Spooky scary skeleton send shivers up your spine. As Halloween approaches, games about demons, ghosts, evil spirits, zombies and everything else that goes bump in the night start showing up around this time or get replayed. And what better way to celebrate the spooky season with a little BDSM? No not that kind. I’m talking about BDSM: Big Drunken Satanic Massacre for the Nintendo Switch. And who said the Switch didn’t have any M rated games.
WARNING: This game contains satanic imagery, violence, sexual innuendos, adult themes and other not so nice stuff that kids under 18 should not see. If you are sensitive to this kind of stuff, there is an option to censor things out. You have been warned!
Hail Satan
Hellish parody- If you can’t tell by the starting screen when booting up the game for the first time, BDSM is a parody of all action games that has players fight against the forces of hell, with DOOM being the game most references. While in DOOM Hell is destroyed, in BDSM the United States invade Hell with an army of “Doom Guys”, dethrones the Devil, making him a figurehead leader/puppet, conquers Hell and forces democracy upon the land as corporations come in and turn Hell into a Capitalistic wonderland for the new human settlers. Americans in the game are taken to the stereotypical extreme, with them being obese, greedy and unashamed with being open with their vices, it is Hell after all. The corporations and the American military in the game are depicted to the stereotypical extreme: corporations using demon labor (and meat) for multiple services (sex workers, line cooks, burger meat), while the military has big tanks, bombs and of course the overpowered “Doom Guys”. I find it funny that the game portrays demons as regular Joes trying to making a living under occupation and the humans as the evil invading force (which is kinda true but that’s a can a worms for another time).
Greedy story- As I mentioned, Hell has been conquered and humans have enslaved the population and settled in. It’s been thirty years since Hell Liberation Day and Lucifer (or as he likes to be called Lou), Satan’s son, is drinking his sorrows away at a bar. After seeing TV reports advertising Hell Liberation Day festivities, he throws a “Milk” bottle at the TV and decides to a little liberating on his own and free Hell from the humans. He was going to get kicked out of the bar anyways. Lucifer’s journey is pretty funny as he travels through out Hell causing chaos and spouting one liners along the way.
Prideful one liners- Now speaking of one liners, Lou spouts out several throughout the game, normal right? As I mentioned before, this is a parody and most of the one liners are references to other media and games. One example is that he’ll sometimes shout out Mortal Kombat. Another line he says is “Good guy, bad guy. I’m the guy with the gun”, which is in reference to the same line Ash Williams says in Army of Darkness.
Twin stick shooter wrath- BDSM is a top down twin stick shoot with Diablo inspired dungeon layouts, which is suits the game since the lead is a devil creature. Gameplay is pretty simple: move around with the left stick, aim with the right, and shoot with R (main fire) or RZ (alt fire). L has Lou use a bottle of Milk to regen health, LZ is a dodge, face buttons on the left Joy-Con brings up a map and scrolls through current weapons and the face button on the right Joy-Con brings up the weapons menu, activates a Rage booster and triggers context actions (open doors, talks to NPCs etc.) It can get a bit repetitive, most twin stick shoot are, but with all the waves of demons, military ponies (use you read that right), and human military personal , you won’t get tired of shooting things.
Slothful
No co-op- One of the things that makes twin stick shooters fun is the ability for a second player to join in. BDSM doesn’t have that option, which is ironic because with the real BDSM its take two. But I digress.
Generic metal tracks- When you have a game set in Hell and has demons, what’s the best music to play? Metal of course. BDSM has a pretty decent metal score, but after a while they all start to sound generic and samey. What would have been cool was if the developers hired on some indie/local metal bands, since the indie scene has some really great songs out there.
BDSM: Big Drunk Satanic Massacre is a pretty decent twin stick shooter. It’s story is pretty entertaining and enhanced by all of the parodies that are found in the game. Lou’s one liners are funny as well and will bring a smile on your face when you know where the line is from. Gameplay is fun and simple and feels a lot like the console version of Diablo III. However the metal score can sound a bit generic after a while and its sad that two players can’t cause hell together. At $29.99 it’s a bit of a steep price to pay for a third-party indie game, especially with the major releases coming soon. While that doesn’t affect the score of the game, I’d say wait for a sale then get it. But if you really want something different and adult themed, give BDSM a try. The game, not the fetish. Unless that’s your thing. But definitely try the game.
