You know, there are some things that shouldn’t be resurrected, unstoppable forces of nature that man shouldn’t meddle with. No, I’m not talking about any decaying mummies buried under massive pyramids or leviathans in their deep slumber, I’m talking about decade old game mechanics which should’ve been allowed to rest or at least allowed to age like fine wine instead of forcefully calling it back into action as if it were a veteran actor kicking ass in his fortieth action movie in the age of 80. But man is a relentless force, and so are game developers. Blobbers, tile-based dungeon crawlers from the ’80s and ’90s made their comeback to the indie video game scene thanks to Legend of Grimrock. It brought back a dying genre that was hard to pull off in a day and time like this, but it did.

The newest member to join the list is Conglomerate 451, a first-person, turn-based, rogue-like, dungeon-crawler developed by RuneHeads and published by 1C Entertainment. The game was released into Steam Early Access on 23 May 2019, where it’s supposed to stay for the next 6-8 months.

Story and Narrative

Does the number 451 ring any bells? Immersive sim fanboys might recognize this eponymous number as the omnipresent keycode in the genre’s every entry be it Deus Ex or System Shock. In fact, this is an age-old reference to Ray Bradbury’s ground-breaking cyberpunk book, Fahrenheit 451. But Conglomerate 451 has nothing to do with ‘being immersive’ apart from its hackneyed portrayal of a cyberpunk setting riddled with corrupted corporations and criminals with biomechanical augmentations. And it so happens, you are the CEO of a powerful Agency with a job is to sweep the neon-lit alleys of Sector 451 clean of these gangsters and drug addicts using your army of mass-produced clones – agents fitted with superior cybernetic enhancements.

This is as much of the narrative there is since the game is just in its first phase of early access, Though the devs have promised to add an actual narrative but that is months away in their schedule. As of now, you’ve to do what your robotic assistant in your main office tells you i.e. killing gangsters.

Gameplay and Mechanics

It’s a grid-like, dungeon-crawling RPG where you control 3 agents at a time in order to undertake various missions, the objective of all of which is the same in the current build, i.e. killing some enemies, finding an elevator, then killing some more in order to earn your goodies which you can use to upgrade your facility and augment you clones. The combat is turn-based in the sense that every turn consists of a predefined order in which both yours and the enemy characters are aligned and according to which they attack. This might require some strategy if you’re planning to gain the upper hand on the enemies e.g. when you want to strengthen the defenses of your clone who’s supposed to attack after two enemy turns because the AI always hits your succeeding Agent. However the same is not applicable for you as you clearly can select which enemy and which part of their body you want to attack using your Agents’ directed energy blasts or area-denial effect that you get to choose during the briefing prior to your embarkment. You also have the option to ‘hack’ into the enemies’ ‘brains’ to see their stats, but the information present doesn’t help much and in fact, I found myself using that only once. All in all, its a quite redundant feature at the moment.

The preview build only has one district available out of the planned four and the levels of which are procedurally generated resulting in a rogue-like adventure where if your clones die, then it’s permanent death for them (XCOM anyone?). You are responsible for every action you take whether in the office or out there on the field as the scars of the previous missions linger on your Agent’s body affecting their performance in the succeeding missions, well, that is until you let them recuperate. This goes without saying that you’ll be managing a facility where you can undertake projects in cloning, arsenal, and R&D. For the time being, much of your facility’s features are locked behind the Early Access wall resulting in a tad boring base management since there is nothing much to do in the name of development. Thank god, we at least you get to accrue our Agent’s skills but most of it is locked too!

Graphics, Sound, and Performance

The visuals are glorious – neon-tinged empty streets rendered wet by mild showers resulting in crystal clear reflections of everything atop but the grid-like world is so much saturated with it that nearly every corner, every alley looks like copy-pasted versions of one another. And this is considering the limited quantity of levels available in the first place. The devs could’ve done something new with the setting – instead of portraying the cyberpunk world in the same way it has been replicated umpteen times in the past. Flying cars, check; cyborgs, check; horny drug addicts, double check. But that’s just nitpicking. The character model of enemies and character attributes vary little from one another like the facial differences between twin brothers, with basic attacks consisting of kicks, melees or gunfire. Furthermore, the same two or three background scores are used throughout the game which is quite irritating in the first place. In fact, some of my gaming sessions were in full muted audio with me sitting back and resting one hand on the mouse with an exasperated expression. Good thing, the game didn’t offer any performance issues but maybe that’s because it’s the preview specs were above recommended specifications.

Final Impressions

The current Early Access build of Conglomerate 451 only has 1/5 of the total planned content implemented and that makes it hard to put out a proper final impression. The makings of a decent Blobber are there and an actual narrative will do good because it will at least give us the motivation for the wet work we are hired to do. This along with some good music and not a recurring auto-tuned mixed bag of techno dubstep will do the game well. It’s better to check back after three months or so and see what’s changed and pick it up down the line. For now, wishlist Conglomerate 451 on Steam.