Brazilian Drug Dealer 3 is just ok.

2025-11-24

Firstly, remember that post where I said I would no longer be making any purchases through Steam? Ok so that was a fucking lie. Look Steam is just convenient and sometimes it's the only place to access certain video games. I'm still not a huge fan of the platform but I am a big fan of the sales. That being said, if you would like to avoid Purchasing this game on Steam, after some digging, I discovered the original itch.io version, which in the description states "IF YOU BOUGHT IT HERE SEND ME A DM ON INSTAGRAM SO I CAN SEND YOU A KEY OF THE STEAM VERSION". But I don't have Instagram and never will so this is not an option for me either. Frankly I do not appreciate this way of doing things especially given the context I will soon add. Here is a link to the Steam page if you're interested in checking the game out. I'd say you should read this review first though.

So, what is Brazilian Drug Dealer 3? The description on Steam describes it as "A BRAZILIAN BOOMER SHOOTER GAME MADE USING THE ID TECH 2 ENGINE!", and strictly speaking, that is not a lie. It is however, an exaggeration. BD3 is a Quake reskin and map pack. None of the mechanics from Quake are changed. The guns are all the Quake guns reskinned, the enemies are all the quake enemies reskinned, the movement engine is Quake 1's movement engine, the maps were made in trenchbroom. It is a quake mod.

The youtuber Noodle talked about it in this video on his main channel and this video on his second channel. I had already vaguely heard about it just by virtue of being in the "boomer shooter" community, but these two videos were what actually piqued my interest. I think I just didn't pay enough attention to these videos because I thought they oversold it, but upon rewatching just now Noodle basically sums up my thoughts in one sentence. "It's so shit. But it's Quake, and so it doesn't matter how shit it is, because Quake is one of the best video games ever made." Noodle goes on to praise the level design and humour but I gotta be honest, they were not really that impressive to me.

Games like this clearly fit in the post-cruelty-squad genre. That is to say, games with weird ass textures that intentionally evoke a sort of retry late 90s-early-00s knock off bootleg bad game aesthetic, but aren't that. See also nubby's number factory, goblin america. The thing is that after a short amount of time, the novelty wears off and you stop processing the game as looking weird, it just looks like Cruelty Squad. And Cruelty Squad is so good because it's a genuinely really compelling game beyond the surface level. It has really well tuned difficulty, it has a whole fuckload of interconnecting systems from the stock market to the upgrade system and the enemy design, all of which are unique and interesting. On top of that, Cruelty Squad actually has something to say, it has astute social commentary and a philosophy referencing Bataille. You come to find out that all of that aesthetic flare was actually serving to enhance a really solid game. BD3 is not really like this. Once you get over the "loud = funny" vibe, underneath, it's just a very middling quake map pack. It's that intentionally, but that doesn't really make it fun. The rocket launcher model just completely covers half of your screen, making it hard to see what you're shooting at. That's a joke, until you need to use the rocket launcher and then it's annoying. The bits that are good, the enemies, the shooting, the general gamefeel, those are all just Quake being the best video game, they came for free with your making a Quake mod. So I find it hard to give the dev any credit for that. I will give them credit for the music. It's all loud distorted fucked up shit and if you know the kind of music I make or listen to you know that's my shit. So I do enjoy that, although I will say, this is maybe not so novel as you may think if you're not familiar with the Brazilian Soundcloud scene. I imagine this game feels a lot more insane and original if you don't have a cursory knowledge of Brazilian internet humour and music, of which BD3 is more standard fare. I played through the game on "hard" difficulty and it was still way too easy to pose any interesting mechanical challenge. The game just gives you way too much rocket launcher ammo and the arena design is only ever in two categories: single corridor with 3-4 low tier enemies which are easy to corner peak, or gigantic open flat plane with a fuck load of enemies spammed, which you can easily shoot from a distance before their AI even turns on, or just circle strafe around holding m1 in their general direction and win. Actually I think the first level was the hardest, because once you get stronger weapons you never lose them and you have so much ammo you can just abuse them. Maybe I should have switched up to nightmare but I think the convention should be that nightmare is not the default difficulty needed to have fun, it should be an extra challenge on top of the base game.

I also imagine this game feels more novel if you're not familiar with the bar of quality for modern Quake map packs and mods. People have been creating stuff in this game since the 90s, the level of skill and knowledge of the engine, what sorts of level design works well, that kind of thing, it's just on another level these days. Not that the original Id made maps are anything less than genius, but the community which has had since 1996 to learn and experiment with these tools is just insane these days. Just go play Arcane Dimensions. I mean, just somewhat recently there was Bonk Jam, a mod and map back based around the addition of a new hammer weapon which completely changes the way the game is played and slots in with the Quake engine's movement and combat so perfectly that it feels like someone added more game to the game. You know what's nice about the decades of quake maps and mods? They're completely free. You can play an infinite amount of Quake forever for free. Quake is every year's "game of the year". I don't vote in the game awards because they won't let me vote for Quake 1 in every category.

So I did not by any means dislike BD3, it's just that I liked it because it's Quake and I like Quake. Setting aside the Quake stuff, the game is kinda funny for about an hour, then just ok. There are better modern boomer shooters (see, Dusk, HROT), better Quake map packs and mods (see Arcane Dimensions, Bonk Jam), and better post-ironic shitpost games (just look around on itch.io for a while you'll find something).

But either way, I'm always happy to see quake back in the public consciousness even in any small way.