Got through this in about an hour (including the freely added expansion [i]Devil's Path[/i]) and the atmosphere is incredible, if not literally [i]killer[/i].
With its neon-bright pink and white-ish default color scheme, surreal locations and a moody soundtrack, it suckered me in and kept me hooked, even as I was struggling with the gameplay here and there.
As [b]Midnight Ultra[/b] is a first-person shooter, its gameplay is simple: You have one ranged and one melee weapon either of which you'll choose out of a set of available four per type, whenever starting a new game, on a game over or when loading a level. And while there are ammo drops throughout the locations, ammo overall is quite limited, so you'd better make your shots count!
Because missing often might just introduce you to my first, but completely missable issue with the game: The melee weapons don't work for me (despite them being fixed through a patch).
Trying it throughout the first three of the game's six main levels, out of probably a hundred swings, maybe only three connected, of which I'm honestly unsure even now. Because even if I did manage a hit, it seemingly didn't do a lot of damage.
Thankfully this issue only exists for the first three melee weapons of the four available. The forth and last one is a cultist spell and lets you shoot an energy ball out of your own hand. While that one works and does damage, it does so very little and the energy ball flies so slowly, I rarely ended up using it anyway, but I certainly chose it every time.
But if you're accurate I doubt you'd really need to rely on them.
The second issue for me, however, you can't miss: The enemy cultist you'll fight against often have a bit too much health in my opinion, especially for the sawn-off shotgun and the single-shot rifle.
Another issue stemming from the tanky enemies was the wildly differing ammo pools for the four ranged weapons. You do get a differing amount from an ammo drop, depending on what weapon you're using. As such on the singe-shot rifle I quickly and often ended up without any ammo, same for the revolver, while the shotgun and sub machine gun didn't have that issue. Although those too on the other hand you'd really had to be up close, otherwise your bullets didn't do any damage.
Nevertheless, both of these issues don't make it unplayable and certainly don't make it unfun.
And for me the atmosphere is strong enough, that I still blasted through all those cultists and enjoyed it all the same.
[b]An experience that shouldn't be missed![/b]
But, before you go and start blasting those cultist, a few additional notes:
1. The freely added expansion [b]Devil's Path[/b] is a strong and improved follow-up to the main campaign and definitely should be played as well!
2. Don't like the color scheme Midnight Ultra has as default? The options allow you not only to change it to various other themes (or even 'no filter' for a realistic look), but also allow switching to a high-res mode, which helps a ton with visibility.
Personally though, I think the original look is great in and of itself!
3. Maybe set a framerate limiter through your graphics card drivers, because the game doesn't have one (also no v-sync) and will gladly use up any available performance you computer can provide.
My 5700 XT was gladly giving it all it could, accompanied by roaring fans and a lot of added heat, but with a limiter set to my monitor's refresh, it was a much more pleasent (and still perfectly playable) experience.
