Rule No. 1: close, but no boomstick

Rule No. 1 is one of those frustrating games where you can see there was the germ of a good idea there, but its execution is so flawed it’s just difficult to enjoy properly. The concept of an arena-based arcade-style first-person shooter in the mould of something like Geometry Wars is a solid one, after all — but unfortunately, this feels like another example of a modern indie dev understanding the surface level of what makes a particular type of game good, but not the actual nitty-gritty.

In Rule No. 1, you apparently take on the role of a heroine named Irula, or Rule for short. I say “apparently” because the game itself makes absolutely no reference to who this heroine is or why we’re supposed to care about her aside from the fact she has a cracking pair of tits and a lovely bottom.

You certainly won’t care about her personality, mind, because the second she opens her mouth she comes across like a twelve year old reading their favourite Reddit posts completely devoid of context. Thankfully, you can at least switch her zoomer yelling off in the options separately from the (decent) sound effects and (excellent) music.

Rule No. 1

Your aim in Rule No. 1 is to survive as long as possible in a rectangular arena as waves of enemies approach you. The specifics of this vary according to which of the game modes you’re playing, but the core objective is the same in all but the “Basketball” mode, which we’ll come on to in a moment.

You’re initially faced with physics-based diamond-shaped objects that are flung towards you at high speed, and which then bounce around. If they bounce across the arena, they reverse direction and come back after a moment. As the stages progress, you’ll also encounter sprite-based zombies, flying enemies and… probably some other things, but to be honest the game’s difficulty curve is so busted that I didn’t see any further than this during my time with it.

Green and red crates occasionally spawn in the arena, with the former concealing the small green gems that earn you points, and the red crates carrying weapons and health pickups. There are a decent variety of weapons available in the game, though they tend to fall into three main categories: pistols, shotguns and machine guns. Not all weapons are available in all modes; the main “competitive” mode, which features online leaderboards, deliberately limits the weapons that are available to you, for example.

Rule No. 1

Rule No. 1’s biggest issue is a lack of situational awareness. If we’re to look at its stated inspiration, Geometry Wars, the vast swarms of homing enemies in that game work because the game unfolds from a zoomed-out top-down perspective where you can always see what is going on all around you. Moreover, the twin-stick shooter nature of the game means that you can instantly respond to an incoming threat if your reactions are good enough.

These things are emphatically not the case in Rule No. 1. A relatively narrow (and unchangeable) field of view means that you can only see what’s going on directly ahead of you, meaning that you’ll often take damage without seeing what it was that hit you. This is a bit frustrating, because it’s a problem that’s been solved in first-person shooters for a long time now — all it really needs is a directional indicator showing where the damage came from or, ideally, warning you of a threat that is about to hit you. Alternatively, a simple radar display would have eradicated this problem.

As it stands, when things get a bit more hectic in Rule No. 1, it just ends up feeling more like luck than anything else, as enemies spawn behind you and rip your health to shreds before you even know they’re there.

Rule No. 1

Weapons lack a bit of “oomph” too; I feel like a point-blank blast from a shotgun should destroy most things in one hit, but that’s very much not the case here, which makes things feel a bit unsatisfying. On top of that, there’s no score display in-game, which leaves you at a complete loss as to how well you’re doing during the action.

Another issue with Rule No. 1 is that it doesn’t explain a significant number of its mechanics; it doesn’t even feature a screen that lists all its controls, meaning you’re left to figure everything out for yourself — including switching weapons, reloading and that sort of thing. I get the impression there’s a reliance on people already knowing what the supposed “conventions” of first-person shooter controls are here, which isn’t very good from an accessibility perspective.

The closest you get to a helpful explanation is a tiny information button next to the “Arcade Mode” option, which says you should “make good use of your dash”, but the game doesn’t tell you that your dash function is mapped to the A button at any point.

Rule No. 1

It also doesn’t tell you in anything other than a different one of these tiny information buttons that pressing the R button will suck in all the power-ups nearby rather than requiring you to go get them. Both of these things are pretty useful to know, so it’s baffling why the game doesn’t make them more obvious.

Supposed long-term appeal is added to Rule No. 1 through an unlockable gallery of artwork featuring Rule, but the amount of points you need to gain to unlock even the first image in the gallery — only to discover it’s the same image you’ve been seeing on the title and loading screens for hours — makes the whole thing feel like it’s not worth bothering with. The art isn’t great, either; the inexplicable inclusion of an “ahegao” image feels more like pandering than anything, for example; it certainly doesn’t help position Rule as a character we’re supposed to give a shit about in the slightest.

Thankfully, if you do find the art appealing, it’s pretty easy to grind up the points you need in the game’s Basketball mode, which eschews the first-person combat in favour of a physics-based first-person hoop-shooting game. This is so simply implemented that once you find the sweet spot to stand, you can just repeatedly throw the ball in for vast amounts of points, using the R button to suck in any errant points and balls that miss their mark. Before long, you’ll have enough points to unlock some images — but you have to ask yourself: do you really care?

Rule No. 1

I’ve been hard on Rule No. 1 because it really is a good idea. The addition of a radar display for situational awareness, a better sense of impact for the weapons, an in-game score display and a large piece of duct tape to put over the mouth of the main character would make it an infinitely better game. As it stands, this is just a mediocre shooter that largely misses the point of the things it’s trying to pay homage to.

Banging soundtrack, at least.

Rule No. 1 is available now for Switch and PS4/5.

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Pete Davison
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