The Anacrusis Review

ign.com:

To say The Anacrusis is similar to Left 4 Dead would be a severe understatement. From hordes of mindless monsters, to deadly enemies that spawn regularly and use their special powers to put the party in a jam, to safe rooms that separate each act of an episode, this four-player co-op FPS sticks so close to its inspiration it could almost qualify as a spinoff. Unfortunately, that nostalgic mimicry allows for little in the way of interesting new ideas or even expected modernizations that might have made it more fun, resulting in a flavorless distraction that feels like it could have come out in 2008. Combat is bland and one-note, the graphics are well below the standards of today, and enemy variety is almost nonexistent. The only thing The Anacrusis really has going for itself is a unique disco-era sci-fi setting starring cheeky characters and groovy locales, which would be easier to appreciate if the rest of it wasn’t so woefully bland. It’s been 15 years since the original Left 4 Dead, but The Anacrusis feels sorely stuck in the past.

Alarmingly true to its roots, The Anacrusis has you casually jogging from safe room to safe room until a final showdown at the end of each episode asks you to hold out against an army of baddies. That familiar framework also includes mowing down hundreds of identical monsters (aliens here, instead of zombies) in a hail of blue lasers, which is undermined by some of the most forgettable gunplay in recent memory. Nearly every part of the combat is mediocre, whether it’s the hilariously unintimidating and low-res enemies, the generic laser weapons that all feel like clones of one another, or the eyebrow-raising lack of a sprint button. And even though there are only five episodes to pick from