendary weapon to carry through into the next nightmare gauntlet.
And searching for new weapons is especially great because the combat is pretty damn good. The visual feedback of the damage you do is very satisfying, and the sheer oomph of the better weapons can very much be felt as you funnel more and more into their power. The game boasts 80-odd weapon types with around 30 different enchantments, and any mix of these can show up during the first-person play. The biggest issue I had was deciding which fun gun to keep at the end of a stage.
Part of the fun comes from not knowing what combination of throwback shooter locales and enemies you’re going to blast through next. Nightmare Reaper is, for me at least, like a celebratory parade of my late 90s PC gaming favorites, and within the context of nightmares, the constant shift of levels that draw inspiration from the likes of Duke Nukem 3D, Powerslave, Quake, and Hexen remains surprisingly cohesive. At times it feels like floppy disks of every 90s shooter ever got melted down together and the fumes from the collective hulk of burning plastic and metal birthed this vivid hallucination. I mean that in the nicest way. As part of its dedication to throwback shooters, Nightmare Reaper is also delightfully gore-soaked, making the combat just that bit more pleasing.
The other parts of the rogue-lite aspect to Nightmare Reaper are more of a mixed bag to me, unfortunately. I really like the concept of turning skill trees into playable retro minigames (which are played in-game on retro consoles), and it certainly offers up a bit of a break from the endless shooting and looting, but they don’t always end up being enjoyable to go through, and sometimes actively get in the way of a good time by wasting your time for a pithy reward. I applaud the sentiment, but wish it had been reined in a little bit.
Also, while I generally enjoyed the chop n’ change levels, some things didn’t mesh all that well and occasionally hindered the act of shooting with fudgy visual mashes. A rare problem, but I suppose it could just as easily be a lesser or greater problem for someone else given it’s procedurally-generated.
Nightmare Reaper is a highly enjoyable mash of retro things with a deliciously barbed edge. It doesn’t always hit the high notes of the old favorites it belts out, but you’ll sing along just the same.
Nightmare Reaper review code provided by the publisher.
Nightmare Reaper is out now on Steam.
Avalon Fast’s Camp looks to be part of that recent trend of witchcraft stories, yet what sets this movie apart is its approach to magic. So often, the presence of witches would suggest a lot of destruction (in both the past and the near future). By no means is Camp short on hurt as provocation. In an energizing change of pace, though, the spells enacted by this one particular coven bring the complete opposite of pain.
Camp finds itself in harmony, not contention, with its dreamlike parts. Even when a scene comes across as straightforward, there is still something rather surreal in its presentation. Take, for instance, that game of truth or dare that prefaces the story’s inciting incident. Zola Grimmer’s character is pressed to dish out a juicier truth that, ultimately, goes on to make her audience feel both engaged and uncomfortable. The whole quality of this moment is similar to that of our most mortifying dreams.
As the title indicates, the movie takes place at a summer camp. This, of course, is only after Grimmer’s character, Emily, has been directly involved with another person’s death. This time, it’s the loss of a loved one, as opposed to a stranger, that sends the protagonist into a deep and guilt-ridden depression. Emily’s father (Michael Tan) then helps turn things around by signing Emily up to be a camp counselor. That’s when the movie enters more familiar territory, in terms of genre, but astonishingly, Fast doesn’t ever settle into the same-old routine that we now associate with these sorts of camping trips.
Zola Grimmer as Emily in Camp.
Grief and trauma are always on display here. From Emily becoming something of a death magnet in her life, to the other camp counselors working through their own private issues, this movie doesn’t ever avoid personal tragedy and suffering. However, these components of the story are handled with a kind of care that doesn’t come up often enough in modern horror. Rather than sensationalizing or exploiting Emily’s pain, there is an aware attempt at helping her. And not just using the cinematic tactics that would force the character to confront her fears, either.
Camp has the setup for a more traditional-acting horror movie. A bunch of young women ominously head off into the woods, unaware of all the potential terrors that could be waiting for them. Even the trailer implies a sinister movie. In contrast, though, Fast goes the opposite way of addressing Emily’s problems. Most importantly, this new direction is without the act of creating more trauma for the main character.
What sounds unfeasible, especially for a movie marked down as horror, is actually quite the refreshing approach to a very common concept nowadays. Yes, simple revenge has its perks and fans, as does the paring down of casts until only one person is left standing. But opting for restoration, as opposed to destruction, in dark scenarios is surely also worth exploring.
Deeply felt, textured, and always self-questioning, Camp is an extraordinary movie that goes to some unexpected places. The gorgeous presentation alone is one rife with beautiful nature and spotted with haunting, otherworldly imagery. Performance-wise, Grimmer makes a tremendous debut here; she and co-star Alice Wordsworth have this growingly incandescent chemistry that lights up all the right parts of the story. Overall, Camp is a pleasant surprise that is light on conventional horror but never low on compassion for its characters.
Camp plays in select theaters on June 26.
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