by David RodriguezIn Brazil, no one can hear you double jump. And that’s good because you can only double jump in BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO thanks to fireworks that have been inserted into your character’s ass. Nothing can prepare you for the ridiculousness that this game has to offer so if that last sentence was a bit much for you, you might want to tap out now.
For the rest of us, it’s just the beginning of what I’m certain will be one of the most ludicrous and garish games of the year. BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 is the half-step sequel before the real sequel to BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3: I OPENED A PORTAL TO HELL IN THE FAVELA TRYING TO REVIVE MIT AIA I NEED TO CLOSE IT. While I didn’t play BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3 yet, I see that was a mortal mistake on my part because after an hour of BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4, I just want more of whatever this is.
This game’s built with id Tech 2, the same engine that powered Quake II back in the day, which effectively makes this a very elaborate, very Brazilian mod for that FPS classic. It’s apparent in the gameplay. All the weapons, while quite different from the Quake II weapons, are still analogous to the ones in that game with similar functions. That’s hardly all that sets this game apart from it.
BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 itself is an homage to old mods and bootleg games from the 2000s. What may seem like an amateurish effort with rough edges, mismatched textures, glitches, and typos not only makes it pretty endearing as a game, but it’s also kind of the point. Those seeking polish and sheen to their FPS experience, take your fancy ass back to Marathon. As for me, I’m booking a ticket to BRAZIL so I can SAVE the apparent best band in the country’s history, MAMADAS, from RONALDO. Not the football player, the… clown mascot?
Enemies are stiff mannequins that rotate and move awkwardly, designs running the gamut from motocross bike riders to yellow-clad clowns reminiscent of a certain burger chain with world dominance status. You replenish your health by eating pastel, a cooked pastry, and drinking sugar cane water in a combo meal. Ammo you find is bog standard bullets, shells, and rockets, but you also get “weirdass ammo”. BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 is constantly at war with itself over being familiar and a cumin-dipped fever dream.
Everything in the game is a haphazard exploration of just how far a dev can go to commit to the bit. This being the second game in this slum saga, we haven’t yet reached the wall. This game packs more weapons, more maps, and more features than ever before. There are only six maps in the demo, but it’s a sizable offering of what’s on deck for the full game’s release in September. Even the HUD is charming. I don’t really know what the emoji does, but it changes expressions here and there. You get a red health bar (white for armor), the green numbers are your total kills of possible enemies on the map, and the little GTA-like weapon thumbnail shows your ammo.
It’s good that these visual aspects of the game are pretty simple because everything else is constantly threatening to overheat your brain’s own GPU. You could spend a good ten minutes counting the different textures in just the three screenshots above. Doors are a simple black texture with “enter here” and “entre aqui” for multilingual use. The music is a charming, catchy mix of deep-fried turbo jungle, the kind you’d hear a lot in games and movies of the 2000s and late 90s. Sound effects are similarly processed to hell and back – one gun’s shot sound is like it was taken from archival footage of a nuclear bomb test and compressed to diamond form. It’s a maximalist Trojan horse wheeled into your computer’s hard drive through the profoundly minimalist use of the eternal, yet limited Quake II foundation.
This is obviously not going to be for everyone, but developer Joeveno has earned a cult following with this rambunctious, vivid, trippy, and esoteric look into a very minutely pinpointed aspect of Brazil’s cultural history. That it’s in the form of a boomer shooter just makes it potentially enjoyable by more people who are into that sort of thing (me!). It has won me over, no doubt. It has plans to have monthly support post-launch and up to 255-player co-op support, which is just the kind of absurdity I’d expect from BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4. This project is commendable and worth supporting – that’s the real reason I’m writing this article. Shoutout to my pal Thomas for providing help and context on some of the Brazilianisms covered in this preview!
The demo for BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO is live now on Steam. Visit its store page to download it and wishlist the full game before it drops on September 16!
BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO
