Cutesy, Chaotic Visuals In A Spattered Mess
It's hard to ignore Gori: Cuddly Carnage's multi-faceted visual style, especially when exploring its strange world. The game takes place in a world ravaged by deadly Ultra Pets, animal replicas designed by Cool-Toyz Inc that would never need feeding or bathroom breaks. Infected by a maddening virus, it's up to Gori to take them down, equipped with a bladed hoverboard and penchant for violence.
This combination of adorable creatures and hyper-detail offers a horrific tinge to everything, and though the neon that bathes Gori's cyberpunk cities might rob them of their chance to make the player sincerely afraid, the design of the beasts are genuinely fantastic. The game's visuals subvert the cuteness it seems to be aiming for, but in doing so, it wipes cuteness in its entirety out. Not even Gori himself is free of this - Cuddly Carnage is grim and foul.
Hacking & Slashing Gameplay Across Multiple Levels
The key to Gori's success is, of course, its gameplay. Thanks to its promises to put power in players' paws, reflected in its dramatic trailers, a lot rides on its actual moment-to-moment experience. Players are tasked with carving through thirty-to-forty-minute levels set in abandoned cities and stretches of giant arcade machines reaching out of the ground, tested by hordes of unicorns and horrific monsters along the way.
Gori strikes a middle ground between high speeds and sheer halts by nullifying extremes on either end - Gori will always be moving because that's simply what's most fun, but boosting and traversing can still feel slightly unsatisfying. In large combat arenas, getting around can feel like time wasted with such high-paced intentions, and special moves that you'll perform in attacks can feel a little loose. This is a problem that is solved by locking onto foes, but it's a system that can't quite intuit what you're trying to lock onto at all times, meaning you're often better off without.
Story - Unnecessary or Infallible For A Horror Game?
A game like Gori: Cuddly Carnage would be expected to forego any kind of narrative intricacies thanks to its genre's willingness to cast them aside, but with a world this fascinating, it takes the opportunity to explain how Gori found himself on a search for his owner with only a sweary hoverboard and monotone AI for help.
As a small unit of main characters, there's pressure for each of them to be charming - but as F.R.A.N.K yaps through the game, yelling censored expletives as he goes, he runs the risk of becoming irritating. The silliness novelty wears off quickly in this world awash with absurdity, and depending on your tastes and humor, interactions between F.R.A.N.K and Gori could become grating as they fill the silence with meows and profanities.
Final Thoughts on Gori: Cuddly Carnage
Gori: Cuddly Carnage tries to do a lot, and for everything it nails, there's another facet of gameplay that needs refinement. The game comes packed with a thunderous soundtrack that fuses hard-hitting Drum N Bass with sweaty guitar riffs that douse the game in a great atmosphere, but frustrating dialogue, slippery combat and an unsatisfying boost mechanic push against it.
There is still time for these improvements to be made before the game launches, and if they are, Gori could be a real darling for players craving some ultraviolence before the launch of DOOM: The Dark Ages. There are plenty of great ideas waiting in Gori: Cuddly Carnage, and if they can be massaged into comfort, then it could be the next game built for total catharsis. Failing that, it could need some catharsis itself.
