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Should You Get...
Receiver
Receiver is a very unique game, in a niche all its own. I would describe it as a first-person
roguelike gun simulator scavenger hunt. Shooter games usually make you into an all-powerful
bullet sponge, flying into a horde of enemies with an arsenal on your back and cannons blazing.
Receiver isn't like that at all. Receiver is something different, something altogether
new and clever. You're very vulnerable in Receiver: one hit is all it takes to kill
you, and as both the complex and the turrets and drones in it are randomized each time
you play, to survive, you have to move slowly and play it smart, scouting your environment
as best you can, and making good use of cover.
Making things more complicated is the star of the game, what the developer calls "high-detail
gun mechanics." In most shooters, guns are abstract objects for the delivery of death
to your enemies. In Receiver, your guns are actually simulated, meaning they function
like real guns and you interact with them like real guns. Normally, you press one button
to shoot, another button to reload, and that's it. That's not the way things work here. You
have buttons to check the chamber, to eject the magazine, to load the magazine, to pull
back the hammer, to turn off the safety- when using the revolver, you can even spin the
cylinder.
If you like guns and have any familiarity with how they actually work, you'll apreciate
the accuracy and detail. Even more impressive is how it changes the feel of the game. One-hit
deaths make you feel frail enough, but needing to manage your weapon (which, by the way,
is also randomized at the beginning of each game) just makes it all the more so. You don't
know how many times I've died, thinking I was ready to face down a drone, only to realize
I had not turned off the safety, or checked the magazine to see if it even was even loaded,
or failed to chamber a bullet. Like roguelikes, the game is unforgiving in the attention it
demands from you and more than willing to force you to find a way to deal with unfair
situations.
It creates a wonderful sense of tension as you sneak through the complex, assessing each
situation and keeping an eye out for any spare ammunition. Do you spend a bullet on that
turret so you can explore this room? There's a drone- do you remember how many bullets
you have left in this magazine? You're out of ammo- you had better run.
It's worth noting that this level of detail extends to the enemies as well. You can shoot
a turret's battery and it will stop. Shoot it's gun and it can't fire. Shoot it's camera
and it can't see you. Or, let it run out of ammunition shooting at you (this is not an
advisable tactic).
This system creates situations that you don't normally encounter in shooters- to put it
briefly, it feels a lot more like being in a situation like this really would feel, and
it's all the more satisfying when you manage to get good at it.
What I found made the game so compelling is how it forces you to make intelligent decisions
based on what's right in front of you in the game rather than depending on some abstraction
laid over the game world. There is no UI telling you how much ammo you have left- you have
to pull out the magazine and check. There is no mini-map telling you where you've been-
you need to keeep track of landmarks. You can try to run past a turret or you can see
if there's another path around it. There is no radar telling you when enemies are near-
only an electronic ping when THEY find YOU- and start attacking... So you had better make
sure to scout out each area thoroughly. And you do that by LOOKING, carefully, cautiously,
from cover, not by pressing a button to activate "bad guy finding vision."
Every step of the way, there is a magnificent blend of intelligent decision-making, planning,
stealth, risk, and occasionally blind luck that make for an addictive and emergent gameplay
experience.
Your goal in all this is locating audio casettes scattered throughout the complex which present
the story out of order, leaving it to you to piece it together a conspiracy-theory style
story involving beings from the true universe, ascended consciousnesses, interdimensional
travel, and mind-control. (Because these stories must always have mind control)
Given how easily you die, how much time it takes to master the gun mechanics, the randomization
of the world, and how quickly a game can be started or ended, Receiver is the perfect
game to play when you have just a few minutes to put in.
You can hop in, see how far you get, and hop back out in no time at all- and believe me,
that's about how your first few games will go.
I'm really very impressed with how it manages to create a believable setting with deep gameplay
that can be "digested" in small chunks and remain fresh and compelling for such a long
time.
Honestly, I think there's a real future to Receiver's mechanics. Can you imagine how
amazing a survival horror game would be like this? Sneaking through a dank dungeon, steathily
avoiding enemies, weighing the decision of whether you should reload your gun, one bullet
at a time and risk a monster hearing the noise, or try to sneak by, hoping you haven't failed
to notice something lurking in the dark? Survival horror thrives on making you feel vulnerable
and forcing you to be stingy with your resources. Receiver's style would fit that genre perfectly
and make the experience all the more nerve-wracking and satisfying.
Receiver is really on to something here, and I can only hope that other games will pick
up the ideas it has introduced and how well-balancd its execution was. Trust me, eventually you'll
be able to handle every part of your gun in moments from memory and you will feel amazing
as you sneak through the complex, outsmarting drones and the Illuminati alike.