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Charlie Murder Review
Charlie Murder - the second of this year's annual Summer of Arcade spread - may look incredibly simple, but you can rest assured that it's anything but. A totally anarchic scrolling beat 'em up - coming at you from the creators of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1 - it's a game that's enlivened tenfold by the inclusion of a few surprisingly gripping RPG elements and a lot of very very moreish looting.
You play as one of four members of a punk band named Charlie Murder, and the plot - if you can call it that - is set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse. Although the bulk of the gameplay involves simply walking from left to right and smashing numerous goons to pieces, it also has the temperament of a hyperactive child. It simply never sits still: one minute you're whitewater rafting down the side of a mountain, the next you're
in a shooter and are tasked with taking down a giant sea monster, and the next you're in a rhythm action game, performing alongside your fellow band mates. Whenever there is any danger of the brawling becoming a little stale or repetitive, something completely different is thrown into the mix quick smart.
It's filled to the brim with clever ideas too. As in Grand Theft Auto 4, your most valuable possession is your mobile phone. Here - via a mock up of a social media site - you'll earn followers for playing with skill, at which point you'll be rewarded with the ability to perform a selection of brand new tricks. New moves will be emailed to you, and secret moves are even littered throughout the game: they come in the form of some well-hidden QR codes, which you'll need to snap with your phone's camera as soon as you discover them.
Your attributes can be altered via the clothing and trinkets that you find on your journey. None of them are just cosmetic, and many of them gift you with some very cool perks: some of them change cooldown times, some of them give you better damage, some give you better defence and so on. It's almost like a kind of Borderlands-lite, and as you progress through the campaign, you'll find yourself tinkering with your phone for longer and longer periods of time.
The fighting itself is an absolute blast, and each character has their own set of special moves; all of which are tied to the instrument that they play in the band. The game is full of utterly daft metal iconography - fire, demons, etc - and this is one of the few scrolling beat 'em ups that frequently allows you to pick up guns: a great lost pleasure. It also clearly owes a very distinct debt to Scott Pilgrim - the movie and the comic rather than the game - for reasons which won't be revealed here.
However there are a few technical hitches which make it feel more like an indie game than an arcade one. It doesn't offer drop-in/drop-out matchmaking like most multiplayer games made these days, so if you have connection issues, everyone has to go all the way back to the main menu to continue. You can't turn friendly fire off which may cause problems for younger players, and the screen doesn't scroll fast enough sometimes; it's possible to wander offscreen and die, and when time is a factor, your co-op team-mate will often be completely unable to respond quickly enough.
But these are minor issues. For the most part, Charlie Murder is an excellent video game, and is worth every last one of the 800 MS points you'll be charged for it. It's fast, funny and also completely mental: where else do you progress by getting tattoos, brewing your own lager and smashing up hotel rooms? It's fully playable alone, but be warned: it has clearly been made for co-op.
It's good looking too, and the fact that it was created by a two-person development team is rather staggering. Xbox One may be just around the corner now, but if it continues to feature games like this, the 360's Arcade space isn't going anywhere just yet.
8/10
Review By Chet Roivas
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