Jupiter Hell is a top down rogue game set in the far future with a space setting. If you watch the trailer, and are a certain age of gamer... it will remind you of something! Anyway, the game itself is a sequel to the original DRL (Doom Rogue-like) that was developed also by Chaosforge, and the idea was to bring the DOOM experience to a rogue-like type genre. Jupiter Hell was released as a Kickstarter over two years ago, and the game has only just recently launched on most PC gaming distribution platforms such as Steam and GOG.
So, how does the mixing of DOOM and rogue turn out? Does it make for a worthy description such as "Doom, but turn-based"... or as the developer describes it, "Chess, but with Shotguns"?
The Setup
Okay... let's not kid ourselves in thinking that we are going to have a really in-depth character development here! After all, the inspiration is DOOM... and who actually remembers what the story of DOOM was. Some Marine lands on the Mars base... and aliens shooty shooty... jump scare.... change my underwear, swear never to play in a dark room again.
Ahhh... even the difficulty selection screen brings back some very fond memories!
So, at least Jupiter Hell does have a sort of intro cinematic... where your Marine lands on a Space Station after being shot down by its automated defence systems. The most critical selection at the start of the game is whether or not you want an authentic Potty-mouthed Marine... or a kid friendly version. But seriously, if you are giving a game like this to your child... well, either they are old enough to handle the cursing, or you need to reconsider the age level of the games that you are giving them!
The Game
Unlike the DOOM source material, we actually have a little bit of a light RPG element to the game. This is definitely something that is inherited from the Rogue side of the game. Basically, some light character classing that will affect how your games play out on the tactical level.
The game plays out in a top down isometric style, this is a step up from the original DRL ASCII art, and it is definitely required for this generation of gamers. That said, I've tried going back to the original ASCII games... and adding graphics to these games is definitely a welcome development for everyone!
All the necessary information to try and stay alive is all relayed to the player in a pretty sparse overlay. It is just the barest minimum, in keeping with the minimal aesthetic of the whole game. At times, I found it a bit annoying not to have more information... but that is the way it is! Perhaps something to note early is the fact that this is a KEYBOARD controlled game, much like the original ASCII rogue-likes. Put away your mice and controllers, you will only be using the keyboard! Ah... there was a time when I knew all the different commands for Moria by muscle memory!
There is a basic cover system at work here, plus lots of additional modifiers that you would be wise to learn and keep a track of. These aren't really well displayed visually, you have to keep an eye on the top right corner to read and understand the various modifiers that are going into your targeting. Ignoring this will end up with you eating more bullets than you are dishing out!
Different classes will have different approaches to clearing each floor. You can just blast through everything with a regular Marine, or you can try a stealthy Scout approach... or the Technician can turn the base defenses against the alien scum! All of the different classes can employ the different approaches, but the specialists will have an easier time of it!
At the various computer terminals, you can also pick up some clues to hidden caches, as well as some flavour story texts. Honestly, I don't think I read much of the flavour text... but I was keeping track of the hidden caches!
Blasting those bad dudes (zombies... aliens? Zombie aliens?) results in glorious loot... most of the enemies are based upon the DOOM enemies that you see in the regular FPS franchise. Many of the weapons come in different rarities with different combat perks... but you have quite limited weapon/inventory space, and you are forced to make some really hard choices as to what you will take or not. Weapon comparison on the fly is pretty primitive... you can easily compare the stats of weapons, but it is a little bit trickier to make sense of the perks without picking them up first and then reading the text from the inventory description. It would be nice to have the perks described in the pick-up comparison screen.
Kill monsters.. gain XP, and LEVEL UP! This is the only way that you are going to survive the progressively more difficult levels and bosses. I LOVE the flavour text, it isn't classic story stuff... but it is amusing!
Limited wielding space... well, at least it is trying to be realistic here, unlike the original DOOM where you could store about 5 million guns... somewhere. It makes for a more nerve racking choice of weapons... do you drop this particular gun, or keep it... but are you low on that type of ammo? Have you got a good balance between range and damage?
Okay... making things even hairier! You have limited inventory space as well! And ammo counts against it! So, you will not want to be lugging around anything that isn't immediately useful! This is something that is definitely a great addition for the turn-based rogue genre... but would be a real pain in the arse for a FPS. In Jupiter Hell, it just adds to the tension... do you have the right stuff. Or did you drop it all a few levels back?
... and despite your best efforts. This will be a very familiar screen! Next time I will try not to run headlong into a room full of elites and maybe try and pick them off one by one from behind cover! Or at least not hoard my grenades and just toss them out like fireworks!
Visuals, Sound and Performance
There is a distinct art style to this game that is decidedly old-school. The graphics are pretty decent, but all the text is very much reminiscent of an older era of gaming. Performance wise, this is probably not that intensive for modern machines... or even machines of the last decade. I suspect that anything with even the most rudimentary graphics capability will be able to run this... plus, the turn-based nature of the game makes it even more gentle for CPUs and GPUs.
Music... this is METAL! Hope you like it (I do...), because it is all through the game. This is a game that plays up the stereotypical bad-arse, mother@#%$$^$# angle! Its sort of kitsch, but so satisfying!
My Thoughts
Jupiter Hell is a top down rogue-like that evokes fond memories of the original ASCII rogue-type games and the old school DOOM franchise. This is definitely a nostalgia trip for us old-school hardcore gamers!
It is hard to believe that the tension and atmosphere of the DOOM franchise could be recreated in a turn-based roguelike... but here it is! There are some tiny little UI niggles that I hope will be fixed in the near future, but the game as it stands is pretty awesome! In fact, I would even argue that it is one of the best rogue-likes that I've played in a long time... even without the nostalgia element!
Review Specs
Played at 1080p (144Hz) on:
XMG Fusion 15
CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: SSD (SATA/Nvme)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 2070 Max-Q
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