



But after an hour or so, I discovered that trying to knock out my opponent with a flurry of punches would grant me a couple of precious seconds where they would be incapable of fighting back.

At first, I would only take someone out if I went down with them or by sheer dumb luck. While chaotic at its core, I did find myself improving at the game as I started to make some sense of all the craziness. This is heightened with a larger playing group, and the online matches I played with six or more players were some of the best times I had with Gang Beasts. Holding on for dear life quickly becomes the most important mechanic in the game, and the arm wrestles that occur between players trying to throw each other out of the match can be truly exhilarating and utterly hilarious to be a part of. Characters can also grab onto each other, as well as walls and other objects in the arena. Of course, this is all intentional and the main source of the game’s rib-stitching humour. All the basic attacks are carried over from genre classics, but punching, kicking and headbutting in Gang Beasts relates more to slapping someone across the face with a dead fish than uppercutting them into the stratosphere. Moving feels like sludging through slime and I often found walking up to an opponent to be a battle within itself. Gang Beasts commits to its inherently funny idea of making a beat ‘em up with characters that play like spineless sloths. Whether or not developer Boneleaf designed their game specifically with the Let’s Play generation in mind is ultimately irrelevant to the game’s overall technical quality and playability, which I found to be an occasionally messy package once the highs of those initial laughs faded.īut those laughs were some of the loudest I’ve blurted out from a videogame in some time. A lack of Dualshock 4s didn’t equate into a lack of enjoyment as those of my friends who didn’t get a chance to play could still laugh their heads off at the rest of us making fools of ourselves. Gang Beasts works as a social gaming experience in the sense that its ridiculous concept of gelatine characters beating each other up is just as fun to watch as it is to play. Reviews // 23rd Jan 2020 - 2 years ago // By Harry Fritsch Gang Beasts Review
