One of the most bizarre games I have played in recent memory, God Damn the Garden is a PSOne style first person shooter set in an oddly occupied world. The purposely vague environment and storytelling definitely makes the gameplay experience mysterious but also confusing and frustrating.

If the goal was to make a new PSOne-style FPS right down the weirdly blocky characters and chunky environments, then GDTG hit the nail firmly on the head. At the same time, this old school approach sacrifices modern gameplay elements and quality of life features to give the player a much more primitive gameplay experience. With no story or memory of who you are, the game just starts and drops you into this enclosed jungle world. If you watch my stream embedded in this article, you can join me with my initial confusion.

While some might appreciate the lack of direction and purpose, it left me baffled and frustrated. Without a map or radar, navigating the repeating low-res environment is a task unto itself since everything is dark and looks the same. Stacking the odds against the player, ammo is limited, enemies take way too many hits to defeat, and you can only take a couple hits before you auto-respawn at the last checkpoint. There are NPCs that rudely talk to you but they all want you to kill them for some reason. Eventually, through true grit and trial-and-error, I was able to stumble my way through one area after another until I eventually reached enemies that kill you in one hit by dropping from the ceiling without warning.  If you are into rage quitting, this is the game for you.

This game is just so weird. Why are there green face monsters shooting mouth bullets at you? What are those little rabbit jumping things that bite your ankles?  Where are you and what are you supposed to be doing? Who are you? There are so many questions and no answers. This baffling gameplay experience doesn’t hold your hand or provide the player with a North Star of any kind. You just need to figure it out and hope but will probably get killed with a cheap death you never saw coming.

Even with the cheaply high difficulty, this FPS is still recommended if you want to play something old but new, different yet slightly familiar.  It has flaws but these imperfections are the reason why you will want to play this game. You’ll hate every moment but still feel intrigued to keep going despite the truly bizarre setting and gameplay elements.

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By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

Twitter: @ZackGaz

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