utcher is a perfect game. Not among the greatest of all time by an means, just that it executes all its ideas perfectly. The high concept is Quake meets Hotline Miami as a side-scroller. The enemy design, weapons, pickups and world are all Quake with a touch of Terminator. The quick snappy twin stick gameplay and unforgivably punishing difficulty is very much Hotline Miami. It's unapologetic in its approach with a difficulty tier of Hard, Harder and Hardest, and this will filter a lot of people but I'm all for it. The mechanics and gameplay are a struggle at first, but once you get the hang of snap shotting enemies you'll be running through levels in your first, second or third try. The presentation is superb. Whether it be the human enemies, which seem augmented in some way whether that be cybernetic or exosuits or a combination I'm unsure but splattering them into a puddle of gore, or listening to their whimpers and yelps as you Butcher them never gets old. Wielding a chainsaw, rifle, shotgun, grenade launcher and rail rifle the inspiration for its weapons are clear. I loved the depth in weapons and the amount of ammo you receive is perfect, requiring you to manage your resources to deal with the right enemies. Assault rifle is ideal for the grunts but quickly runs out of ammo and is best for crowds. So the shotgun is best used for single or dual humans, while the grenade launcher is best for heavy enemies and the rail life is good for everything, charging it up and lining up multiple elite enemies for a one shot kill is super satisfying.
The enemies range from civies ripe to be chainsawed, to generic foot soldiers who can use any weapon you can (RIP Rail Rifle), jetpack wearing humans to minigun toting super soldiers or hijacked ambulances fitted with missile launchers. It's very rustic and feels appropriately scavenged. Took me way too long to realise what the story was. A terminator-esque drone created to seek out and destroy the last bastions of humanity. Eventually fighting the guardian Robot and destroying the core of Earth itself, including you. All the levels are unique from grey industrial ironworks, yellow old military bases, a deep green jungle outpost, orange volcano research station or the dirty and colourful last city of humanity. I tried the user created levels as well, and disappointingly could only find test levels from the devs. Not sure if I need to download these but I decided to move on. At 3 and a half hours Butcher was the perfect length to romper stomp my way through the last remnants of humanity as a cold machine.
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| The inspiration here is evident... |
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