When it comes to portrayals of Soviet-esque dystopias, some are so heavy-handed in their satire that they become cringe-worthy, like with Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka With Love. Others, such as Atomic Heart, do it with style, and some are way darker in their approach, like STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. Kvark mostly plays it safe. It uses that distinct Cold War-era aesthetic with its brutalist architecture, oppressive offices, and industrial complexes, while also poking the usual fun at a political system where the safety and wellbeing of the nation’s citizens has been thrown out of the window, and propaganda posters, surveillance cameras and brainwashing speakers decorate every wall. This low-poly version of an alt-history ’80s Czech Republic looks very good, yet doesn’t really do much with the art style it has chosen. As said before, it plays it safe. Weirdly enough, the purposely mundane locales the hero will brave have a great, strong and engrossing atmosphere.
It becomes obvious within minutes that Kvark tries to be Half-Life in that it’s a semi-realistic affair that follows a silent protagonist as he attempts to escape an underground facility where something really bad has happened, humans are trying to bury him six feet under, and mutated things are hungry for some Czech meat. The key phrase is ‘tries to be.’ First of all, Kvark’s environmental storytelling could be a lot better.
The prisoner goes from one locale to the next, kills stuff, and occasionally engages in some puzzle solving, with not much to see and ponder on while going from A to B. The few pieces of text that will be discovered are quite disappointing as they don’t really flesh out the world as much as they could. All that cannot be considered a deal breaker, but immersion kind of decreases a bit, making an already repetitive title even more so, as all that’s left are gunfights.
Once the paper-thin Soviet wallpaper is stripped away, it becomes clear that this is a nice and simple corridor shooter, with very few things that help it stand out. If that was its only issue everything would be fine. After all, sometimes you just want to shoot at stuff. Sadly, Kvark is very rough around the edges. While combat definitely leans towards the fun side of the scale, the arsenal (mostly comprised of basic pistols, shotguns, and rifles) handles a bit slower than needed. Also note that aside for a handful of braindead foes that just run towards you, most are annoying, bullet-spongy hitscanners that are way too accurate and durable, forcing one to rely on cheap peek-a-boo tactics. Whatever you do, it’s almost impossible not to keep your health intact for long.
The whole thing is an almost straight line. You go from place to place shooting at enemies, and occasionally choose the only alternative path for some extra resources. It’s a very repetitive experience. Is it an awful one? Certainly not! Once you manage to stomach the flaws there is plenty of enjoyment to be found here. Is it irritating that it’s hard to dodge bullets and that there’s no option for saving manually? Yes, but this also has a strong survival vibe, as one constantly tries to go from save point to save point with the least possible amount of health or armour lost. Yes, this is a niche title that requires a specific mindset to be entertaining. It’s basically a Eurojank-esque FPS that’s far from terrible, but if in search of the next cool, high-octane, retro-inspired, and well-polished boomer shooter, this isn’t it.
In conclusion, Kvark has a couple of issues, yet remains fun. It’s not for everyone, but those who’ll like it will like it a lot. Sadly, there are more problems to talk about. For starters, enemy bullets have a tendency to hit the main character when they shouldn’t – a major source of aggravation as this is a world filled with hitscanners, and the tactic mostly seems to be hiding behind something. The balance is all over the place as well, with weapons frequently feeling less powerful from what they should be, which also means that enemies can take a few more bullets than what they should – two point-blank double-barrelled shotgun shots for a simple foe? Come on! This isn’t a moan at the challenge, however. This just hurts the pacing of it all. By the way, this eight-hour-long adventure overstays its welcome by about two.
At the end of the day, the biggest problem, and the one that makes it hard to accept the current price tag, is definitely the fact that after a long time there are almost no new major fixes. There is still a – thankfully rare – bug that makes weapons go nuts and start shooting on their own, the grenades can occasionally disappear altogether, the CPU often goes berserk for no apparent reason, and there are design flaws in levels that kind of mar subsequent playthroughs, with one example being a secret area that can be discovered right after starting the freaking game, which is tough to enter, and at the same time very easy to get stuck in once inside…
