Review | Post Void (PC) - Bang. Bang. Bang.
POST VOID crawls out of an upholstered hallway filled with the kinds of glass and antiques left behind in an era of house decor that stitched itself together sometime in the 70's. A Frankenstein of industrial glass blowing and furniture making that leads directly into the poster board and stucco of this, the new modern age. It's crawling at me, furiously, pulling itself even as the musculature starts to droop and rot away.
Bang.
There is a type of noise in the last few minutes of life, everything cascading together all at once - it can be a Little Rock and Roll sometimes, screaming guitars and amplifiers urging the body to take that once most and final step forward that it can. Post Void has three different control options, a skittering run and drifting mouse pointer aim. A slide that shoots you down and over slopes and hills and the player might even notice they run ever so slightly faster at an angle. Most of "getting the hang" of dying in Post Void roots back into the same angling and positioning schemes a player might use in Counter Strike but they are not being lulled into the closure of a round with soft pops of gunfire and a distant countdown strapped to plastic explosives. What's the line? more than enough bullets to kill a horse?
POST VOID shutters and jumps to life in the truest sense of the word "arcade" that people have mostly forgotten. I would play this standing up for two to three quarters a life, and it would munch through every saving I had for a few hours. There's just simply no forcing it, but cosying up next to the game might make anyone better at playing the most hallowed of American Pastimes, the First Person Shooter. Really, the start button of POST VOID is a contract and guarantee. Every level will add a new creepy crawly, suited and jackbooted demon mouth or twitching blob that moves with the wrinkle and shunt of Adult Animation on one particular network.
Bang.
We're here to talk arsenals though, because what's the game but the hallways and guns? There's not a lot of geometry here, an endless series of corridors and bedrooms that don't exist. Run, slide, and shoot your way out of a type of planned suburban living that is willing to kill you if you let it. Keep going, over and over again, escape is a glowing pool of light in a glade. A Pistol, a Shotgun, Uzi and Knife can be the guiding lights if you want them to be. I like the knife - it carves up everything in front of you with a tremored arm convulsing while it holds on for dear life.
WHERE IS post void, though? Built with achievements that tease you into knowing there is an official POST VOID SOUNDTRACK that's filled with songs the developers like: death grips and HEALTH acting like an official soundtrack, punctuated by gunshots and blinding white flashes: like shooting into the abyss and having to close your eyes when the finger slips the trigger. We've finally done it: Windows Media Player has an interactive visualizer, a pastel and floral tongue wrapping around you for 11 levels and drawing you into glass teeth until you get out.
Bang.
Silence. That's what it's all for, right? A nameless deity, a gun and fifty to a hundred feet of a rolling obstacle course that's still saying when to jump and when to slide, if you're willing to put your ear up to the twisted mutant shoved into the centre of a corridor. Post Void's language is one that's meant for the stage, and playing every level can start to feel like putting on a performance. What's a sport when it's played without an audience, anyway?
Chasing and trying to get to the end. Walking and shooting and running, that's where we're going. No forest as big as the one that takes us where we're going - POST VOID wants me to have a little bit of a relationship with it. Listen to the songs we like, have a conversation with us. Even if there's no forest waiting for you at the end, no pitch black void to pour everything that makes up the world into and finally enjoy some fucking peace and quiet. I'm going to work, and that's all it is. Workplace frustrations and earbud soundtracks drowning out a world of noise until I can have one without it. Minor interactions punctuated by gunfire. Bang. Bang. Bang. I love it.
