Review

Tony Hawk’s Purr Skater

One summer evening I was sat scrolling online store fronts. Far too hot and bothered to actually decide what to play I found window shopping far more relaxing. On that very evening a trailer burnt on to my retina, that very trailer was ‘Gori Cuddly Carnage’. Neon washed, blood soaked cat on skateboard on unicorn action. Needless to say I was transported to a simpler time where crazy character action games ruled the roost. My other half looked over at me with a quizzical look on her face. “You are not buying this stoner game about cats are you?” Was shortly proposed to me. That short moment of excitement ended and was swiftly forgotten, relationships right? However the universe had greater plans by sending ‘Gori’ right into my lap. However did Gori purr like a nice lap cat or claw my face off?

Self indulgent review introductions aside. ‘Gori Cuddly Carnage’ is a single player action adventure game developed by Angry Demon Studio. Released on all current major platforms. Lets get right into things claws first.

You play as Gori an extremely cute and cuddly little cat. Riding on the fowl mouthed hoverboard F.R.A.N.K, luckily for younger audiences the ‘effin and jeffin’ is bleeped. They start a journey slicing and dicing through hordes of unicorns after a trip to earth to find a new spaceship to home their AI friend CHIP.

During the opening interactions you will quickly know if this games humour is for you. It can be best summarised as a mix of cynicism and toilet humour with a dash of pop culture reference here and there; ever played “Borderlands”? I must admit for myself it totally missed the mark and other than a rogue reference to the 16 bit “Lion King” game I wasn’t laughing, more accurately eye rolling. Furthering the juvenile humour is an upgrade you can unlock very early in the game to unbleep the swearing, this made a lot of dialogue far less amusing. Bearing in mind I’m no prude to a curse word in fact I quite enjoy them.

Despite the jokes falling totally flat for me the juxtaposition of adorable and brutal had me locked in from the first kill till the last. I’d be willing to put a bet on that this is the reason most want to play the game. ‘Gori’ hits the absolute money shot with this. The character models are infuriatingly cute or utterly disgusting. How the cute dispatch the disgusting is dripping in gore a giblets from the moment go.

Gori doesn’t just look the part on what its going for. The action is extremely responsive, fluid and snappy. It feels incredibly satisfying hacking your way through the hordes that antagonise you. Gori’s main attacks come from F.R.A.N.K who can produce bladed, blunt and ballistic based punishment to your foes. The animations in particular of the hover board manipulating into weaponry so smoothly genuinely add a considerable amount to the great feel of the combat. With “Devil May Cry” system of style points during combos giving you that extra hit of dopamine for kicking some serious ass.

F.R.A.N.K is multi use for Gori. Not only does F.R.A.N.K tear unicorns to piles of flesh, F.R.A.N.K also helps Gori traverse the world. The skating mechanics are very similar to “Jet Set Radio”. Using the joy stick to move without any kind of acceleration mechanics of other more sports focused skating games. The only real stunts you can pull off are basic grinds and wall rides. Both stunts are just for traversal or charging your special moves. Parts of Gori’s adventure do turn a bit platform-esqe. Despite the stunts are basic the game forces your to chain them together in fun albeit short sections.

The environments Gori grinds and murders through left me feeling rather mixed. The factory and city levels felt a tad bland and uninspired, quite frankly a slog to get through. While on the opposite scale the arcade, carnival and nightmare levels were dripping with creativity and were an utter blast to fight through. It was a shame that most of those environments were in the late game and not more evenly paced through out the game.

The progression system in place feels insultingly basic. Kill stuff, get coins, buy things. The upgrades on offer are your standard suite of level 1, 2, 3 of power increase on a particular weapon or ability giving a slight cosmetic change, with nothing more than that to it. Probably the best purchase the game has to offer is different fur for Gori. Now as a cat owner myself buying the black and white fur to make Gori more like my little ball of fluff and pain connected me with Gori more than anything else could.

The plot of the game wasn’t really a strong suit. Luckily it wasn’t “Game Of Thrones” level of detail ,as the baffling decision to skip cut scenes if the joy stick was tilted slightly forward for more than a couple of seconds was implemented. The first few times this happened to me I thought the cutscenes were bugged. It was only towards the end of the game I noticed the skip logo appear in cutscenes if the joy stick was some much as budged. With that aside I feel like I could piece together what was actually going on. Without spoiling the game to those who want to experience it, its “Toy Story” but really edgy.