brazilian drug dealer 3: i opened a portal to hell in the favela trying to revive mit aia i need to close it
review
there are some people out there who will immediately disregard brazilian drug dealer 3 for… well, for being what it is. because, honestly, what you see is kind of what you get: the game looks like a complete fever dream, and it plays like a complete fever dream. there’s nothing hiding behind the curtains, no secret message here. it’s quake, with weirder level design and a far less coherent theme. cool. that’s obviously underselling it a little bit, but at its core, bdd3 is a very straightforward game. you run through levels collecting keys and whatnot, beating waves of enemies, and finding the end of each level. it’s a quick one, too; my playthrough only took 3 hours.
but games like this work because of how singular the experience is outside of the gameplay. the blasting music, the waves of texture-swapped enemies, the jagged walls and doors with stock microsoft fonts, they all made me laugh in various stupid ways. despite the (surprisingly good) level design not exactly requiring the most brainpower, i was still having fun just seeing what stupid visual gag or silly enemy would pop up next. plus, because it’s so short, it’s easy to pick up and play for an afternoon without getting tired of the game’s whole shtick.
it’s dumb fun, tuned surprisingly well to be as dumb as possible. there’s intent with every level design choice; things make sense, despite how much the game wants to convince you that they don’t. i was rarely truly frustrated with a level, and that helps, because even the slightest bit of friction in this type of game can totally ruin the atmosphere that it’s going for. not to say that it’s a carefree romp by any means, there is still difficulty here, but it all feels remarkably fair. it helps that everything runs on the quake engine, which means that the actual shooting and physics feel great as well.
there’s barely a story, zero consistent atmosphere outside of being Overwhelmingly Loud, and the gunplay is extremely basic. all of those critiques towards brazilian drug dealer 3 are extremely fair and warranted, and i will not argue against them. yet, playing this game in a voice call with some of my friends is an experience i will relish for as long as i play video games. moments where you can bond with your peers over something so ridiculously stupid are few and far between, and it’s rarer to find them in games you can even consider okay, LET ALONE good.
this is NOT “so bad it’s good”. it’s “so stupid you can’t help but laugh”, which, if possible, i prefer. run through it in a few hours with some of your best buddies, and i guarantee you’ll have some fun.
score
8/10
notes
- developed by Joeveno
- published by Joeveno
- released in 2025
- played on pc
- crossposted to backloggd