Butcher

The story is you are a killer robot á la Terminator sent to exterminate the last vestiges of humanity in a war against humanity. The problem is, on anything but the easiest difficulty the roles are clearly reversed gameplay-wise: The game plays like YOU are the last human on earth and all your enemies are killer robots with lightning-quick reflexes and you barely make it out alive. On anything but casual difficulty, the game is ridiculously hard. Unless you are a masochist or an Asian with microsecond reflexes, you will not have a good time. The smallest advances in the story take forever, since ammo is scarce and enemies kill you quickly if you don´t play very defensively. There are no checkpoints within levels and you need to replay large stretches if you die. Enemies start unloading on you as soon as line of sight is established or somersault in your direction if they are melee fighters. Sometimes they even teleport on top of you. On top of that, the game is pretty bland visually. The pixel art is okay most of the time, but the color palette is mostly black, brown and grey. The weapons are nothing revolutionary except the railgun which needs to charge up between shots. The sound design is quite good: Enemies scream in pain when they get shot or wail in anguish when set alight with the flame thrower. The gun sounds on the other hand are servicable, but nothing too noteworthy. I really like pixel art, but the resolution in this game is too low for my taste. CASUAL difficulty remedies all of the aforementioned problems: You are very resilient to damage, have loads of ammo, health and armor and can live out all your Terminator power fantasies. This way, the game is great fun for the 2 HOURS that it lasts and doesn´t overstay its welcome. There are no replay incentives except some Skull collectibles. Unless you want to support the small devteam, get BUTCHER when it is discounted.

The mother ship, a massive behemoth of scrap steel patched and riveted together, fires you out of your drone ship. Your vision goes red, and billions of lines of code, diagnostics, and information flashes across your display. Your drone docks into the starport. The mission is simple: Kill everything. The gameplay is tight, fast, and maniacal. The controls and the platforming are extremely tight, leaving almost no room for error. Unlike other "hard" games, you are fully in control at all times. To offset some of the enemies' small appearances, they emote clearly with bright symbols and exclamation points to point out their position. All of the weapons, from the starting shotgun to the instagibbing railgun, feel incredibly satisfying to use. The game loves to screw with you at some points, but it's easy to hop right back into the action again, and is more hilarious than frustrating when it does happen. For replay value, there are collectibles, more difficulty modes, and even some hidden levels to unlock. If there are some complaints to make, I can think of two. One, in a very heated gunfight, the levels sometimes blend together too much and become a bit of a muddy mess, making it difficult to distinguish background from platform, meaning the split second spent trying to study the level can mean death. Two, the maximum ammo for the weapons is pretty limited, and again, in the middle of combat, it can be a bit jarring to suddenly switch from a machine-gun to a grenade launcher. Those are small complaints that are not game-breaking at all, but only slight nuisances. Overall, if you are a fan of dark industrial levels and frenzied shooters, this is an excellent, excellent game to play. There are few games out there today that can get your blood pumping like Butcher can.

Amazing art style, pixelated and perfect! Great music and sounf fx (voices too)! There is a story to glue things in place! Keyboard and mouse plays smooth and tight! Well, it's Abuse + DOOM = instant classic!

Even with the W.I.M.P update i must admit, my reflexes are just not fast enough to match the easiest setting. I love the setting and the style and the game is definately worth it's money - but only if you are truly competent in your reflexive aiming. Definately a nice game to have, but be aware of, that you might suck in it, if if you are not VERY capable with your aim. It is pretty unforgiving.