Viscerafest (PC)

Do you like gibs? Are bunny hops a mechanic to you? Foul mouth with a passion for chaos and the need for speed? Well Viscerafest has just kicked the doors down in early access so let’s see just how visceral this festival is shall we?.

Disclaimer: Review is for the current early access build as of 28/05/2021. When the game fully releases and leaves early access, we’ll take another look at the title and update this review accordingly.

Published by 1C Entertainment and developed by Acid Man Games & Fire Plant Games, Viscerafest puts you behind the blood soaked fists of Caroline, part women, part Cthulhu and deeply in love bounty hunter. She decides to take a job to take on a warlock called Cromune in order to buy a ring to give to her betrothed, she straps on her boots and makes quite an entrance on her quest for love and guts.

Graphically Viscerafest employs a more pixel cartoon look that is often fashioned in indie titles such as Hyper Light Drifter and another Early Access gem Nightmare Reaper, this initially helps it stand out from the boomer shooter crowd along with its colourful throwback menu art and character designs. 

While there are only a handful of enemy types at the moment they have very distinctive looks and this helps you assess the room when you dive in to dispense some ass kicking, incoming projectiles are easy enough to spot and don’t bleed into the scenery. Level designs aren’t the most varied in look but there are a few stand out sections, one I was asked not to spoil but really does show that there is a lot more planned for the game that it initially looks.

The performance of the game is silky smooth which is perfect for a game that relies on the feeling of speed as you’re bunny hopping and dashing around the stages platforming sections and combat arenas, not once did the game stutter at all.

The music for Viscerafest is fantastic and when it really kicks in puts you right in the mood for all out action, the voice acting is superb and Caroline’s one liners are almost Duke worthy, there is an alarm that sounds when your health drops low and you’ll be hearing it alot. Cutscenes are well voice acted too, again you can see there is a little more going on with this title than it initially seems. 

The gameplay of Viscerafest is brilliantly summed up in the title, it’s a fast and brutal first person shooter with a huge focus on speed and momentum. Where it doesn’t reinvent the genre by any stretch it forces you to play in a very balls to the walls way rather than focus on cover and taking your time. 

The tutorial will explain the mechanic us “boomers” use in the Bunny hop, coupled with the dash the idea of this is to enter a combat arena, hop and dash around picking off foes and being their worst nightmare. 

You regain health from “gibbing” enemies, either with Caroline’s mighty fist which is helpfully the right mouse button, using the many many explosive barrels around the maps or with the more boomy weapons or the meaty shotguns. Don’t worry if you didn’t gib foes at first, alien body’s are awfully explody upon death and this is one of the many lessons you’ll need to learn quick. 

This version of Viscerafest has 7 levels and while they can fly by in around an hour, even on the easiest difficulty they can put you to the test. Of course each stage has secrets for you to find and playing through the game on easy is only the start, once you’ve found your groove with the game it’s time to test yourself on the next difficulty. 

Ammo is scarce so you’ll need to aim straight, use the barrels and punch the weaker foes so you can focus on the more meatier foes, not every enemy can be taken down the same way but fortunately once you’ve come across them they have well defined patterns and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you adapt. 

A final inclusion to the difficulty is the addition of save poles, rather than allowing you to save scum like the old days, you get a few save poles throughout the stages and it’s up to you where you use them.

Viscarafest has been on my radar since I saw it at Realms Deep, this early snippet of the game is a fantastic look at how the game is more than it seems. The narrative is deeper than I expected and the developers will be adding an upgrade system with the later chapters. 

The runtime flies by but I found myself jumping straight in again on a higher difficulty, the future is bright for Viscerafest and shows that it isn’t just New Blood who hold the market for classic and chaotic shooters with attitude and gibs.

4

Summary

If this keeps up momentum it will easily be in the conversation with Duke and DoomGuy 

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Straight from the streets of SouthTown, all Dunks Powah'd and ready to Bust A Wolf. Catch me on Twitch/YouTube.

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