joker voice: we live in a cruelty squad

"I really look up to people who are good at violence" is such a great quote.

Other games: violence is bad, so here do some violence. This game: Sell organs; stonks.

I’ve been getting really into “hell”. Both as a mindset and as something to strive for, in an organizational sense.

One of my favorite things i discovered in cruelty squad is that, in the suburban house level, you can put the exploded remains of your enemies on a grill and cook them into a surprisingly nourishing health-up. Go cannibalism!

It's rare to find a piece of art that gets it's message across so eloquently and subtly while being comically blunt

Me and a buddy got this game together when it was first out in early access. The sharing of our findings and just overall bewildered reaction to the putridness of it all was second to none with any other game we co-experienced. He passed away recently, but cruelty squad left an indelible imprint of how much games like this can create such a visceral memory of good times. Truly a one of a kind gem.

Games like this illustrate, perhaps the most effectively, that the only real difference between our concept of rock-bottom dystopian futurism and our current social, legal, and economic systems is the aesthetic. A coat of paint.

This game is the visual representation of my mind when i enter the "automatic employee for minimun wage manual labour job" mode When you don't have time for anything, just work, and work and work and every problem with your life and with the world is in the back of your mind, always there

So, is this a Doomer shooter instead of a Boomer shooter?

I'd call the aesthetic heavyhanded if it wasn't so effective. It has what I feel a lot of the guilt-trip-laden messages in AAA games are missing- most of us are numb to the cognitive dissonance of killing in a video game because you can always pin your actions on some greater good, character motivations or even just the game developers, but deliberately devaluing and commodifying the lives you take isn't something you can easily shrug off.

I love Cruelty Squad to bits, but I never knew Consumer Softproducts was just one nihilistic artist that had never made a game before This is a masterpiece and that new information makes it 10x more impressive to me

Cruelty squad is like what a young teen sees when staring at society. Incomprehensible, yet somehow completely coherent, and disgustingly ugly. The game captures that feeling so well.

The soundtrack is actually great, honestly. Its also in the vein of some underground experimental music. I especially love the Office level track, its gorgeous.

This whole game is a love letter to the concept of pure hatred for the world you live in, it's wonderful.

This is the Gorbinos' Quest of real life!

What are we, some kind of cruelty squad?

Some games are good, or even great, but conventional enough that you only need to watch one review to know whether you want to buy them or not and there's not much point in watching multiple reviews. Then there's games that are extremely appealing to a niche so you want to watch several reviews to find out which reviewers like it and which don't. Then there's games like Cruelty Squad where the first review you watched convinced you to buy the game but you still keep watching reviews of it because it's so offbeat that all the reviews also end up being offbeat and entertaining.

where most games tell you violence is bad to your face, Cruelty Squad leans in uncomfortably close and says "Come on, shoot those people, do it. Do it, it'll be fun" in the same tone your boss at wal-mart uses to tell you to bring shopping carts in from the parking lot

Ah yes Neil. The Philosopher that brought us Neilism.

Having 6 ebay employees and executives stalk and harass owners of a blog about loopholes in ebay policies has ironically, probably got the blog a lot of exposure. If executives are willing to go that far to try and stop the website then it must be really good. What a weird world to live in.

Hearing "it's like Hitman mixed with Quake" is the best schizophrenic description for this game.

I respect the game's message and intent and am super happy it's getting a lot of love from the creatives I love... but in no way can I ever play it myself for multiple reasons.

in the paradise (suburban neighborhood) level there's a full recreation of the compound osama bin laden was found in, just pointing that out edit: (also at 12:32 you say there's a canibalism button and while there is it's only for the lowest difficulty that you can only reach when you die a couple times)

An interesting thing to me is that the arsenal of this game seems to be mostly made up of prototype guns which were tested, but never made it to standard issue. The AN-94, G11, IWS 2000, ACR, MCR… All designed to become weapons of the future for armies all over the world, but abandoned because they were too unreliable, too complex or - usually - too expensive to put into mass-production. I feel like this fits the aesthetic of Cruelty Squad quite well - you shoot industrial competitors and dissidents with guns rejected by militaries because they didn’t fit their capitalistic requirements.

Glad you went into the art style AS an art style instead of just calling it intentionally ugly. I cant imagine how that guy feels developing over the years only to undercut with "haha ugly game"

There's a genre of music known as utopian virtual, a descendant of vaporwave noted for its use of tacky 90s synth sounds often used in stuff like corporate training products to give those sounds a beautiful new context. Frankly, when listening to this game's music, my first thought is "dystopian virtual"

I think simplifying the message to just a Hotline Miami like critique of video game violence is doing it too little credit and simplifies it. In my view once you really get into the lore and themes of the game and its later routes you start to notice themes about how life without death devalues life. Cruelty Squad takes place in a universe where dying literally just costs you 500 dollars to be reconstructed and nobody ever really dies permanently with only a couple of notable exceptions because they can just go and get reconstructed for 500 bucks and this is especially the case for the rich. No wonder human life is worth so little when its basically been boiled down to a minor economic setback akin to getting a fucking speeding ticket in this world. Hard to feel bad for killing somebody when you can just come back and see them the next day like nothing happened. It makes even killing rich assholes who have it coming feel futile and irrelevant since you know they are just going to pop out again in a reconstruction machine. With that established now think about people like Peter Thiel who are talking about how they want to make themselves immortal and conquer death and do insane shit like injecting themselves with the blood of the young so they can live forever and these themes start to really resonant. That and the clear influences of people like Georges Bataille in the mythology of the cruelty squad worlds creation myth and I would say Cruelty Squad is the very first PRO-DEATH video game. (In a good life affirming way I mean) To put it another way Cruelty Squad seems to be saying that in a world without any death trying to live a meaningful life is basically impossible and makes the tragedy of human life being taken meaningless. It draws connections between the billionaire pursuance of immortality and capitalisms pursuit of infinite growth with no end. Like honestly the ultimate message of the game really reminds of the main message of the Anime Texhnolyze if you guys have ever watched that. They share some very similar themes anyway in my estimation.

The first ever strand type shooter

To be fair, the music in cruelty squad seems like it's purposely made to sound like shit in some cases like in the casino and paradise. The music in pharma and office (combat cocktail and pyrexia respectively) fucking slaps and certainly doesn't seem like it was made by a complete amateur.

This looks like if LSD dream emulator was a shooter

Great video, great game. Hard disagree about the soundtrack- I find myself straight-up listening to the office and apartment tracks from the OST. There is a nice range of "crazy" and "desolate" that fits each level's tone

Nice to see super bunnyhop being true to his name jumping his way through a game.

Spot on with the comparison to 20th c. counterculture cartoons: the cursor looks like the severed hand of Rat Fink.

Honestly the soundtrack is one of the things I love about Cruelty Squad, it kind of reminds me of LISA's OST in strokes here and there. At the same time, I'm also just someone who loves garish music in general, so

Hi! Love the video, your analysis of CS was completely on point. I'm a freelance composer/producer and wanted to add something about the music of this game. It's the same thing as the visual art, there is a distinct use of dissonance and chords that do not sound good together in these horrifically brash midi tones, once again a deliberate breaking of conventions and rules, but what REALLY strikes me is that it isn't completely random. The song that plays in the casino is so dour and depressing and really represents what that place means. The sparseness of the title theme is fitting for the art displayed on screen, a man dead in a car, a meaningless act of violence. And some of the more distorted and energetic songs go hard, like the ones that play in the nightclub and the pharmacy. But yeah, loved the video!

Y'know, I can forgive you saying "Comparishun" and "Rayshuns" and "Sid Meers", but "Neil-lism" is where I draw the line, George!

Worth noting that Ville Kaillo is also a comics artist! That’s primarily how I know their name & work, and i think provides a more direct lineage to 70s alt comics, via stuff like Leon & Stefan Sadler. P-FE/FRAF published by kuš definitely feels close to this game

Man this was a well done video that made me feel like that there is a ton more in cruelty squad. Great job

I wonder if they'll make games parodying the entire mechanism, psychology and "subculture" surrounding mobile and gacha games in the future lol

I look forward to people playing this game and completely missing the message the game is trying to tell you

videos from this channel reappearing in my recommendations again after over a year makes me realise that i enjoy them and should probably subscribe.

This is one of those few games where being colorblind is probably beneficial.

Check out the Death Ending if you want a full taste of the lore. This game really is made by a nihilist artist, it shows in every part. I love this game so much.

Can’t believe you didn’t call out the most insane reload mechanic in any pc game in decades

I appreciate the history/context you provided. That’s one of my favorite aspects of your channel.

You can cook the gibbed body parts with the bbq/flamethrower and it gives you more health when you eat it. God I love this game.

My favourite part of the game is that deus ex feeling of getting new items and applying them to obstacles in the world to reach new places, except every item you get is incredibly powerful and absoultely going to kill you in some unforseable way and every challenge leads deeper down the coprate greed fueled rabbit hole.

The Duke 3D comparison is exactly what I've been thinking playing this

Such a good video, I don’t know why but it never crossed my mind that you’d review this game, but it makes perfect sense. A perspective like yours is precisely what the discourse around this game needed.

Now that's pure Bunnyhop right here. Actually waiting when the hype dies down to provide a truly thorough look at the game, instead of rather uninteresting first impressions. (Which are pretty much the same for everyone in a game like CruS). Even Civvie11's video was rather disappointing, but with your video, I actually learned quite a few things, and massive props for delving into Ville's work to give better context of the game.

Perhaps the best gaming channel on KZfaq. I ways appreciate your style and attention to detail.

Cruelty Squad is the most *punk* sci fi I have seen since John Brunner's 4 hallucinations in the early 70's. Fucking love it and all it stands for

This is probably the most comprehensive description of the themes and influences of CS I've seen so far

another banger from George Bunnyhop. Great stuff!

The music is amazing in this game!

I am glad to hear you talk about this game

I wanted to sleep but then I saw this in my sub box, time to enjoy the usual good shit at 1 am

Love your videos, keep em comming!

Lmao that bhop technique is super bungus my guy.

GOTY for me, even got going into modding-I bought it immediately after seeing the aesthetics, was pleasantly suprised by how solid a game it actually was

Exactly the kind of game I'm glad exists but will probably never play. Excellent video!

conceptually I appreciate cruelty squad, but I couldn't get through half an hour of it. it is an extremely uncomfortable experience and it's a marvel.

This game is that Machine Girl album cover brought to life

Two videos in the same week! You really are treating us, George :)

Probably the best CruS vid i've seen yet, good shit.

Whenever you brought up our current corporate dystopia I just whispered „Jesus fucking Christ“ while absent-mindedly doing the dishes. My girlfriend has been looking at me as if I‘m crazy, but it‘s the world that‘s crazy.

Bro, the soundtrack is amazing

this is the most badass intro to a review I've ever seen.

I forgot you existed because youtube finally decided to recommend me a video from you after years. What a great website

This video is unironically a masterpiece. Bravo

Love your channel!

I didn't know this was from a Finnish developer, but looking back on it, it makes perfect sense to me as melancholic Finn myself.. Vittusaatana

Wish we got more videos from ya, but at least the ones we've been getting lately have been brilliant

14:58 he's not shitting himself. you're literally missing the Text. he has Gunk Boosters installed in his feet, it isn't complicated

Im just so happy a 3D Godot engine game was successful

top notch review. everything is so right on point

Great review man

This has become my favourite SBH video.

This is the only way to start a review about cruelty squad

I can't believe you just glanced over the gorilla texture. It's the best part!

algorithm comment, always happy whenever you upload

Love your videos, George. I'm at the 7:30 mark and this one is making me literally nauseated, so I gotta dip.

Very happy with how much you complimented it, because it absolutely deserves it - but seeing ya roast one of my favourite soundtracks of the year made me very sad. It's tough to get into at first, but if you like weird unnerving industrial stuff like I do, it is PERFECTLY up your alley. It's like The Residents meets Venetian Snares.

I hope more people get to play this masterpiece now that you've reviewed it 🙏

George is the cruelty squad of games journalism

14:28 Gunther Herrman would be jealous

this review was peak george. I need more georg

Cruelty squad is a great example of video games being art

Why are you waking me up at 2am- OOOH Cruelty Squad!!

Really awesome review, only one I've seen that actually explores the guy who made the game - seeing the kinda stuff he's done outside of Cruelty Squad is dope af

You BETTER not be talking mess about Bog Business. That track is gold!

Uncomfortable? It's an arcade Rainbow Six, extremely fun to play. One of those games that reminds you why you like video games in the first place.

Fantastic!

Thanks for the vid. Always great.

You had me at fishing minigame.

That music just sounds like Bottles from Banjo Kazooie talking.

I’ve been waiting for you to review this LETS GO

Wait wait. Ubisoft executives give you surprise weed snacks for free? I take back all the bad things I said about them I want to work there now

This looks super cool