Feeding your dog an entire can of soda normally results in a very sick dog. In Cruel, however, filling your pooch with off-brand Dr Pepper gives you roguelike-style upgrades.
In my first run of this frantic run-and-gun shooter, I netted a bonus that gave me extra ammo when deflecting bullets with a melee weapon.
To this I responded «Hold on, you can deflect bullets?» Kicking down the door to the next level, I swiped my axe at the first cultist to take a shot at me, and the projectile pinged off the metal axehead. «Oh wow, you can deflect bullets,» I said, before blasting the cultist's head off with my revolver.
While it's a fair description of your actions in the game, Cruelis running with the wrong adjective in its title. It should really be called Cool, because that's what it is, and effortlessly so.
It's a grungy, riotously-paced shooter that has shades of Monolith's classic gunfest Blood, as well as more recent titles like Anger Foot, where you tear through the dilapidated hallways of an apartment block that's actively trying to kill you.