Not a lot of appealing demos this week to choose from. Steam has now decided to give me exclusively deck builders under my suggestion tab. I have played a ton of Wildfrost but I think I am over deck builders for a spell. I cannot escape roguelikes, so this week is about monkey clones and how they took over the world in Cyberwar.

Cyberwar: Neon City is an action roguelike from Cyber Monkey Studios. The demo is in beta on Steam and has no release date, price or anything.

Just think Planet of the Apes but with more technology. Monkeys were trained/experimented on for war/immortality purposes, Monkeys become toooooo smart, decides to make clones of themselves, take over the world, and all life moves underground until the hero arrives. After the hero arrives and is chosen by the shark handgun extremity, it is time to take the fight back to the monkey race, rouge-like style.

Cyberwar has everything that all rouge likes have, nothing really deviates from the norm here. You enter an arena with some bad guys, shoot em dead, collect one of the three offered perks, and move on until the boss shows up, rinse and repeat.

Damage buffs, speed buffs, and loot buffs. That’s it so far.

A lot doesn’t really work with the combat in this demo. Button presses don’t register and the options menu just doesn’t work. I really wanted to lower the volume but just could not do it.

Pixel graphics always get me. The under-city streets are filled with neon street signs that light the way to the upgrading and fighting. Humans are not the only species run out of their homes by the monkey uprising. Octopi, robots, and other animals are present at the end of the world. It is truly a gorgeous-looking demo.

Cyberwar was fun when I played it. I played it for around a half hour and that’s all I needed to play. The gameplay loop is fun but being so early in beta, it really doesn’t add much to replayability. I will never fault Cyberwar for its flaws, it’s a demo in beta. Each of the levels in my run looked the same, with either a cyberpunk club vibe or an alleyway.

Cool demo. I’m not impressed but it was fun while it lasted.