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Part 14: Neuron Activator "The former public housing arcology in Helsinki has recently enjoyed bit of a housing market boom as a result of a biological weapons 'accident' wiping out 99% of the population. The new residents enjoy the rough, authentic vibe of the city and spend their nights partying in the former industrial district. The survivors of the depopulation incident and the relatives of the dead have successfully hosted a crowdfunding campaign to get rid of the key people behind their misery. It's rare for us to do this kind of thing for people of working class background but money, like love, is blind and based on transactions." Arguably the harshest level of the entire game if you're photosensitive, and that's saying something. Yes, yes, the game is intentionally ugly as sin, but flashing lights in a deafening industrial nightclub like this stage is something I felt I needed to take some amount of precautions with, hence why the Tattered Rain Hat is used for the entirety of it. I got no problem with white flashes, but I know it's not for everyone. Also if you're a graphics artist/designer, know that you are not spared. Weapons  Parasonic MP-1 Nailer "Parasonic's new personal defense weapon provides never before seen firepower in a compact form factor. Fires ultra high velocity deplete uranium nails from a high-capacity helical magazine."
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Oct 15, 2022 19:08
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| # ? May 3, 2024 23:08 |
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This level I'm a bit iffy about, I know this game doesn't really try to have the most attractive level design, but here it's deliberately unpleasant to anyone who plays this.
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Oct 15, 2022 23:13
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Part 15: Office "You have to return the four sub-archons to null. You have to eliminate the CAD Elsa Holmes. Exterminate the pests. Tear a hole in CONTROL. gently caress CONTROL. You can do this, you have rended the wires in your head. Your control over destiny is absolute. You can overpower death. Life is meaningless." It's time to kill our boss! Not the reanimated blood clot telling us who to kill, the guys higher up the chain in our organization. This is an extremely open level with so many ways of killing the targets, some of which don't even involve setting foot inside the drat building. You don't often see office spaces as levels in games of this type due to repetitive nature of their layouts, but this one is just interesting and weird enough in a way that makes sense within the framework of Cruelty Squad. Plus we get a projectile radiation emitter out of it, how cool is that? Weapons  Bolt ACR "The goal of the Advanced Combat Rifle program was to create an energy weapon that wouldn't need to be reloaded at all. One of the results was this unfortunate portable gamma radiation emitter. Though often said to be illegal due to international agreements regarding radiation based weapons (no such agreements exist), the reason it never got much use is that most of the test subjects ended up accidentally killing themselves." Implants  Funkgrunters Slot: Legs An upgraded version of the Gunkboosters that allows you to boost twice. Not very popular due to the large uncomfortable container sacks installed below the buttocks.
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Oct 19, 2022 22:26
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This level remided me a lot of EYE: Divine Cybermancy, where you also had to go to kill everyone at your home base for poorly justified reasons.
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Oct 20, 2022 01:20
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I could be wrong, but based on my own fiddling around with this level, I'm pretty sure the targets are scripted to jump out any window you shoot out in their offices. Probably not the CEO though.
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Oct 20, 2022 04:22
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Part 16: Archon Grid - 1st Ending "You're almost there. You can congratulate yourself now. You're the best. The home stretch. Ah. So nice, feels good. Welcome to the ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT, my friend." I hope you're all ready for a surface level discussion of Gnosticism, because we've reached the first ending of Cruelty Squad. Yes, there's more endings past this, and good thing too because while all of them can be kinda vague, what we accomplished here does not feel very climactic at all. In fact, it may feel like we've just made everything in this universe a whole lot worse! Also 640x480 is the true resolution ordained by god. Implants  Holy Scope Slot: Head ???
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Oct 22, 2022 22:40
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What do you mean Destroying death as a concept is bad for the world, look how perfect and flat and...empty and repetitive the ending area looks.
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Oct 22, 2022 22:47
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Ooooooh Cube chat! It's been a long while since I've seem them, but I do remember liking Cube 0 more than Hypercube. Hypercube seemed a bit too... it explained too much and relied way too much on cheesy CGI rather than practical effects for the traps. Cube 0 wasn't that good, but it maintained the "No one knows what the Cube is or is meant for" but expanded it to show that not even the people running the Cube know why it's being done. I should watch Cube again, that was a good low-budget psychological thriller.
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Oct 23, 2022 00:04
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I think I probably mention it at some point in one of the videos, but my knowledge of Gnosticism stems almost entirely from The Invisibles by Grant Morrison and the Shin Megami Tensei games with a little reading to fill in the gaps and understand some of the names and ideas, so whatever I say in the vids, take it as an absolute basic (possibly mis-)understanding of the topic. It's fascinating stuff though, a creation myth as written by Phillip K. Dick (who I think I also namecheck at one point or another).
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Oct 23, 2022 02:11
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Odd as it sounds, it's around this point things become very mysterious and strange, schoolyard rumor kind of stuff. Speaking of which, we haven't checked up on Cruelty Squad headquarters in a while to see what changed, we used to do that all the time in the earlier videos.
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Oct 23, 2022 02:56
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Given the persistent death zone it creates, that must actually be a neutron radiation weapon.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:04
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Part 17: House "After 30 years of sweat and tears you've finally made it. You're a home owner now. No more landlords, no more rent. You're a master of your own destiny. Enjoy this moment." We've killed Abraxas, think it's only fair we finally make good of that 1 million dollar house we bought ages ago and live out our days in peace. Except our neighbors are assholes. REALLY huge assholes. This is a pretty open level, comparable to something like Paradise, though the standout feature of this map is learning about Cruelty Squad's creation myth, and the unsurprising realization that it, much like this game, is entirely economic and capitalistic in nature. Weapons  Raymond Shocktroop Tactical "A compact but powerful semi-automatic shotgun, popular in the law enforcement business for clearing out regenerative art communes." Implants  CSIJ Level VI Golem Exosystem Slot: Chest A terrifying exoskeleton built out of unknown metamaterials, originally used by guards in nuclear power plants. Armor: 40%  Goo Overdrive Slot: Head Overrides the bituitary gland's natural hormone production causing your sweat to turn into sticky goo. Used by climbers.
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Oct 26, 2022 18:57
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The first guy was talking about some kind of intestine thing, I think that was what we found on that one level in the mine.
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Oct 26, 2022 20:16
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Truly homeowners are the worst scum in the game
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Oct 26, 2022 22:49
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Oh yeah, I forgot to post about it but Corporate Arch-Demoness Elsa Holmes is, well, Elsa is a diminutive for Elizabeth that eventually claimed independence and Elizabeth Holmes is that lady who started a blood testing company dazzling everyone with amazing promises that any number of idiots posting on dead forums did back of the envelope calculations that indicated it was not only not technically possible but also disallowed by the laws of reality but also and furthermore, also disallowed by the laws of logic, something you generally find in informatics and signal processing, and blood testing is a kind of signal processing, I guess. Of course many a mighty, powerful and enormously brained big investor managed to get burned there, it was awful. Also small investors who piled in got completely burned and a whole bunch of people got blood testing reports with false positives and false negatives and those sure are fun. None of those losers count and she only got slapped for doing a fraud to the big money.
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Oct 26, 2022 23:41
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Oh, of course, Theranos. Makes sense, since she's up there with Martin Shkreli in terms of damage to the health industry and general level of douchebaggery.
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Oct 27, 2022 15:59
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She's far above Martin Shkreli in terms of damage to medical progress, investors are now wise to what her tricks were and, because they still are incompetent idiots who don't actually consult experts before investing anything, they have learned the story beats and nothing else and just dismiss out of hand tons upon tons of actually good and feasible ideas in terms of medical advances, wanna develop a better cytometer? Louis-Leopold Rhodes-Botha has already seen that trick, never mind that you aren't promising to get around a million times more information out of a sample than the entropy it contains.
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Oct 27, 2022 16:47
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Part 18: S Ranks Today's video isn't a new mission. In fact, it's every mission we've completed up to this point, but done FAST. This is the other side of Cruelty Squad's value once you've gotten deep enough in and understand the systems at play. The one side we've obviously seen is absorbing all the horrible disgustingness that the world has to offer, while the other using mechanical mastery to break a level over your knee and finish in less than a minute on average. I give as good of an explanatory overview at the start of the video before trying to keep up with the play by play, because oh boy there's some funny poo poo you can do with these tools. Also, from here until the penultimate episode, my stupid brain consistently refers to an implant known as the Biothruster as the Biojet. The Biojet is completely different and assume I'm talking about something else until we get the ACTUAL Biojet. It's a thing. Records Pharmakokinetiks - 0.37.290 | 0.48.888 Paradise - 0.36.707 | 0.45.306 Sin Space Engineering - 0.15.955 | 0.22.415 Androgen Assault - 0.43.528 | 0.57.128 Mall Madness - 0.30.360 | 0.34.521 Darkworld - 0.28.171 | 0.28.875 Apartment Atrocity - 0.14.026 | 0.20.609 Seaside Shock - 0.47.453 | 0.43.393 Alpine Hospitality - 0.40.175 | 0.45.017 Bog Business - 0.57.073 | 0.59.754 Miner's Miracle - 1.05.848 | 1.11.189 Casino Catastrophe - 0.39.439 | 0.34.480 Idiot Party - 0.27.008 | 0.23.307 Neuron Activator - 1.03.950 | 0.55.869 Office - 1.21.599 | 1.20.475 Archon Grid - 1.09.572 | 1.04.358 House - 1.15.380 | 1.02.014 Implants  Speed Enhancer Total Organ Package Slot: Legs Bypasses the entirety of your speed-limited set of human organs with more fragile fully unlocked commercial product. Pros only. Armor: -100% Speed: 4  Biothruster Slot: Chest Propel yourself forwards with a powerful jet of sticky liquid from holes in your back. Replaces your kick.  Composite Helmet Slot:Head A simple helmet that offers limited protection. Has a random chance of protecting you from a hit or breaking.  Zoom N Go Bionic Eyes Slot: Head Thanks to the easy plug and play eyemplantation technology it's easy to just pop these in. Improved aim.
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Oct 29, 2022 21:33
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The idea of being a civilian in these levels witnessing a speedrun terrifies me. You're just going about your business when some some reanimated corpse of a beef jerky ape kicks out a window, jets into the room while spraying poo poo from every orifice (plus some extra ones you didn't know existed), sprays a hail of bullets at a guy across the room and then spidermans back out using a wrist-mounted super-elastic appendix and leaving a rancid trail of farts and more poo in his wake.
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Oct 30, 2022 00:45
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MarquiseMindfang posted:... leaving a rancid trail of farts and more poo in his wake. All that just from the dead exec. You haven't even mentioned all the gross goo from the hitman!
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Oct 30, 2022 01:11
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Part 19: Cruelty Squad HQ - 2nd Ending "An oasis of love and friendship." It's been a long time since we've stopped by HQ. It's also been a while since we've done some further digging into the darker secrets that exist in the world of Cruelty Squad. Welcome to the game's second ending, where we have become "Dead", we have harnessed our investments into the stock market to power the ultimate weapon, and we have gained an audience with Life itself in order to get the answers we've apparently been looking for. And they're not pleasant. Weapons  ZKZ Transactional Rifle "Primordial weapon attuned to the beating heart of the financial system." Implants  Abominator Slot: Arms Creates a reality bubble where the unbearable weight of Life is reversed.
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Nov 2, 2022 23:17
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And most people probably thought that Cruelty Squad HQ was just a tutorial level.
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Nov 2, 2022 23:31
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ArclightBorealis posted:
I couldn't guess what this did watching the video, but reading this, I have the that Homer Simpson "you got the dud" smile.
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Nov 3, 2022 01:47
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Dehumanize yourself and face to bloodshed
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Nov 3, 2022 02:30
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ArclightBorealis posted:Weapons It looks like the ZKZ is modeled after the soviet SKS carbine (Or rather, uses the exact design of it), which was semi-automatic rather than the bolt action you called it in the video.
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Nov 3, 2022 09:16
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It looked pretty semi-auto in the game as well. Though I don't blame anyone from thinking it's bolt-action considering the low poly and absolutely horrible...everything of this game's visual style. Also I want to say thank you for playing this game so I can get to enjoy it. As I'd have never touched it in 1,000 years on my own.
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Nov 3, 2022 12:22
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"i feel like the lp is starting to lap itself" as if, without the ability to truly reach the finale and end, it is accumulating endless content..... ceaseless festering growth and wealth, perpetual video profit, with no release valve to discharge it...... thematic  (i appreciate it too, i am too bad at this type of video game to ever do this. it's nice to have coverage of it that's so comprehensive)
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Nov 3, 2022 15:06
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I can fully concede that I know jack poo poo about guns in general and this LP has been proof of that. Though I still appreciate being given clarification on the finer details of these firearms.
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Nov 3, 2022 15:53
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Part 20: Cursed S Ranks Guess what? The first S rank video wasn't the end. Now that we are dead and unlocked the game's secret difficulty, there's a whole new round of S ranks we need to achieve with the exception of a certain stage that doesn't register anything higher than a C. Oh well. At least here you finally get an answer to what the Abominator really is and how it is the ultimate tool for breaking the game's physics and rules. Grappendix might be the most fun and versatile mobility tool in a first person game, but the Abominator exists as nothing more than a gift from the developer to take a simple game and absolutely subvert every level's intended design path. It's great. This is why I love Cruelty Squad. Records Pharmakokinetiks - 0.51.093 | 1.01.256 Paradise - 0.52.909 | 0.58.015 Sin Space Engineering - 0.30.288 | 0.37.443 Androgen Assault - 0.30.288 | 1.29.035 Mall Madness - 1.01.726 | 1.11.234 Darkworld - 0.49.035 | 0.48.180 Apartment Atrocity - 0.30.132 | 0.43.746 Seaside Shock - 0.47.453 | 0.54.474 Alpine Hospitality - 0.46.308 | 1.10.029 Bog Business - 1.09.611 | 0.57.909 Miner's Miracle - 0.48.339 | 1.35.024 Casino Catastrophe - 0.38.503 | 0.34.571 Idiot Party - 0.49.313 | 0.31.833 Neuron Activator - 1.26.718 | 1.31.986 Office - 1.06.995 | 1.42.108 Archon Grid - 1.15.807 | 1.27.545 House - 0.58.330 | 1.07.551 Cruelty Squad HQ - 0.17.648 | 1.27.540
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Nov 5, 2022 20:20
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Any resemblance to the start of the game has now gone basically. Anything resembling normality is now lost in a cloud of green fog and explosive foot sharts.
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Nov 5, 2022 23:17
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It's honestly disappointing all the speedruns basically use the gravity flip because the grappendix is loving amazing video material.
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Nov 6, 2022 01:39
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The Abominator creates a reality bubble. If you stand close enough to someone when you turn it on when it affect them too? The seat of consciousness is the intestine. Banging your head is meaningless. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Nov 6, 2022 |
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Nov 6, 2022 02:41
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Part 21: Trauma Loop - 3rd Ending "As a successful member of society with a stable unflinching psyche and limitless drive, natural affinity for finance and domination, you have been selected, no, you have been effortlessly guided by divine (biological) trauma towards this moment. The gates of destiny fling open, and once again you're left standing on pulsating nothingness. A strobing headache of the soul." After two endings with ambiguously terrible implications, we've reached the TRUE end of Cruelty Squad. Not the LP, just the last chronological thing you can do that the game will consider. And it's all tied to the hardest level that the game can throw at you. One last challenge that puts some extra handicaps in place so that you can't just immediately break the level. Well, there is still a way to do it fast without removing the Ambassador and Limit Chancellor, but that's not until the final video. Point is, Trauma Loop is an on point descriptor to what people will feel when attempting this gauntlet. Weapons  Abscess Ironworks Lux ff374f727ce9d6de93be0793733c321 "Bask in the golden light of your radiant path." Implants  Biojet Slot: Chest A powerful steady stream of warm liquid smoothly lifts you up and lets you fly like a bird. Replaces your kick.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:11
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Well there we have it then, I'm not even sure what to make of any of that. So here's a question for everyone, where exactly is the start of this level, all of this was hidden under a secret tile inside of a library of all places.
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Nov 10, 2022 04:47
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Death is returned to a world overflowing with life. The world itself is killed, and the cruel profit incentive it contained within it.
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Nov 10, 2022 08:25
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This is a really good LP thanks for doing it you two
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Nov 12, 2022 03:52
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Part 22: CHAOS It's the end of the LP. It's the end of Cruelty Squad. All that remains is CHAOS. Thank you all for watching.
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Nov 12, 2022 20:45
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Our eyes might never recover from this but it was a blast.
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Nov 12, 2022 22:38
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In the end everything is pure chaos, and it's all because of our efforts.
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Nov 13, 2022 02:21
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| # ? May 3, 2024 23:08 |
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Thanks for making this LP! I heard a lot of positive stuff about Cruelty Squad when it came out, but it was never going to be a game I actually enjoyed playing, so I'm glad to have the chance to experience it and the underlying art.
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Nov 13, 2022 03:10
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