Anger Foot (PC)

Geoffrey Wright | July 24, 2024 | Review | No Comments

From the studio that brought you Broforce and Gorn, things look to have branched out into the fast paced arena of the FPS this time. Instead of going down the safe boomer shooter route tho, Free Lives have given it an interesting spin with this one. Will it leave you caring more for your treads? Lets find out.

Well, one day, after finally getting that final pair of preemo sneakers to finish the collection, the scum of the city decide they want to steal those prized collectables. So, with nary a shoe on foot, its time to blast through the caffeine-fuelled fever dream of Shit City and get back what’s yours while cleaning up your neighbourhood from rival gangs.

There isn’t much to the story as you would expect, but what other reason does one need to blast away the scum in your local area than to get back your treads. An animated intro movie offers an introduction to the various factions that are set to get in your way, and you’ll get added tidbits during the game too in quieter stages. There’s plenty of stages to get through, and even more sneakers to unlock (several stars nets a new pair) so you’ll need to put a shift in if you want to unlock everything.

At first it was difficult to put my finger on, but after some time the familiar vibes of the visuals & toilet humour it finally sunk in – It’s like peak late 90’s Cartoon Network. While the stylised character and level designs are good, the highlight for me was the physics and FX. Shoot-outs can turn visceral fast as all manner of objects shatter and bodies ragdoll through the air from a swift boot to the face.

There’s a little voice acting sprinkled around, but what you mostly hear is the breaking of door and general hoodlum of a shootout. I say mostly as the soundtrack is always lurking, waiting for the action to heat up so it can ramp up the volume to match the action. Performance was pretty solid. Sure there could be the time kicking a grenade back into a room full of explosive barrels would cause frame drops, but for the most part it was smooth sailing on my system (R7 5800X3D/32GB/RTX 3090) using high settings at 4K/120.

As you would expect from a game called Anger Foot, there’s more to this than just shooting foes – if anything its more of a boomer footer than a straight FPS. Your foot to the face does plenty of damage, sending enemies flying in one bop most times, and can be augmented by abilities provided by the different shoes you wear. Shooting works of course as well, but can play more of a backup role sometimes. There’s not really ammo to grab, you have to keep stocked by throwing weapons away for a defeated enemies, which can also be thrown at enemies to daze them. You’ll need all this to get through to the end of a stage. It might always be fun kicking a door off its hinges into somebody’s face, but every now and again you might wanna think about it first.

There’s something of a trial & error nature which mainly stems from how little damage you can take, just 2 or 3 shots is all that’s needed for you to fall. The tight confines of most early stages also adds to this as you can sometimes have little room to manoeuvre, and as enemy variety increases it only gets tougher. Things open up as you pass the apartments, which comes with its own challenges, so you’ll need to get thinking again. Taking a few deaths always helps get a handle on enemy types and count through the rooms, so shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing really given how short stages can be, you’ll need every tool to get through some stages – especially if you want all those stars for all those shoes. Some challenges are TOUGH.

Going in expecting a funky boomer shooter, ended up pleasantly surprised by Anger Foot. There’s much more than meets the eye as its various systems come into play, and the foot being as mighty as a gun makes things interesting. It can get really tough at times, some challenges feel outrageous too, but there’s plenty of shoes to unlock and make it all worthwhile. If you’re tiring of shooters, this one offers something a little different and worth a blast for the £20 price.