We’ve seen a recent trend of Hotline Miami-inspired games that use fast-paced first-person shooters with short levels, unique visuals, and interesting game mechanics such as Anger Foot and Mullet Jack. […]

The post Harness Your Inner Warrior: The Electrifying Challenge Of ‘I Am Your Beast’ first appeared on Two Average Gamers.

The post Harness Your Inner Warrior: The Electrifying Challenge Of ‘I Am Your Beast’ appeared first on Two Average Gamers.

Footsie

HIGH I just love the title.

LOW The boss fights.

WTF Kicking an anthropomorphized brain in the testicles.

Anger Foot isn’t subtle… though with a title like that, I don’t think anyone should expect nuance.

A bizarre ménage à trois between Hotline Miami, Boogerman and John Wick, Anger Foot is a first-person kicker/shooter that blends improvisational gunplay, high flying footwork and scatological humor. While it may not reach the heights of its inspirations (except for Boogerman — it’s definitely better than Boogerman) when it’s firing on all cylinders it can be a hell of a good time.

Planning a night in with his significant other, the titular Anger Foot’s plans are interrupted as gangs break in and steal his prized sneaker collection, and one can easily surmise that this is no laughing matter. Soon enough, I am storming through the apartments, sewers and nightclubs of Shit City (yes, that’s really what it’s called) in pursuit of my wayward footwear.

Who needs doorknobs when an angry foot will get the job done just as well? In lieu of a traditional “use” button, I can mash the “E” key to kick down doors and send adversaries flying. Grabbing limited-ammo guns as I go, a typical scene might have me draining the clip of a nearby machine gun before whipping it across the room to stun a bat-wielding, humanoid crocodile. I can then pivot and send a kick to the gut of what appears to be Grover from the wrong side of Sesame Street. As he sails through the air, grab his falling pistol and headshot the still-reeling crocodile.

Things move fast in Shit City, and death comes easy. While no level takes more than five minutes to complete, Anger Foot proves to be as fragile as the opposition, and his rage can be permanently calmed with a bullet or two. As such, it was rare that I could clear a stage on my first attempt, but blessedly short load times allow for rapid iteration, and there was a satisfaction in finding my perfect line through each map, slowly but surely landing every kick, headshot and jump, anticipating enemy movements and dancing my way to the exit.

This repetitious try-and-die nature of this design is clearly intentional. Completing each level under certain conditions unlocks stars that can be redeemed for new foot gear such as a new pair of stilettos, sandals or galoshes, each of which grants new abilities — things like making enemies explode when kicked, or enabling a double jump. Some are more context-specific, like granting immunity to fire — especially handy as the enemies up their arsenal to include flamethrowers in later stages. My personal favorite was a pair of sneakers that would slow down time when I kicked in a door.

Given levels’ general linearity, there is a surprising amount of room for player expression between alternate paths and the spontaneity of combat. Choosing when and where to pick up a shotgun versus a pistol, and when to send the empty gun flying across the room to stun an enemy is just as meaningful as which shoes I pick at the beginning of each stage. It feels as though I’m carving my own path through each area rather than following a prescripted route and method.

There’s also variety in the level design — in the first half of the campaign, at least. Starting out, each of Anger Foot’s stages feels as though it has a unique concept. In one, a sniper is perched and taking shots from afar – unable to reach my assailant, I must be in constant motion to avoid their aim. In another, I’m leaping across pipes in a cavernous sewer fighting an army of tentacles. With enemies being stationary, there is a clockwork, rhythmic precision to my movements as I take shots before they even appear, anticipating their presence.

Unfortunately, while I can clearly remember many of the early sections, later stages begin to feel more indistinct thanks to generic hallways and fewer mechanical differentiators as the developers come to rely more and more on the volume of enemies. There’s certainly an adrenaline rush in taking down a room of thirty foes, but Anger Foot loses the sense of flow and tempo that characterizes its first half.

Furthermore, the multi-phase boss battles that conclude each area feel out of place and frustrating. These fights, with an emphasis on timing and waiting for precise moments to attack, lose much of the dynamism that highlights the rest of the experience.  The worst offender introduces a mandatory parry mechanic, requires memorization of attack patterns, and takes place in a restrictive arena over toxic sludge where one small misstep means restarting the fight from the beginning.  These more prescriptive encounters seem to forget the fluid, freeform combat that made the preceding stages so engaging.

As mentioned earlier, there’s obviously an element of humor to the proceedings, and it doesn’t take long to realize that Anger Foot doesn’t take itself terribly seriously. However, beyond the baseline absurdity of the premise, the developers might be trying a bit too hard to make players laugh. I’m no stranger to puerile humor, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crack a smile the first time I burst into a bathroom to find a surprised enemy, pixelated genitals and all. However, by the time I reached the end and had seen this same gag countless times, it began to lose its luster. Anger Foot is funny on a conceptual level, but the overt, repeated attempts at humor feel like selling past the close.

Anger Foot is at its best in motion. Falling into a hallway hypnosis of garish ’90s aesthetics and murderous footwork, I don’t have to think — I just react. It’s when I’m forced to slow down and hear a joke or fight a boss that requires pauses in the pace that I begin to notice the seams. While these moments aren’t dealbreakers, they’re unfortunate stumbles in an otherwise sure-footed experience.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

— Ryan Nalley

Disclosures: This game is developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC.
Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game
was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: While this game has not been rated by the ESRB, it is certainly not intended for younger audiences. Anger Foot contains violence, blood, sexuality, nudity, vaping and crude humor. While this content is presented in a cartoony manner, it is pervasive.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. Most audio cues have on-screen indicators. However, there are some enemy barks that can give away an enemy’s position that are not represented visually. Therefore, this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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Door-and-peace-minus-the-peace FPS Anger Foot, the best game ever made, has finally got a release date: July 11th 2024. This is spectacular news, mainly because I’d already printed off a load of shirts that said ‘Anger Foot GOTY 2024.’ I was going to do some socks, too, but I do not trust this game anywhere near footwear.

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Fast-paced first-person shooters may be a dime a dozen these days, but Anger Foot has a unique gameplay hook that is literally kicking the door down for your attention. This colourful and completely chaotic shooter from the makers of Broforce is like a first-person take on the compelling, room-clearing carnage …

Despite many protagonists lacking them entirely, there have been many great feet in first-person shooters. Duke Nukem 3D, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, F.E.A.R.; when the kickers come out, it’s often a spectacle. Anger Foot attempts to outdo all previous feats of feet.

Anger Foot comes to us from Free Lives, a developer whose work has brought us a varied portfolio that includes games like Broforce, Genital Jousting, and Terra Nil. It’s coming sometime later this year, but I got to plant my feet in it today. Or, recently, I guess. What day is it?

Anger Foot takes place in Shit City, a location that makes me grateful that I work for a publication that lets me swear. In Shit City, crime is the law. You heard me. If a person isn’t committing a crime, that’s a red flag. At that point, police step in to ensure that the person gets the help they need to, at the very least, participate in petty larceny.

The city is ruled by four gangs, and you play as the one person who is willing to stand up to them. But only so they can steal some new shoes. However, before you get a single moment to admire your now complete sneaker collection, it’s stolen from under them. There are only two weapons powerful enough to get that footwear back, and their names are “Left” and “Right.”

Actually, there are also guns, but you’ll be getting a lot of mileage out of your two hooves.

Anger Foot is set up like a cross between Mullet MadJack’s corridor killing and Hotline Miami’s die-and-retry formula. Your goal is simply to reach the level’s exit point in the map, and any man, woman, or door that gets in your way needs to be kicked to splinters. One man. Two feet. All anger.

Anger Foot puts its best foot forward with its art style. Its grotesque stylings and use of bright comic-book colors are incredibly striking. The odd proportions and puppet people provide a helpful buffer to some of its gross-out humor. It’s like the Garbage Pail Kids have grown up with a fondness for toilets and swearing.

The music is similarly captivating. It maintains a near-constant, pulsing beat, but when there’s a break in the action, it takes on a reverberating sound, like it’s being played at maximum volume next door.

However, after emerging from the forest of its aesthetic, there’s much less impact. Kicking doors is great. It’s fun to watch them sail across the room before breaking on a thug’s face. And while the actual kicking will send foes flying, it strangely lacks force.

Melee combat is something that first-person shooter games often have trouble with. In Anger Foot you slide about, and when your foot is raised in anger, it doesn’t feel like it connects. There’s only the sensation that there’s a danger zone in front of your character. If you misjudge your timing, you might just pass by your target and glide around the floor to get ready for the next approach. There’s no weight or force in play. Even the drop kick doesn’t feel good to use. A door reacts to your toes in a fun way, but everything else just falls victim to the danger zone.

This is something that bothered me all throughout the sizeable chunk of gameplay I was served. I never felt powerful. It only takes a handful of shots to bring you down, and you’re not really given many options to avoid them in a crowded room. Keep moving, kite enemies, and keep kicking. You can pack yourself full of caffeine using cans of Thirst Fucker you find laying around, or get yourself drunk off of Brewforce if you feel like it, but it’s still just a couple of shots to bring you down.

The safest way to get through a level becomes kicking a door open, backing up, then kicking the enemies as they appear through the choke point. Even when you’re not cheesing, any time you need to be careful about your actions, the all-important momentum dies. Without the momentum, you don’t feel powerful, and that’s something that is crucial to Anger Foot and entirely lacking.

There are guns, but that’s just another problem. Their ammo is so limited, and movement is so important that in the chaos of a firefight, your feet seem more useful. That’s certainly on message, but it doesn’t give a reprieve from its problems.

On the other hand, optional objectives that provide stars give value to repeated playthroughs of levels (even if some are frustrating). More importantly, the stars are used to unlock new shoes, each of which comes with new buffs and abilities. I could see myself getting deeply into collecting new kicks if the gameplay was made more exciting.

Mullet MadJack feels so similar in intention to Anger Foot: Momentum, corridors, movement. However, through the use of systems like dashing and the glory kills of recent Doom games, MadJack feels much more satisfying. It has a series of mechanics that ensure that you never have to stop moving and you’re constantly killing.

Anger Foot is missing something. More accurately, it’s missing a few somethings. There are quite a few approaches that can be taken to alleviate its issues, but it’s probably going to require a few changes. As it stands, the whole experience is just too shallow.

I’m hoping that before launch, Free Lives can implement something to bring everything together. The level design, aesthetic, and even framework are all outstanding. Everything except the core gameplay is exceptional. I love looking at it, but Anger Foot is going to need to do more than just put one foot in front of the other to really nail the landing.

The post Anger Foot needs to be kicked up a bit appeared first on Destructoid.