Kvark Review

Kvark is set in an 80s Cold War-era Czech Republic setting where players, as a lone survivor stuck in a decaying underground facility. You’ll need to survive and navigate dark, labyrinthine tunnels, fight off deadly enemies, as you try to unravel the mysteries of the facility and its gruesome secrets.

Kvark is a first person shooter inspired by classic games of the genres from the 90s. As you explore the facility, you’ll come across a handful of weapons such as a pistol, machinegun, shotgun; among others to ensure your survival. Interestingly enough, if you miss a weapon early on, you’ll have additional chances to pick them up. If you already have a pistol and see another one laying around, it’ll give you additional ammo.

When we talk about 90s games, expect puzzles in order to progress. For example, you’ll come across a puzzle with train tracks that you’ll need to realign in order to progress on your mini train. A few hours in, you’ll come across Anethium. These little radioactive like syringe will allow you to boost few characters perks such as increased health and damage output.

Along with ammo, you’ll find various items such as food and health packs to replenish your health and various equipment such as safety helmets and boots that will act as shield. Additionally, by exploring the area, to find ammo obviously, you can also find a bevy of of tidbits and nuggets of information about the setting and discovering about the lore of Kvark and learn what about truly happened.

Kvark’s presentation is straight out of the 90s and it’s just perfect that way. It’s great way for older gamers to visit a new game with a layer of visual nostalgia. The environments are dark, drab and ominous offering a creepy and claustrophobic (for the most part) atmosphere for you to explore. Enemy design is fair and diverse. Audio wise, the game offers a fair, enjoyable, personality-less, score. Nothing really memorable with mostly ambient themes are you explore the facility but it does crank up a bit when things are about to be hectic.

While few and far between, the main nuisance of Kvark is the platforming. It does feel like you’re jumping with cement boots and the few platforming sequence require pixel perfect jump, otherwise you fall to you death. There’s also a sequence where if you fall off the platform, you can’t jump back on it, so you’ll need to re-load a past save. Additionally, you can’t disable the vibration and it’s annoying as hell when you’re running.

Clearly inspired by the Half-Life series, Kvark is a great FPS with a perfect old school feel; fairly balanced, interesting story, creepy ambiance. There’s also a decent variety of weapons to pick up and have fun with. It is also surprisingly lenghty and there’s quite a bit of areas to explore. However it does become a bit annoying constantly seeing the same enemies over and over; and the trailway section kinda slows the game down a bit. If you’re looking something substantial that feels different than common FPS, Kvark is a must-play; whether you’re an old veteran FPS player or tempted to dive into the genre.