Immortal Redneck

It’s all very cheerful, friendly, cute. Fat pharaohs and stubby boars and hopping sarcophagi spitting out midget mummies and some sort of weird Cirque du Soleil gymnasts hanging from ceiling poles shooting fire and dog-headed archers and hordes of hopping toads. Dopey, but self-aware dopey. Polished. Slick. Smart. In other words, not what you’d expect from something with the word “redneck” in the title.

Immortal Redneck is an absolutely fantastic FPS-roguelike. There’s a lot of care in its room design, the enemies all have their own distinct style making it easy to identify the most threatening one in any situation, the action is fast and powerful and the whole game looks fantastic. The difficulty is tuned high but there’s plenty of room for growth, both from learning the enemies’ patterns and from buying upgrades for permanent character progression. Choosing a patron deity at the start of the run makes each round play a little differently than the previous one, and when coupled with the powerups found along the way you’ll have a unique character by the time you either get killed off or somehow survive the traps and creatures of the pyramid. It’s a long way to the top and each floor is more concentrated than the last, but there’s plenty of great shooting on the way to the boss fight at the apex. Then there are still two more pyramids to fight through, because if there’s one thing an immortal redneck loves, it’s when the shooting gets completely out of hand.

Immortal Redneck manages to feel punishing, yet fair. Rewards are doled out frequently enough that almost every run ends with the ability to upgrade something on the skill tree, allowing the game to maintain a forward momentum that makes it difficult to put down.

Although it has its flaws, it's a very enjoyable FPS, a tribute to the classics with great gameplay and, also, some questionable decisions.