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Given how amoral some game protagonists are it's kind of a surprise that there haven't been many games where you play as a stalk-and-slash serial killer. Sure, there are games like Manhunt 1 and 2, but the 'victims' in those games are a pretty nasty lot who are equally intent on putting an end to the main character. Games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row let you murder innocent passers-by, but it's not the main focus of the game. Perhaps games designers thought that making the slaughter of innocents the game's main objective would be a bit too much.
The same can't be said of the designers of Party Hard, a game where you are tasked with slaughtering hordes of innocent partygoers. You play the protagonist, a masked maniac know as the 'Party Hard Killer' who's not happy at how much noise the aformentioned partygoers have been making. He, or rather you, then take the slaughter to another party, murdering your way across several American countries. There are about twelve killing fields in all, each covering a single screen. These include a barbeque party, a subway party, a rooftop party and so forth. You're tasked with dispatching between thirty and seventy people per level, at which point you move onto the next slaughtering ground.
The game's blood-splattered action is lovingly rendered in pixel-o-vision, both the locations and the characters themselves. This is presumably not only for the sake of nostalgia but also to make the in-game violence less shocking and extreme. There are also cut-scenes between each level that explain the game's wafer-thin plot, though given that one of the characters sounds exactly Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale I wasn't able to take them too seriously. The sound effects are fairly minimal, but the game has decent 'electro' soundtrack that fits the game without becoming too irritating.
When it comes to dispatching the party-goers in Party Hard, you have a few choices. You can either stab them with your knife - you occasionally get a sword - or you can use one of each level's environmental kills to deal with them. The latter can mostly only be used once but can result in several party-goers being murderised. For example, if there's a food table, you can poison the food. The poison only lasts for a couple of minutes, but anyone who eats the food will end up popping their clogs.
But, as always, there's a catch. The party-goers aren't going to turn a blind-eye to being slaughtered, so stealth is the order of the day. You can hide some of the bodies in rubbish bins and so forth, but there are so many people to kill off that bodies will get discovered. If you're seen murdering someone, then the police will come after you and usually arrest you, ending the game. So you need to get away from your victims after you've perforated them, blending in with the crowd - since no-one apparently bats an eye at someone wearing a white mask at a non-fancy dress party. As the game progresses, you occasionally encounter bouncers who will come after you if you get too close, but a stab-and-sneak approach is generally the order of the day.
But is the game fun? Mostly, it is. While the level layouts remain the same, some of the features are randomised, and there are also special in-game events that can occur. During one play-through, zombies turned up at a party, biting and turning the party-goers. I watched smugly as they did their work for more me, only to lose the game when they came after me!
However, there are some levels - particularly a couple of the early ones - that are problematic. These levels have very large dancefloor areas and so when you've dispatched some of the party-goers and used most of the traps, the rest of the party-goers clump on the dancefloor, rarely moving. You then typically have to wander over to the middle of the floor, dance like an idiot to annoy them - yes, really - at which point one or two will wander off. You then follow them, kill them, and repeat the whole tedious procedure. This doesn't happen on all levels, but it almost put me off the game totally.
Party Hard isn't a great game - it can get a bit samey sometimes - but it is a good game, particularly if you're a fan of the stalk and slash movies that the game emulates. It's perversely satisfying to dispatch a whole room of partygoers without being discovered. Plus, the ability to play as different characters - once you unlock them - and the randomised level features does make the game fairly replayable. The collision detection's also a little suspect at times, but given that the game costs seven quid it offers more bang for your blood-soaked buck than many other games and is well worth checking out.
(This review is also on my Destructoid and Wordpress blog)
The same can't be said of the designers of Party Hard, a game where you are tasked with slaughtering hordes of innocent partygoers. You play the protagonist, a masked maniac know as the 'Party Hard Killer' who's not happy at how much noise the aformentioned partygoers have been making. He, or rather you, then take the slaughter to another party, murdering your way across several American countries. There are about twelve killing fields in all, each covering a single screen. These include a barbeque party, a subway party, a rooftop party and so forth. You're tasked with dispatching between thirty and seventy people per level, at which point you move onto the next slaughtering ground.
The game's blood-splattered action is lovingly rendered in pixel-o-vision, both the locations and the characters themselves. This is presumably not only for the sake of nostalgia but also to make the in-game violence less shocking and extreme. There are also cut-scenes between each level that explain the game's wafer-thin plot, though given that one of the characters sounds exactly Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale I wasn't able to take them too seriously. The sound effects are fairly minimal, but the game has decent 'electro' soundtrack that fits the game without becoming too irritating.
When it comes to dispatching the party-goers in Party Hard, you have a few choices. You can either stab them with your knife - you occasionally get a sword - or you can use one of each level's environmental kills to deal with them. The latter can mostly only be used once but can result in several party-goers being murderised. For example, if there's a food table, you can poison the food. The poison only lasts for a couple of minutes, but anyone who eats the food will end up popping their clogs.
But, as always, there's a catch. The party-goers aren't going to turn a blind-eye to being slaughtered, so stealth is the order of the day. You can hide some of the bodies in rubbish bins and so forth, but there are so many people to kill off that bodies will get discovered. If you're seen murdering someone, then the police will come after you and usually arrest you, ending the game. So you need to get away from your victims after you've perforated them, blending in with the crowd - since no-one apparently bats an eye at someone wearing a white mask at a non-fancy dress party. As the game progresses, you occasionally encounter bouncers who will come after you if you get too close, but a stab-and-sneak approach is generally the order of the day.
But is the game fun? Mostly, it is. While the level layouts remain the same, some of the features are randomised, and there are also special in-game events that can occur. During one play-through, zombies turned up at a party, biting and turning the party-goers. I watched smugly as they did their work for more me, only to lose the game when they came after me!
However, there are some levels - particularly a couple of the early ones - that are problematic. These levels have very large dancefloor areas and so when you've dispatched some of the party-goers and used most of the traps, the rest of the party-goers clump on the dancefloor, rarely moving. You then typically have to wander over to the middle of the floor, dance like an idiot to annoy them - yes, really - at which point one or two will wander off. You then follow them, kill them, and repeat the whole tedious procedure. This doesn't happen on all levels, but it almost put me off the game totally.
Party Hard isn't a great game - it can get a bit samey sometimes - but it is a good game, particularly if you're a fan of the stalk and slash movies that the game emulates. It's perversely satisfying to dispatch a whole room of partygoers without being discovered. Plus, the ability to play as different characters - once you unlock them - and the randomised level features does make the game fairly replayable. The collision detection's also a little suspect at times, but given that the game costs seven quid it offers more bang for your blood-soaked buck than many other games and is well worth checking out.
(This review is also on my Destructoid and Wordpress blog)
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Given how amoral some game protagonists are it's kind of a surprise that there haven't been many games where you play as a stalk-and-slash serial killer. Sure, there are games like Manhunt 1 and 2, but the 'victims' in those games are a pretty nasty lot who are equally intent on putting an end to the main character. Games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row let you murder innocent passers-by, but it's not the main focus of the game. Perhaps games designers thought that making the slaughter of innocents the game's main objective would be a bit too much.
The same can't be said of the designers of Party Hard, a game where you are tasked with slaughtering hordes of innocent partygoers. You play the protagonist, a masked maniac know as the 'Party Hard Killer' who's not happy at how much noise the aformentioned partygoers have been making. He, or rather you, then take the slaughter to another party, murdering your way across several American countries. There are about twelve killing fields in all, each covering a single screen. These include a barbeque party, a subway party, a rooftop party and so forth. You're tasked with dispatching between thirty and seventy people per level, at which point you move onto the next slaughtering ground.
The game's blood-splattered action is lovingly rendered in pixel-o-vision, both the locations and the characters themselves. This is presumably not only for the sake of nostalgia but also to make the in-game violence less shocking and extreme. There are also cut-scenes between each level that explain the game's wafer-thin plot, though given that one of the characters sounds exactly Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale I wasn't able to take them too seriously. The sound effects are fairly minimal, but the game has decent 'electro' soundtrack that fits the game without becoming too irritating.
When it comes to dispatching the party-goers in Party Hard, you have a few choices. You can either stab them with your knife - you occasionally get a sword - or you can use one of each level's environmental kills to deal with them. The latter can mostly only be used once but can result in several party-goers being murderised. For example, if there's a food table, you can poison the food. The poison only lasts for a couple of minutes, but anyone who eats the food will end up popping their clogs.
But, as always, there's a catch. The party-goers aren't going to turn a blind-eye to being slaughtered, so stealth is the order of the day. You can hide some of the bodies in rubbish bins and so forth, but there are so many people to kill off that bodies will get discovered. If you're seen murdering someone, then the police will come after you and usually arrest you, ending the game. So you need to get away from your victims after you've perforated them, blending in with the crowd - since no-one apparently bats an eye at someone wearing a white mask at a non-fancy dress party. As the game progresses, you occasionally encounter bouncers who will come after you if you get too close, but a stab-and-sneak approach is generally the order of the day.
But is the game fun? Mostly, it is. While the level layouts remain the same, some of the features are randomised, and there are also special in-game events that can occur. During one play-through, zombies turned up at a party, biting and turning the party-goers. I watched smugly as they did their work for more me, only to lose the game when they came after me!
However, there are some levels - particularly a couple of the early ones - that are problematic. These levels have very large dancefloor areas and so when you've dispatched some of the party-goers and used most of the traps, the rest of the party-goers clump on the dancefloor, rarely moving. You then typically have to wander over to the middle of the floor, dance like an idiot to annoy them - yes, really - at which point one or two will wander off. You then follow them, kill them, and repeat the whole tedious procedure. This doesn't happen on all levels, but it almost put me off the game totally.
Party Hard isn't a great game - it can get a bit samey sometimes - but it is a good game, particularly if you're a fan of the stalk and slash movies that the game emulates. It's perversely satisfying to dispatch a whole room of partygoers without being discovered. Plus, the ability to play as different characters - once you unlock them - and the randomised level features does make the game fairly replayable. The collision detection's also a little suspect at times, but given that the game costs seven quid it offers more bang for your blood-soaked buck than many other games and is well worth checking out.
(This review is also on my Destructoid and Wordpress blog)
The same can't be said of the designers of Party Hard, a game where you are tasked with slaughtering hordes of innocent partygoers. You play the protagonist, a masked maniac know as the 'Party Hard Killer' who's not happy at how much noise the aformentioned partygoers have been making. He, or rather you, then take the slaughter to another party, murdering your way across several American countries. There are about twelve killing fields in all, each covering a single screen. These include a barbeque party, a subway party, a rooftop party and so forth. You're tasked with dispatching between thirty and seventy people per level, at which point you move onto the next slaughtering ground.
The game's blood-splattered action is lovingly rendered in pixel-o-vision, both the locations and the characters themselves. This is presumably not only for the sake of nostalgia but also to make the in-game violence less shocking and extreme. There are also cut-scenes between each level that explain the game's wafer-thin plot, though given that one of the characters sounds exactly Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale I wasn't able to take them too seriously. The sound effects are fairly minimal, but the game has decent 'electro' soundtrack that fits the game without becoming too irritating.
When it comes to dispatching the party-goers in Party Hard, you have a few choices. You can either stab them with your knife - you occasionally get a sword - or you can use one of each level's environmental kills to deal with them. The latter can mostly only be used once but can result in several party-goers being murderised. For example, if there's a food table, you can poison the food. The poison only lasts for a couple of minutes, but anyone who eats the food will end up popping their clogs.
But, as always, there's a catch. The party-goers aren't going to turn a blind-eye to being slaughtered, so stealth is the order of the day. You can hide some of the bodies in rubbish bins and so forth, but there are so many people to kill off that bodies will get discovered. If you're seen murdering someone, then the police will come after you and usually arrest you, ending the game. So you need to get away from your victims after you've perforated them, blending in with the crowd - since no-one apparently bats an eye at someone wearing a white mask at a non-fancy dress party. As the game progresses, you occasionally encounter bouncers who will come after you if you get too close, but a stab-and-sneak approach is generally the order of the day.
But is the game fun? Mostly, it is. While the level layouts remain the same, some of the features are randomised, and there are also special in-game events that can occur. During one play-through, zombies turned up at a party, biting and turning the party-goers. I watched smugly as they did their work for more me, only to lose the game when they came after me!
However, there are some levels - particularly a couple of the early ones - that are problematic. These levels have very large dancefloor areas and so when you've dispatched some of the party-goers and used most of the traps, the rest of the party-goers clump on the dancefloor, rarely moving. You then typically have to wander over to the middle of the floor, dance like an idiot to annoy them - yes, really - at which point one or two will wander off. You then follow them, kill them, and repeat the whole tedious procedure. This doesn't happen on all levels, but it almost put me off the game totally.
Party Hard isn't a great game - it can get a bit samey sometimes - but it is a good game, particularly if you're a fan of the stalk and slash movies that the game emulates. It's perversely satisfying to dispatch a whole room of partygoers without being discovered. Plus, the ability to play as different characters - once you unlock them - and the randomised level features does make the game fairly replayable. The collision detection's also a little suspect at times, but given that the game costs seven quid it offers more bang for your blood-soaked buck than many other games and is well worth checking out.
(This review is also on my Destructoid and Wordpress blog)