Kill The Bad Guy – Review
by Chris
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Kill The Bad Guy is the latest creation from developers Exkee, and centres around a concept that the majority of gamers will likely be familiar with: killing. I’ve been gaming for over twenty-five years and my kill count is probably in excess of half a million, if not more. A game that focuses purely on this aspect of videogaming is certainly not going to be anything new, and this is the first problem, inasmuch that it gives you the task of killing ‘Bad Guys’ and not a whole lot else. There isn’t really anything in terms of an overall plot, other than you are part of of a ‘mysterious and secret society’, dedicated to ridding the world of war criminals, mafia bosses and so on and so forth.
Each mission starts with the target’s name, which can be anything from Kevin or Jacob, to KimDotCom or Luciano. Then you’ll have the primary objective, which is always to ‘kill the bad guy’, present, I assume, to either reinforce the concept to the idiots among us or as an attempt at a joke. Following that is the secondary objective, which does its best to provide a cryptic clue regarding a certain action that needs to be completed in order to collect bonus points. This does add another element to consider in each level, and finding out what these are can be an enjoyable little brain teaser alongside the main mission objectives throughout. Finally, there is a blurb at the bottom of the mission screen, which details what nefarious things these people have been up to. Some of these are interesting, and frequently offer attempts at humour that will occasionally elicit a chuckle, but which mostly fall flat. Either way, they make no difference to the actual killing of the opposition.
The game itself is as straightforward as it sounds. You’re presented with a monochrome setting, in which the only items that generally stick out are the bad guy you’re hunting and the tools you’ll kill him with. From here you’re requested to kill the chap who is walking around, who may stop at certain points, and who will eventually leave the map area, rolling into Day Two, which is worth fewer points. However, the fact that you can restart the level at any stage and incur no penalty makes the day system pretty pointless, to a degree.
There is a fairly decent array of weapons and tools with which to kill your target; I’ve offed people with sabotaged cars, wrecking balls, a dead dog, a tree, a lamppost, a fire and a spear to name but a handful. Most levels seem to have only one method of taking out your intended victim, which is a shame given the fun that could have been had if you had all the tools at your disposal at once. That said, later levels do boast a couple of options, including false positives which see you attempt to incorporate something totally pointless into your methods – a clever distraction.
Early levels challenge you to merely kill the chap in question, whereas later chapters will require you to do it without being seen by any members of public, or to divert the target from their path in order to get them into the killzone. Moving objects around the level is fairly simple, although you can only put them in pre-defined spaces, meaning there is only a certain amount of ingenuity allowed – if you’re expecting Garry’s Mod style hilarity, keep on walking. Completing each level is a case of working out the target’s patrol route, setting your trap and waiting for the sweet-spot to open up. The death animations are rather amusing and there is no shortage of claret when a kill occurs, which makes for a messy finale against the white backdrop. The only things left to do prior to the level ending are grabbing the target’s falling tooth and passport (two bonus items for extra points). At the end of the level you’re given a score based on your actions, which can be compared against the leaderboards.
Graphically the monochrome setting works, to a degree. It’s disappointing that every single bad guy looks the same, as do the buildings, cars and random members of the public. I understand the design choice is to keep things simplistic but, like the main game, it just gets a little boring and drab after a while. The same can’t be said for the music which is painfully repetitive and generally bad. There is a rap (if you can call it that) of sorts that makes up the menu and mission backdrop. It’s god awful, highly repetitive and silence would have been far better.
There aren’t many reasons, as far as I can see, why you’d go back to Kill the Bad Guy after finishing it, unless you wanted to collect all the items for each level or complete the secondary objectives. The only other possibility is to boost your scores, but I honestly wouldn’t advise this because, in the grand scheme of things, I doubt anyone is going to be paying attention to them. Equally, while I may have sounded negative throughout, I can’t knock the actual playability of the game. I encountered no bugs, everything worked perfectly and it was a good time killer. There isn’t anything wrong with the game in terms of big red flags, it’s just that it isn’t very exciting or enthralling after you’ve completed just a few missions
Pros- Focuses on what the majority of gamers do best
- Decent array of weapons
- Very repetitive
- Silence is golden compared to the menu music
- Very little to go back for
Kill The Bad Guy isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve played bad games - this isn’t one. It’s just that isn’t really a good game either. In an industry that moves as fast as this one, this game will be released and forgotten in the same breath and, to an extent, that’s a real shame because I expect some people will enjoy the puzzles it provides. Overall, though, Kill The Bad Guy is an interesting premise with an execution that leaves me feeling very indifferent about the final result.
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