Game review: Phantaruk is a tribute to classic Hollywood sci-fi thrillers
The game’s setting, on a derelict spaceship filled with virus-infected zombies, doesn’t bring anything new to the genre but adds up to a fun little package
Outsourcing isn’t exactly new in this digital age, and anyone who’s ever attempted to call a toll-free helpline only to be redirected to a decidedly exotic accent can attest to its quirks.
But in the gaming world, putting development in the hands of a smaller economy often yields creative results: the success of the Witcher series was chalked up in large part to its Polish developer CD Projekt RED, and on a smaller – but no less interesting – scale, a number of a fellow Poles have put their ingenuity into the PC-driven Steam world.
A screen grab from Phantaruk.
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One of the latest is Phantaruk, a game that admittedly looks fairly cheap, lo-fi and derivative on the surface, but reveals a surprising amount of depth once you get into its groove. Straight up, long-time geeks will be able to play ‘spot the influence’: Alien, Dead Space and plenty of zombies, among other sci-fi clichés.
