Welcome to our review of Rustler, a game presenting itself as Grand Theft Horse?
Become a medieval thug in a crazy open-world action game, full of pop-culture references. Complete insane quests, kill heroes, steal horses, fight guards, rob peasants, listen to some bard music, and much more! All packed in old-school gameplay style!
Rustler is an open-world, top-down action game paying tribute to the good old GTA style and gameplay, fusing it with a historically inaccurate medieval setting. Play as The Guy, whose parents apparently were too lazy to give him a proper name. Experience feudal injustice, inquisition, witch-hunting, and join The Grand Tournament. Meet valiant, yet incredibly stupid knights. Complete a wide variety of twisted missions and quests, or don’t give a damn about the plot and bring mayhem in the villages and cities. Choose to go on foot, or by a stolen horse. Fight with a sword or pick a fancy automatic crossbow. All that, spiced up with an inappropriate Monty Python inspired sense of humor.
Be a bold, bald thug in a medieval sandbox. Rustler’s world is filled with humor, anachronisms, and pop culture references. Ever been towed for parking in a “NO HORSE ZONE”? Wanna do some cage fights in Medieval Martial Arts Arena? Or maybe pimp-a-horse a little? How about joining the Round-Earthers sect?
I just love how they hype a game and then the first thing I want to write is: “Rustler is also a very boring game with many broken mechanics.” I must say I was amused by the premise of this game, a GTA-style game but with medieval influences. It all just sounded so entertaining, but then I started playing it.
Needless to say, the atmosphere of this review has been set and well, it is the endless amount of bugs that did me in. In the very first ten minutes of playing, I already wanted to quit. My medieval douchebag went off on his own to go round in circles and no, my controller does not have drift in case you are wondering. The guy just started going round in circles when I dismounted my horse and when I tried to move my character to another place on the map, he just went back to that same place. Incredibly annoying, I had to purposely take a dive in a battle to get rid of the bug as just putting the PS5 in sleep did not do the trick.
Within those same 10 initial minutes, I also got killed by someone that was not even involved in our fight. I was tasked to kill a knight, which I did. Right after, this guy came onto the screen, stabbed me in the back and ended up killing me because my damned crossbow refused to reload. The frustrations…
Another gripe I have with the game, despite its clear path and guidance, is that it is really boring most of the time. Running from one side of the map to the other made me want to go to sleep more than once. No, I can not say this game left a very positive impression. Battles felt sluggish and it just felt like a decent attempt at humor but it failed more than once in my book.
In conclusion, Rustler tried to impress, but mostly with its faulty mechanics and its boring running around when it was not borking out on me.
3/10
