Gripper: Prologue, (first chapter), developed and published by Octobox Interactive, is an action RPG on wheels that illustrates the story of human love, forgiveness, and betrayal. In this heart wrenching and fast paced world of machines, the player’s objective is to complete missions on their way to fight bosses and retrieve the singing hearts of your relatives from their greedy grips. The story is told through voicework and some well executed animated cut scenes with a post-apocalyptic setting in the ashes of the aftermath of the burning of the farm in which you and your sister lived on peacefully beforehand and where water is now scarce. The only protection you have from the rest of the world is your car that has a grapple hook attached. This hook can be used to tear your enemies apart and finish them off with their own weapons, as well as hook to items to remove them from your pathway, retrieve water from cacti, and activate the Tesla power tower towards the beginning of the game.
Once you are able to rip away the hearts of 2 colossal bosses, your character gains new abilities. Before you get to the telling of the main story, you are thrown directly into the game, racing your car, while simultaneously avoiding obstacles in a nightmarish tunnel to music blasting to the speed of the race by Kill the Barber!, Mezzanine, and PqQp. It honestly took me a couple moments to realize the gameplay had started; I hadn’t realized there was any kind of transition between the initial introduction to the game and the start of the game, and if there was, it was subtle. Nevertheless, I enjoyed playing, even though there were moments where I was unsure of exactly where to move the car, since it had to be in almost the exact spot to be able to attach the grapple hook to an object or boss. I found it a bit difficult to control the steering of the car, as it was very touchy with only using my keypad and mouse for the controls.
At the main screen, it mentions that using headphones and a gamepad will create the best gaming experience, and I would tend to agree that using a gamepad with this game would most likely be a better option for being able to better control the direction and speed that the car operates with, as well as for fighting the bosses, as opposed to just using a keypad and mouse.
I thought the musical soundtrack were good choices for this game, and especially the scenes that they were played in; the speed of the race and the speed of the song collided to make a smooth and adrenaline-fueled chase through the nightmarish tunnel even more realistic and heart pumping than it would’ve been without a soundtrack playing. It was a great use of sound in that scene; although the voice of the sister comes off a little stoic and devoid of the emotion that the story is based on, and that the animation and graphics otherwise display.
The camera, however, could use some work, as I couldn’t seem to change the point of view and kept running up the wall and was driving blind around multiple corners.
My overall impressions of Gripper: Prologue are good; I would like to see where the next chapters of this game go, and I would highly recommend playing Gripper: Prologue if you haven’t yet.
Check Out the Gripper: Prologue Trailer:
Gripper: Prologue is free-to-play first chapter for Windows PC via Steam. The full game will release via Steam in 2021.
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I am an army veteran and currently a sophomore at Portland State University majoring in English. I have always looked to gaming as an outlet outside of my everyday life and a way to experiment with playing different types of games and take on new and exciting characters with different backgrounds. It's kind of like getting to become a new person every time you play a game.
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