Butcher

If you like side-view arena fighters with great music and effects, this is for you. Unfortunately, I thought it was more of a horror/combat/explorer, where I could soak up the atmosphere and make each shot count at a more tense pace. I'm not into games where the doors lock and enemies teleport in for frantic fights where you can't enjoy the graphics and sound, then the doors magically open. If it sounds like your type of game, grab it. If not, don't. I was obviously mistaken about the experience it offered.

Butcher is simply put one of the best games I have played. It takes the aesthetic of what was controversial of IPs such as DOOM and Terminator, and cranks it up to 12. It holds its own in almost every regard: The graphics are oldschool, without being "Nostalgia bait". They hold the feel of older titles while taking advantage of modern hardware to deliver fantasticly detailed effects. The general sound design is impactful. Gunfire is loud and deep, explosions are destinct and invigorating, the shrillness of the saws invigorates, and the screams of recently deceased are bloodcurdling. The gameplay itself is tight, fast, and deadly. Movement is precise and quick, any mis-step is your fault, no ice floors to blame it on. Gunplay is solid, as guns don't have random spread. Every weapon has a purpose, and knowing when to use what is how you live or die. Enemies are weak, but hurt like a bullet to the brain should. Enemies that are harder to kill are fewer, often giving solid variety to a base of weaker enemies so you are doing more than hunting lemmings. Oh, and the music. The OST is absolutely enamoring. It's hard, in your face, and makes it very clear as to what kinda game you are playing. I cannot give justice to it with words. Nitpick: Homing missles are kinda cheap, but you can take a few to the face if need be, or avoid them with relative ease. Nitpick 2: Tougher enemies do get spammed in the last levels a bit more than I feel the level layout is able to handle. But that is only in the last 2 missions in the entire game, so it can be overlooked. The level also hands you BFG ammo to deal with them easier. Genuine Gripe: The final boss is... dissapointing. Visceral, terrifiying in all regards such as appearance and OST, challenging... but overly simplistic compared to the rest of the game. It will still take you a few tries, but it is easier than some of the earlier enemy arenas. -0.5 for Final Boss. -0.5 for dead modding community and buggy level editor.

This game is amazing, and I love the premise: basically playing as a Terminator sent down to Earth to mop up whatever survivors remain in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Hell yes. The gameplay itself is solid: very hard, but never unfair. I'm nearly at the end, playing on Hard, and I find it quite doable even if some levels take me many attempts. The combat is delightful, with excessive overkill highly encouraged. The weapons are all extremely satisfying to use, ammo is plentiful but not overabundant by any means, and the sound design is fantastic. Levels are lovingly detailed, and the music is wonderful. Death is frequent, so respawning is quick and painless, and it doesn't even reset the music -- which really helps keep you feeling like you're not wasting any time. There's little fanfare one way or another when you die. The game just sends you right back into the meat grinder. My only complaint is that some of the (totally optional) secrets are excruciatingly hard to reach, and require you to exploit gameplay mechanics that aren't quite intuitive. You also have to reach the end of the level alive for those to count, so if you spend a lot of time to get a hard secret only to die, it's quite a setback. The game also has a level editor, so I can see myself playing this for hours and hours and hours to come. It's quick to fire up, quick to get into the action, quick to reset after death, and your weapons make short work of almost everything thrown at you. Even weapon switching is instantaneous, so you truly can just focus on the killing and maneuvering, just as a retro, carnage-focused platformer should be. At $10 bucks this game is a steal. If you enjoy the demo, you'll love the full game!

I was debating 3 or 4 stars, but I think 4 is more appropriate. While I found myself frustrated many times with the punishing difficulty (forget about an enemy for a second and boom, half your health is gone or worse), I did choose "Harder" (3 out of 5 difficulties). While the fantasy of being the Terminator is sort of there, on these higher difficulties, you'll find yourself being the hunted rather than the hunter... frantically on the move to avoid enemy fire, while trying to kill them as fast as possible just to stay alive. The inability to look forward with your mouse makes enemies shooting you from the edge of the screen a bit annoying. So why the 4 stars then? Well the game has some good music, interesting level design (even though many levels end up having some sort of "arena" where you need to battle a bunch of guys that spawn in -- I would have liked some more of the platforming actually since some sections were quite interesting), fluid gameplay, good sound design, good animation (for example, blood splatter along the walls, interactable terrain, etc), secrets, collectibles... In the end, when it comes down to recommending or not, I always ask myself "would I replay this" and "would I recommend it to my past self"... both answers yes. Although, I may play it on 2/5 or even 1/5 (the baby difficulty). I do enjoy a good challenge, but I think 2/5 is probably a good enough balance, considering dying forces you to repeat the whole level, which can be a pain in arena sections that spawn 4-5 waves of increasingly difficult bad guys, giving you little time to recoup. Now that I've beaten it, when I replay this, it'll be on easy mode, so I can roleplay as a merciless robot, tearing through all that stands in his path. Because on "harder" it's amazing the humans didn't defeat the robots given some of the technology they have available to them. All in all, a cool little game, with a decent length, good challenge, and decent replayability.

4/5 with standard WASD+mouse 5/5 with controller Conclusion: Use controller! That is the way I enjoy it. Maybe it is little easier prehaps but there is still hard time for you if you don't use your weaponry careful enough. Don't worry! It is not boring ammo management simulator. But many situations requires weapon switching. Still, more often than enough, basic boomstick will do. Fun!