Genre Action Publisher
Return Digital
Developer
Free Lives
Minimum requirements Intel Core i3-4160 3.6 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, a video card with 1 GB of memory, such as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 / AMD Radeon HD 7750, 3 GB on the drive, Windows 7 Recommended requirements Intel Core i7-6700 3.4 GHz / AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 3.6 GHz, 8 GB RAM, a video card like NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB of memory) / AMD Radeon RX 480 (8 GB of memory), Windows 10 Release date July 11, 2024 Localization Text Age limit 16 years and older Platforms PC
Hotline Miami was released in 2012 and made a huge splash. The top-down pixel action game set its own strict rules – the protagonist destroys any enemy with one blow, but dies just as easily. It was played fast, forcefully and extremely cheerfully, which was greatly facilitated by the magnificent synthetic soundtrack, excellent level design and the high pace of the events.
Three years later, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number appeared – in a mediocre sequel, Dennaton Games was unable to not only surpass, but even repeat the success of its bright and fast-paced 2D action. And now, almost ten years later, Devolver Digital decided that it was time to re-enter this river of colorful ultra-violence, only this time in 3D, from a first-person perspective, and hand over the execution to the multi-tasking guys from Free Lives. These guys can do everything: here is the popular side-scroller Broforce, here is Genital Jousting (no comment), and here is the calming eco-strategy Terra Nil. Did they succeed in creating their own Hotline Miami?
⇡#This city is mired in cartoon violence
Anger Foote is a typical Shield City inhabitant (no, it’s not the shield you use to protect yourself from blows, you get the idea). In a model stinking, corruption- and street crime-ridden metropolis, everyone is a marginal, so it’s hard to stand out, but our “hero” did. He collects sneakers – after all, you need to kick down doors and give a kick in style. In the prologue, we arrive at the address for another pair of shoes and along the way get acquainted with the game mechanics. It’s simple – a kick kicks down both the doors and the spirit of everyone who tries to interfere, but you shouldn’t expose yourself to retaliation – you’ll die as quickly as you give out blows. There are some concessions with firearms: the rule “one shot – one corpse” applies to the enemy, but Anger Foote can withstand several hits before the enemies literally start hardstyle dancing on his cooling corpse.
In short, we get a brand new pair, then return home and put it on a pedestal. And then everything goes wrong – the thoroughly corrupt cops fly in by helicopter and drag off a collection of honestly stolen exclusive sneakers (along with a piece of wall), and then distribute them to the bosses of four gangs. And instead of watching a movie with his girlfriend, Anger Foote goes to get his precious one back. To do this, you just have to fight your way into the territory of the “Frost”, “Pigs”, “Businessmen” and “Revelers” (the names in the localization, of course, yeah) and snatch a box with the treasured shoes from the leader of each group.
Each gang is a dozen and a half levels and a boss fight at the end. The longest level will take you a maximum of two to two and a half minutes. Mostly, we fit in a minute or one and a half. The action is fast: we rush forward like a whirlwind, knock down doors and deal out punches left and right, simultaneously snatching weapons from frozen hands and shooting still-living bandits with them. All this is accompanied by a pounding hardstyle, which changes when certain actions are performed: killing an enemy, moving to another room, changing weapons, and so on.
From time to time we are given a break and sent to wander around peaceful locations. There is no practical sense in this – we just walk between the extras, press “talk”, read the funny lines of the local inhabitants, and then go on crushing skulls. The crushing itself is staged in a deliberately cartoonish style – the blood is purple, the sounds are clown-like, not naturalistic, and in general it all looks as frivolous as possible. No oppressive ultra-violence, like in Hotline Miami – here is its own, obscenely carefree atmosphere. As if “Sesame Street” was invented by a teenager who has already picked up the obligatory nastiness for his age, but has not yet been filled with adult cynicism. All the “adulthood” here is in jokes about the relationship between workers and management, ecology and other things that are uninteresting to youngsters.
Today on air is a police clown drama
The game is well-organized structurally: you go through several levels, then a break in a neutral location, then several more hectic runs, a break, another dose of adrenaline, and then the boss. Victory – and the next chapter, where everything is repeated, and so on four times. New opponents regularly appear (by the end, this zoo will have about a dozen and a half species) and the weapons, decorations and color palette change slightly (each gang has its own style). For completing each level and fulfilling two special conditions on them, you are awarded stars that unlock new shoes with unique properties: one reduces gravity, another increases everyone’s heads (convenient for completing tasks on headshots), the third reduces incoming damage, but requires continuous killing, and so on. Moreover, the conditions often contradict each other (like “kill 25 enemies with a headshot” and “complete the level without killing anyone”), which should encourage those who want to get the notorious “three stars” everywhere to repeat the runs. It should, but it doesn’t.
⇡#Not everything is so acid-rainbow
It would seem that everything is sensible and thought out, but there are many questions about Anger Foot in detail. For example, the level design rarely throws up interesting surprises, and some non-standard situations are sparingly dosed. Enemies are often positioned so that they shoot from several directions at the same time, and by the end, Anger Foot generally fills you with “meat” like crazy. Because of this, all shoes are globally divided into funny, but useless (most of them) and obviously powerful, without which it will be noticeably sadder. Fortunately, you don’t need to “farm” good sneakers – even completing levels mainly for one or two stars, by the fourth chapter you will get to the most useful samples.
Indelible is a very mysterious name, quite in the spirit of Dark Souls bosses
The bosses don’t shine with variety and complexity – given the simplicity of the main mechanics, it’s unlikely that they could have been made any different, but I still want some kind of challenge and interesting interactions. This is not Shadow of the Erdtree – the bad guys here are easy to beat on the first try, maximum on the second, if you suddenly get bored and gape. But at least they are not seen in replays!
Yes, and the music – Anger Foot’s trailers are simply a hurricane, but that’s because the hardstyle here is just enough for a trailer: literally four or five short beats (for a few seconds), which invariably pound the entire game. It’s disappointingly little – Hotline Miami doesn’t stand any comparison with the magnificent soundtrack. At the same time, Dennaton Games’ work flies by in four hours, and Anger Foot’s adventures are stretched out over six or seven. Because of this monotonous “thump-thump-thump,” you just don’t want to replay levels many times, learn the enemy locations, get three stars, and speedrun.
The most profitable business in this city is door replacement.
This is what, in my opinion, lets Anger Foot down – the key mechanics are too simple for the chosen duration, and the sound part, which could have become a powerful anchor for the project, turned out to be stingy and monotonous. Three or four hours is fine, but it is suggested to spend twice as much to reach the final, and this is clearly drawn out.
Advantages:
Hardstyle cheerfully adapts to dense action; cool visual style.
Flaws:
The Shield City bandits stole all the beats from the dynamic soundtrack – there is very little music; there is a shortage of interesting situations on the levels; the bosses look better than they play – the battles with them are very primitive.
Graphics
Retrowave-toned cartoon violence on characters that look like Sesame Street characters who got hooked on vaping as babies. In a word, great.
Sound
A strong connection between energetic hardstyle and what’s happening on the screen – everything around, from surveillance cameras to lighting, dances to the rhythm of the action, and the beat changes on the fly when various actions are performed. It’s a pity that these second-long samples that make up the sound picture of Anger Foot are very few, and by the second or third hour they become boring.
Single player game
We knock down doors to knock down the bandits, hooligans and marginals standing behind them. Repeat until hardstyle is completely imprinted into the subcortex.
Estimated time of completion
It takes about 6-7 hours to complete, plus another 3 hours to get three stars on all levels, although there is a high probability that by this point the game will already be boring.
Collective game
Not provided.
General impression
Kick down doors and punch cartoon criminals in the face while listening to some hearty hardstyle. However, given its chosen (pretty) length, Anger Foot lacks variety in gameplay and a dynamic soundtrack.
Rating: 7.0/10
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