Party Hard – 4.1/ 5.0 Shurikens

Hey you, pssst, want to party?! *Stabby* *Stabby*

Intro

Party Hard is one of those games that just grabbed my attention and didn’t let me go until I finished it. Yes, I actually played the game from beginning to end in one single session (10 hours). Now that already says a lot to me for what I should think of this game. In this title you play in the shoes of a serial killer. Your goal? Kill them all!

Follow the story of the serial killer through the narrative of officer West and uncover the secrets to the killings by this demented individual. Coming at you with a price of $12.89 or your regional equivalent, let’s jump into it.

Gameplay

The game is quite simple in nature, though, sometimes difficult to execute. You start each level in a new area where people are at a party. Your sole goal, as I mentioned above, is to kill them all. You are tasked with killing each and every living human in the party without getting caught by the police or one of the special agents. Death is also a very real possibility in this game if you aren’t careful with your actions.

Your character spawns and you can walk around the party without causing a stir, since you are one of the guests after all. You have several different methods of using the environment to knock some of the people off of your list. These methods includes, but isn’t limited to poisoning food, rigging speakers to explode, using electric wire to electrocute people and so and so forth. The other way and your bread and butter method is, of course, your trusty knife. Waiting for people to be isolated or distracted gives you the opportunity to strike them down.

If someone comes across one of the bodies left on the ground they will go into a panic and phone the police forces. The police pitches up and puts the body in a body-bag, makes an arrest if someone is suspected or called out and then swiftly moves on. You aren’t implied in any of the murders until you are caught red handed. Only then police forces will be on the lookout for you specifically. This, however does not mean game over as you can evade the cops, at least a few times. Should you accidentally or on purpose kill an officer then the secret agents are deployed and they are a nasty bunch.

Should you be caught or, you know, die. Then your progress is lost for the current level and you have to start over again. When the level resets, so does the traps and in most cases they shuffle around or get swapped for other traps in the game. So don’t bank on using that same trap to the same effect again, because it might just not be there the next time you try.

The same phones that the people use to phone in the police forces can be used to phone in some “friends”. This might be helpful or not at all. With friends ranging from UFO’s to a chainsaw wielding maniac that would cut you up as well as the other party guests. This provides an interesting and humorous twist in some situations, I mean just look at me phoning in zombies to turn all the people a nice shade of green.

The game responds well to the controls and you only need one hand to play the game, unless of course you are using a controller, but that is quite obvious, why am I rambling about these things? I don’t know.

Graphics

The graphics are pixelated art and in this case it works to set a smooth looking environment. The scenery and effects are well done and the style looks cohesive. The animations on this kind of game is hard to nail, but they nailed it. It looks A LOT like Hotline Miami and if you are a fan then you will without a doubt love this little game.

The other upside to this game is obviously that it could potentially run on pretty much anything. There is no need to worry about losing some of the graphical quality in sacrifice to performance.

Sound

This soundtrack is absolute gold! Even after playing the game I find some tunes to be stuck in the crevices of my mind and regularly find myself still humming the music. It is club-like music with some nice retro twists that you can just fall in love with.

Fun Factor / Replayability

Party Hard is outright fun, at least to me it was. Almost borderline addicting. While I was playing the campaign I just had this burning desire to hear the full story of this mysterious character that I was playing with. The story? It is a fantastic plot, switching you between characters and giving you background stories of each you play with. Really enticing to say the least and the twists it takes are nothing short of something I would bring up in a lot of conversations to come.

There are many other characters to unlock, each with their special set of abilities that you can use in the game to aid you. This gives the game ample replayability and challenge alike. There are also bonus stages and a DLC for the game, which will keep you coming back for more hours of joy. I have completed the main campaign and I am busy running through the game again with a different character this time, that cannot use traps, for an example.

Outro

Would I recommend this game? Yes! I really would, the hours that I have pulled out of the price tag is phenomenal and I can see myself playing more than could possibly be healthy for myself.

So, for the shuriken rating, I give it as follows:

• Gameplay – 0.4
• Graphics – 0.3
• Sound – 0.4
• Fun Factor – 1
• Personal opinion – 1

This leaves us with a total score of 4.1 Shurikens!

I hope that you have enjoyed this review, thank you for reading! I will see you next review when I set the ninja sights on something new! As always, have fun and game on!