Harding and Birkin may sound like a law firm, but these two have been on the battlefield for a long time. Harding was a brilliant Special Forces man who would do anything, no matter how bloody. Barkin was Harding’s handler and now wants Harding to return for one last job. Harding has long retired to the woods to start a new life, but will Birkin be able to force him out at gunpoint? How far will each man go? And as they are lost in the wilderness together, who is really hunting whom?
This is the dementingly pulpy premise of Strange Scaffold’s latest action game, I Am Your Beast. What follows is not Rambo, but an exploration of how Rambo became entrenched in memory, all the trees, traps, and body counts. Strange Scaffold is known for producing hectic, unrelenting games with a hectic and unrelenting pace. I Am Your Beast is another masterpiece of lightness and efficiency. Playable in three hours, it’s a first-person shooter where you’re always outnumbered but endlessly resourceful. Even the game’s longest “micro-sandbox” mission was over in 90 seconds and was gone before I realized the fact that the level names all sounded like something out of a Jack Reacher novel: Late Shift, Breakdown, On Your Six. .
I’m your beast. Photo: Strange scaffolding
Everything works very nicely. The beautiful, streamlined design allows for quick first-person movement, allowing you to burrow under roots one moment and jump between branches in the tree canopy the next. The sandbox action approach, on the other hand, involves grabbing an enemy’s weapon, using it until it runs out of bullets, and finally throwing it at a nearby target for damage, rather than slowing things down with boring old reloads. Masu.
Although elements of seminal first-person action games like Mirror’s Edge and SuperHot are incorporated into this, I Am Your Beast remains completely unique. The speedrunner’s pace is what makes this work stand out, but there’s also the idea that the simplest mission structure, when combined with pleasantly generic fiction, lends to the action. Just fire up 3 laptops, target 5 satellite dishes, and kill everyone you come across. Although the objectives loop, they bring endless life to the game’s small and complex arenas. The short health bar and repetitive mechanics of attacking and disappearing beyond the tree line always leave you feeling like you’re on the run.
I Am Your Beast is thrilling because the details are bright and well-chosen. Grab some herbs nearby and spruce yourself up on the spot. Destroy groups of enemies and deal collateral damage with their impregnable attack helicopters. They kill people by pushing them into ravines or jumping on their heads. Every encounter is a chance to keep the rhythm of a carnage race as inventive as possible, while radio conversations from an increasingly desperate enemy seem as if they’re providing commentary on a gruesome Olympics. , tells the story of bloodshed and splatter.
In fact, that emotion is at the heart of it all. Beneath the smoke and spent shell casings, I Am Your Beast reimagines playground warfare as sport. In this forest, on this battlefield, you can perform terrible deeds. And if you don’t get it right the first time, you always end up starting over, far from perfect.
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Keza MacDonald takes a weekly look back at the world of gaming
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