Jupiter Hell Review (PC)

Two enemies pop out of the darkness, so my marine takes a step left, hugs a door frame, gains a cover bonus, and starts firing. The monster drops quickly as it closes the distance. The human, armed with an assault rifle, has his own cover. After a few bursts, I make the marine take two steps backward and then forward. The enemy has moved and is now out of cover. I fire. Actually, I don’t because I forgot to reload. So, I first get bullets into my own weapon and then take down the enemy. Hope he dropped some ammo.

Jupiter Hell is made by ChaosForge and published by Hyperstrange. It is available on the PC, and I played it via Steam. The game blends rogue, shooter, and turn-based concepts to create a tense take on some very classic ideas.

The player becomes a lone specialist (marine, scout, or tech) who needs to investigate Callisto after being shot down over the Jovian moon. Both human and monstrous enemies are present and angry. There’s not too much in the way of narrative to uncover as the game progresses but the main character is pretty verbose. He is very much the cursing and jovial ‘90s space marine archetype. How much fun a player has with his lines depends on how much Doom he has internalized (there are options to turn down the amount of talking and eliminate profanity).

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The core of Jupiter Hell is the gameplay and how well it mixes very disparate elements. The inspiration for the world, the shooting, and the inventory is clearly the dominant FPS of the 90s. But the character moves in discrete turns, can only choose from four directions, and automatically targets most of the time (there’s a manual option for finesse shots). He also has traits he can upgrade, and each class comes complete with a special ability. The levels are generated but they are not huge. After death players have to take it from the top, with the only meta progression being a better understanding of the core mechanics.

Jupiter Hell is easy to understand but hard to master. All commands are the keyboard or the controller and, once the tutorial is over, it’s impressive how easy it is to forget to reload. Or to hug the walls when moving to get cover if needed. Or to make sure that you use explosive barrels to deal with groups. Or to walk back to a known location when an enemy has good cover to force him to chase before setting up an ambush.

Despite the turn mechanics, the game is fast and tense. I often died because, even if I could exit a level, I got greedy and wanted to kill more enemies and find more loot. I sometimes only moved through two doors before finding the elevator and moving past a level. I knew I needed to explore at least a little and then evaluate what risks to take but I wanted to push forward even more.

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I would have liked to have some meta-progression to add extra reasons to push forward. Or to get more variety between the three classes. But the core gameplay loop is good on its own, especially once you get one or two upgrades and a good weapon and feel like the powers of Hell are unable to take you down (they actually very much are, always keep a medkit on hand).

Jupiter Hell wisely locks its perspective pretty high above the protagonist's head. This allows the developers to create interesting levels and cool characters without putting in too much detail. The claustrophobic Jovian moon areas feel very reminiscent of classic Doom but have their own twists. The CRT-like effect is great and triggered all sorts of nostalgia for me. Even better is that the game is easy to read at all times, crucial when any wrong decision can lead to death. The soundtrack fits the setting and the overall feeling very well, with thumping industrial rock, although a little more variety would have made it even better.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion