Kur (Early Access) Review: Rise of The Machines

Described as a retro inspired sci-fi first-person shooter, Kur is a frenetic, albeit sometimes very buggy, fever dream filled with gore, murderous robots, and a throwback sense of humor. Really Ragdoll’s first outing feels almost like a homage to the N64 era shooters like Goldeneye or Doom64. While failing to really grab me in the early stages, eventually the game had me comfortably settled into my role as a mech-legged mercenary dealing death in the fastest way possible. However, it’s important to note that Kur is currently still in early access and that the entertainment I got out of it was usually met and sometimes even completely hindered by bugs; some of which have been fixed via patches and some of which are new.

Story (Spoiler Free)

You begin your playthrough as an unnamed mercenary who’s been hired by the Augmented Intelligence Corporation. Your task? Take down a rogue artificial intelligence on the corporation’s Mars colony; one that is now also powering an army of flesh wearing robots. While not being the most inspired concept, feeling more akin to an action movie that we’ve all seen before, there’s an odd endearing charm to the absurdity of Kur. Its comedic moments didn’t always land for me, but when they did, they weren't side splitting. Recurring bits such as one regarding the discontent between the A.I.C. lead engineer and his co-worker Steve, for example, were enough to get genuine chuckles out of me as I made my way through the game. About a third of the way in is where Kur started to catch me by surprise conceptually. I won’t spoil anything here because I found it to be interesting, but I was presented with stages and story beats ranging from pleasantly surprising to very far out of left field. What made these unexpected events so inviting, however, is that they didn’t feel jarring. Despite how out of left field they may be, Really Ragdoll still managed to tie everything together in a fun and satisfying way.

 Presentation

As mentioned before, Kur takes a lot of inspiration from retro shooters like Doom64 and Goldeneye. The polygonal art direction lets that be known from the start and inherently made me feel as if I was playing something straight from the late 90s. Really Ragdoll uses the art style to create relatively simple environments, but the fun comes in the size and the diversity of those environments. Some stages are vastly larger than others with multiple floors and interconnecting passageways that may lead to secrets. One of the more memorable stages in the early game sees you working your way to the front of a train that is careening across the surface of Mars in an attempt to stop it before it reaches its destination. One stage in particular even acts as a hub at one point for multiple other stages. By the time you roll credits, Kur will have sent you through twenty-three stages spanning from laboratories, construction sites, space stations, research centers, and a handful of other settings that I won’t spoil here. 

The only issue is that anyone who’s interested in seeing the mid to late stages of the game might have a difficult time attempting to do so given that I was repeatedly met with bugs that prevented me from progressing entirely. Such bugs forced me to backtrack large chunks of time in my saves and eventually caused my decision to start an entirely new playthrough. Even my second playthrough I faced the same or similar bugs in the same places, making me worry if I was even going to be able to roll credits. There were moments where my screen wouldn’t come out of a cinematic camera, preventing me from interacting with anything including my own weapons. There were moments where multiple lines of dialogue from the same character would overlap themselves and button prompts to interact with panels just plain wouldn’t respond, halting all momentum of forward progress. As mentioned before, the game is still in early access on steam and other smaller bugs I encountered during my playthrough were remedied through patches the devs have been steadily implementing since launch. However, these bugs are absolutely worth mentioning. They might not have soured my experience entirely, but they definitely negatively affected it nonetheless.

Gameplay

Kur’s gameplay is where the game shines. Much like I had mentioned about its story, the gameplay doesn’t reinvent the wheel in any way, seeing you make your way through winding corridors and wide-open arenas in a blood-soaked, bullet filled frenzy. However, what Kur does achieve in adding is a fun mechanical choice to that metaphorical wheel. Amongst the barrage of bullets you’ll be raining down on the mechanical monstrosities, you’ll be equipped very early on with a cyborg leg that you can use to breach doors, knock back or kill enemies, and even perform a kick jump that will send you far higher than your normal jump for those hard-to-reach places or a quick tactical advantage. You are even able to upgrade your mech leg via the many upgrade chairs you’ll find along your journey. This upgrade chair not only provides perks for your mech leg like making flying kicks deal more damage for example, but it also provides passive abilities and perks for you as you progress such as making enemies drop health and ammo upon death or the ability to become invulnerable while dashing. 

Movement is absolutely key in Kur. The dash and slide mechanics make maintaining that movement an absolute blast. There’s an undeniable satisfaction to the combat of Kur once you settle into it and become familiar with how certain enemies operate. Sprinting into a room with a machine gun that has explosive rounds, mowing down a wave of enemies just in time to dash out of the way, and subsequently kicking a barrel into the monsters that have flanked you is utterly empowering. To follow that up by kick jumping your way onto a higher platform, kicking a door off its hinges, and using a shotgun to dispatch whatever monsters weren’t taken out by the door you just sent across the room makes you feel like a force of nature. Combine this fast-paced action with the fact that every level is filled with secrets to find, such as extra keycards to unlock secret areas that might hold new weapons or supply caches, it’s not hard to find the fun waiting to be had within Really Ragdoll’s first outing. 

Breakdown

Game: Kur

Developer: Really Ragdoll

Availability: Steam (PC)

Pros: 

+ Combat feels good

+ The cyber leg mechanic is unique, versatile and fun to use.

+ Dark comedic tone makes it a fun love letter to the era of retro shooters 

Cons:

- Potential for game breaking bugs as of time of playing

Final Thoughts

While I don’t think I'd return for another playthrough, I can’t deny the fact that as I played more and more, I grew to appreciate Kur as a sarcastic, tongue in cheek love letter to shooters of the late 90s and early 00s. It has enough of its own flavor that I didn’t feel like I was playing just another retro FPS. However, I cannot overstate how intrusive and frustrating the bugs I experienced were. If that deters you but you’re still interested, I'd say maybe wait it out just a bit to see how the state of the game changes. For those who are fans of the genre, are looking for a fun and fast paced retro shooter, but don’t mind it a little rough around the edges, I’d say that now would be as good of a time to jump in as ever.

Reviewed by Justin Hyde