Gori: Cuddle Carnage Review on Xbox

Gori: Cuddle Carnage is a 3rd person hoverboard hack n slash platformer, with gore and stunts aplenty.

The premise is you play as Gori, a cute ginger tabby cat along with his deadly but wise-cracking sentient hoverboard, F.R.A.N.K, and morose A.I companion, CH1-P, to slay the evil Adorable Army with the most lethal and deadly combos.

The game boasts various difficulty settings, adult humour, parkour skills, horrific enemies, excessive gore and a large number of unlockable costumes, skins & weapons.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, there is a vast swath of options available for all. Button remapping, subtitle options, colour blind options aim assist and more. Sound options are basic, so should you have hearing issues, this may not be the game for you.

Gameplay

Fuelled by insatiable demand, a corporation called 'Cool-Toyz Inc.' created 'Ultra Pets'. The ultimate companions that never hunger, never require bathroom breaks and are impervious to the ravages of time. However a mutation has transformed these perfect pets into twisted toys straight from your nightmares, hell-bent on wiping out mankind.

With the help of your creator/owner, you a cute colourful tabby cat, a sentient hoverboard and a morose A.I companion, manage to escape earth in a ship at the start of toy takeover. Many months later, an attack forces you back on earth to see the devastation that has taken place, but in doing so find that your creator is still alive and that you can stop this by completing her work in building the ultimate weapon.

From the moment you start, the games feel is that of something straight out of the early 2000’s akin to that of the film Gremlins, with its adult humour, dark mutilated aesthetics and cute protagonist. In an era of gaming that is pushing a more stale and safe selection of products, these developers have gone all out in the opposite direction. 

Back on earth its time to learn the basics of combat and movement, which is a superb blend of Tony Hawk and Lollipop Chainsaw. You learn to do some amazingly violent combos whilst grinding out and doing tricks, to maintain your energy/health ensuring you do more devastating power attacks.

This combination of these attacks, keeps the game moving at a fast pace that never feels too grindy or boring, as you tear apart waves of horrific enemies. You may ask why bother in keeping that momentum, well like many games from the 2000 era, by doing so, you rack up a high score, which at the end provides you with a star rating to keep the challenge alive.

Making you way through the levels your soon come across shops in which you can augment your cat with more damaging weapons, larger health pool and a plethora of character customizations. To purchase said elements, is simple and effective. Find cash around the levels and kill vast swaths of enemies, before spending these rewards at the shops, which is within the levels or your homebase.

You may be forgiven that this is just a hack n slash game, but there is also core puzzle mechanics added in as well that will need your skill and patience to resolve. There is nothing here too taxing, so as to hinder the joy of slaughtering unicorns in various nasty ways..

Overall the joy of this game, is its simplicity and adult themed humour, drenched in a tonne load of blood and guts. Its been built to enjoy and enthral, which it does in numerous ways.

Graphics

The visual style is a perfect setting for a future apocalyptic setting, with copious amounts of bright neon lighting bursting through the screen. The levels are all a combination of childhood memories and playthings that have been corrupted and twisted from a deviants mind. Vibrant blocky arcade arenas to bright green toxic sewage locations push the visuals to new depths. You’ll cross these locations by grinding across vibrant neon billboards, or jumping across moveable platforms in a bid to get to the next arena, before being hit with a swath of horrible unicorns gunning for your death.

Speaking of the unicorns, the game continually throws new twisted variations of these enemy types at you to ensure you are never bored. Some of these monstrosities may have shields that can only be broken with the hammer attack. Others are literal globs of electrical goo that can only be damaged by area of effect attacks or rockets attacks. The bigger types need hit and run attacks to whittle down their health before a strong finishing move. Knowing when and where to use your varied attacks and whom to use them on keeps the action high.

Gori and their allies are adorable and the contrast to the enemies they face are brutal with bosses taking things to even more disturbing. They range from uncanny to outright horrifying and disgusting. Thankfully, Gori and his allies are quite adorable which gives that stark contrast when battling the enemies.

From what I could tell there was no tearing or frame skips and everything was smooth as butter. But I did have the odd delay with some of my button presses, nothing significant, and probably something that will be patched. 

Sound

The game has very adult themed voice work, with its dialogue enjoyably absurd with F.R.A.N.K throwing out curse words almost every other sentence and CHI-P providing a monotonous rebuttal showcasing depressed dread that’s akin to that of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Robot, Marvin.

Combat sounds is also pushed to the forefront with beafy slices, explosions and gunfire at the top of the sound chain, regardless of the superb beat that blasts away.

The music also equally excels, as it blends those explosions, screams and bar grinding, into one united chorus. To go even further there are levels that the music is even tied directly into the gameplay. The lyrics in one of the songs blasts out “SLIME’’ as you make your way through said slime enclosures. Its this silliness that encapsulates the whole games ethos that showcases off its true intent in being a thoroughly enjoyable experience first and foremost.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Gori: Cuddle Carnage is a "Must Own’’.

This is a perfect example of making a fun game for the sake of it and showcasing it to the world. From the moment I picked it up, I just found myself smiling and enjoying the silly carnage on display.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £17.99 or approx. $22 and depending on skill and patience would give you well over 15+ hours worth of gameplay. Combine this with unlockable costumes, skins, secrets and challenges, you can easily add another 10+ to the mix.

If your into a twisted take on childhood toys, cute cats, blood, carnage and adult humour, this is a must. All hail death kitty and his fowl mouthed hoverboard!!