Lets be honest, nowadays the concerned parents and conservative politicians don't hammer videogames for violence nearly as much as they used to. Where staunch criticism and concern for the country's youth used to hold back the tide of filth, is now a lethargic hand, swatting at the ravenous beasts hell bent on corrupting the younglings, not the younglings!
Butcher has been unfortunately brought to us by developers Phobia Game Studio and Transhuman Design, Published by Dancing Koalas and Transhunan Design. A blemish on the once pure and innocent indie pc videogame scene that had me in tears before the prologue level was even finished. our "drone" presumably the Butcher character of the game begins by calibrating zher weapons on some unarmed humans, mowing them down with loud, violent, gunfire, or alternatively a chainsaw. Violence against trees is triggering enough, but turning that overtly masculine instrument of eco-violence on human beings is entirely unacceptable and unnecessary. The prologue concludes with our drone flying to the space station orbiting earth, this will act as a main level selection lobby for the rest of this nonsense.
Every area of Butcher is unlocked and accessed through the space station. Assumingly the game takes place in a grimy and unpleasant vision of earth, populated with gun toting men (yes, there are no women I could see in the entire game) this gives our drone ample targets to murder and dismember, the core element of Butchers frustrating gameplay. From lowly foot soldiers to flying police cars, the cast of npc goons offers the humanoid meat targets to exercise the players assumed toxic masculinity upon.
Butcher is difficult and difficult games are problematic. A game that clearly boasts that its only difficulty is hard just oozes with the toxic 'git gud' culture that ruins the medium for so many a player. To Butchers credit there is an easy mode dlc, but this maybe a ploy to mock players for seeking a fair mode to gameplay. I chose to play on the default Hard setting to give a fair assessment of the vanilla game, a choice that I regret to this day.
If the game being brutally hard weren't enough, the absolute senseless violence is mitigated by neither puzzles or story sequences. I, being a progressive gamer, often become so engrossed in cinematics that I often roll my eyes at the hoops I must jump through to see the next riveting scraps of story offered by mainstream titles, Butcher fails once again in modern design, there's not story to speak of until it reaches it's disappointing conclusion.
The final act of Butcher is punctuated with an unfair and vomit inducing bossfight. Like a game from 30 years ago, Butcher requires players to assault a screen filling behemoth in order to reach the credits. It took more deaths on the boss battle than the rest of the game combined, but I persevered and got to the best part of the game, the end screen.
So here is where I would either recommend buying or boycotting Butcher. The game has few pluses in my book. Sure it runs smooth enough, low pc requirements, adequate controls, but the games core elements are just too triggering to overlook. Unless break neck action, violence, difficulty, and enough pixel blood to sail a ship on....floats your boat, ugh, then Butcher is worth your coin, otherwise, I would rather spend it on another soy latte.
Until next time, give peace a chance, loved ones.
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