Way back in the day, somewhere around 2008, a game came out from DICE and EA called Mirror’s Edge. There was a considerable amount of hoopla for it when it was announced and shown off at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (RIP) two years prior. The gimmick for Mirror’s Edge was wall-running from a first-person perspective. At times, the game was frustrating and downright unplayable, and the story was incredibly unremarkable. But still, the fact that you could run through large cityscapes in first-person while traversing walls where there was a possibility of slipping off and falling to your death was exhilarating.
Ah, DICE. What could have been, right? Back to Battlefield with you!
Anyway, developer MAETH must have taken a long hard look at Mirror’s Edge and thought, “I’m sure we can do better.” And better they did with SPRAWL, by adding a great purpose for running, escaping a militarized government, and adding a worn-down cityscape that was lifeless thanks to said government, like a version 1.0 of Cyberpunk, they had all the right elements for making a better experience than Mirror’s Edge.
So, get those leg stretches in, those itchy trigger fingers worked out, and let’s talk SPRAWL.
Doesn’t have to be pretty, just has to work well
The first thing you will notice with SPRAWL is how pixelated the graphics are in the game, even when turned up to Cinematic mode (thank you, 3090 card) which might lead you to falsely believe that you have bought something ‘less than’. As a chastising note to all you readers out there, you should never judge a book by its cover. Sometimes graphical decisions have purpose and style to them, and this is the case with SPRAWL.
The reality and purpose of those graphics seem to be bringing you back to a more simplified time with first-person experiences, and setting the tone of how gritty and raw the cityscape you’re playing in the first level might be, thus reinforcing the feeling of dystopia and ugliness. Dystopian cities are ugly and sad, but there are a lot of lights. Sometimes good neon. Regardless of the reason, the graphics work quite well with the game’s story and tone. SPRAWL wants you to feel the weight of the city and its government pressing down on you and by making the visuals something akin to Unreal Tournament, sometimes claustrophobic, you develop an unfocused worldview that doesn’t shed any light or any hope. The visuals match the story.
Setting the tone of the world that your character resides in helps to engage and hook the gamer. In this respect, the ugliness of the city and its graphics work brilliantly. They put you there and give you a visual reason to escape. All of it works visually and this was a good design choice for the story and gameplay the gamer goes through.
Those mechanics
The second thing you will notice with SPRAWL are the controls. The controls will probably gum up some people along the way. I can tell you from personal experience that the controls are not easy to learn, as there is little room for error. The latter part makes complete sense, as your main course of action throughout the game is wall-running and parkour, and if you do anything wrong with those things in real life, even the slightest miscalculation, you’re on your way to getting hurt or worse.
Running up a wall means pressing, and then holding the left-bumper (LB) button long enough so that you can set your next jump spot before hitting LB again to leap toward another wall. Leaping from wall to wall is breathtaking, as it genuinely does feel like you’re parkouring like Jackie Chan up walls and getting to your destination – when you can do it. The ‘when you can do it’ part depends on timing, and that takes some getting used to by doing it repeatedly. It took me about 2-3 hours to get used to the timing from wall to wall. Understanding that you must look as you jump, and then quickly look to the destination of your next jump is all timing and discipline. I think this is going to be a road bump for gamers at the beginning, especially for those who get easily frustrated. Gamers must tame the frustration a bit and go full Philadelphia 76ers by ‘trusting the process’. It is a process getting used to the control methods, as you will die repeatedly at the beginning of the game before you start to get the timing and control picture.
Once you get the controls down, the game opens quite well. The wall-running and jumping becomes second nature and you can see how a big developer like DICE, creator of Mirror’s Edge, completely missed the boat on nailing down the technique for their game. The technique of jumping across multiple walls and getting faster and faster like you’re some sort of dystopian Sonic the Hedgehog starts to rear its beautiful head. The controls at some point will feel seamless, which I’m sure MAETH was shooting for when they were developing this game. At some point, and suddenly, all that frustration of learning the process pays off and you’re just running, jumping, moving, and getting through maps quickly. It’s all smooth, and nice, and it’s how this type of game should be. To put it bluntly, it’s brilliant.
Of course, this game doesn’t simply want you to traverse landscapes for no reason. The game throws in enemies that are there to gum you up a bit. You start by dealing with robot dogs and armed military personnel. They are relentless and will try and take you down as soon as they catch wind of your presence. Figuring out whether it is best to stop and eliminate, and you have various methods to do so, or simply escape and keep running is a big decision during the gameplay. Most of the time, you’re going to try the latter. You’re going to get your first taste of this decision-making when you run into a section of the city on the first level where you must activate a crane to remove a wall and then you must deal with an overwhelming number of enemies immediately. If you stop and try to eliminate, there is a good chance you’re going to die. If you die, the game is forgiving and immediately puts you back in the situation. It’s seamless and easy. The other choice is that you can avoid them, jump over the newly revealed cityscape, and then run into more enemies, where you’re back to the beginning with fight-or-flight decisions. Either way, no matter what you choose, you’re going to be heading into gunfire and you must find the easiest way to avoid it.
Staying with that moment, the game does offer up multiple ways to go as you run and climb through the map. Once you traverse this crane portion of the game, you can either take the high road, which will leave you open to more gunfire and more risk but also get you through the map quickly, or you can take the low road and go through a small building structure while covering yourself from attack/gunfire but have a less direct way to go that takes longer. Neither is a bad choice, but the fact that there is a choice means that this game has some well-thought-through level design. And for this type of game to be successful, it has to be good with level design. See Titanfall 2 for details.
Weapons to make chaotically entertaining
The gameplay mechanics and wall-running/jumping are made more entertaining through the ridiculous weapons featured in the game. From two-hand gun-toting that would make John Woo smile to powerfully big guns that cause massive destruction, all of it fits and works within the mechanics the game features. There is nothing quite like smoothly jumping into the air, aiming quickly at the poor schmoes down on the ground, and just blowing their heads clean off. Okay, probably not clean, but you get the picture.
This type of run, jump, and shoot harkens back to games like Unreal Tournament and Quake, where the chaos is quick, thick, and entertaining as hell. Once you get the mechanics down and can focus on gunplay, you’re going to get an added element of entertainment out of this game. Using the sword at the beginning is equally entertaining, though close-quarter combat isn’t a real strength of this game.
Anyway, it’s ridiculous fun in this area once you get those mechanics going.
It all works
While I had my suspicions about this game working, especially when getting frustrated with the controls, at the end of the day it all works beautifully. You have this wonderful dystopian backdrop for the story, motivation to get out and get away that draws you into parkouring through maps, and this ridiculous combination of clever and well-constructed level design mixed with good gunplay. This game may not have had the budget of DICE and EA’s Mirror’s Edge, but it works so much better than that triple AAA hiccup.
MAETH has proven that this type of game is doable and can be fun when you work through the frustration and trust the process of learning the controls. Will the frustration catch some folks off guard? Probably, but depending on what you’re looking for from this game, and everyone should know what it is and how it works before diving into it, you’re going to get a well-made game that will catch fire once streamers figure out that it’s out there. This is going to be a speed runner’s dream at some point.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
SPRAWL from developer MAETH is a well-made, intricately designed first-person wall-running game that hits all the right notes with mechanics, gunplay, and level design. It does come with a mechanic learning curve that might frustrate some gamers but the reward of learning the mechanics is far greater than the frustration produced by them.
