Red Stewart reviews Guts and Glory…
When I was growing up, there was an MMORPG called Toontown that used to be advertised all the time. Every week brought a new version of the same basic commercial, which prided itself on the motto that you could “do almost anything.” But even as a kid this always felt strange to me- what exactly did they mean by “almost anything”? Surely you couldn’t pull a GTA and murder others right? Even in GTA you technically can’t do that without triggering local law enforcement. This got the imagination cogs turning in my head as to a potential title where you could do any action without fear of being reprimanded.
Though far from being like it, I can’t help but think of Guts and Glory as a prototype for the kind of limitless game I envisioned as a child. Developed by HakJak Productions and published by tinyBuild Games, Guts and Glory might be the strangest video game I have played in a while. It takes the track levels of sports games like the Skate series and combines them with a hyperviolent consequence system. Does this polymerization triumph, or does the game fail as another experimental disaster? The short answer is it works to an extent, but if you want the long answer read on!
To clarify, there is no real story to this game. The premise is regular folks are invited to participate in a series of violent sporting events called the “Guts and Glory.” There are eight sections, divided into 7-9 levels, and some of those levels make-up a pseudo-arc for a specific playable character, as outlined by a short text blurb in the level’s opening waiting screen. But outside of that, you really are just beating each course for the sake of beating it, and not to progress further in some overarching narrative.
Because of this, I will be tackling graphics first, which are a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s evident that the HakJak team was primarily interested in creating an effective physics engine for their gameplay, and thus focused their budget on that. On the other, it doesn’t excuse the fact that Guts and Glory is bland. Everything, from the houses to the grounds to the NPCs, have minimal texture work done. And look, I wasn’t expecting something out of Unreal Engine, but I was at least hoping for RuneScape-level quality.
Still, the aesthetic would at least be tolerable were it not for the heavy-emphasis on grey. Most of the worlds you’ll explore have so many achromatic areas that it can give the title an unintentional desaturated look, which, personally, strained my eyes after playing for more than an hour. Of course, this will vary between each person, and for the record it wasn’t as bad as the outright blurriness in Dishonored.
That being said, this is definitely not a game that people will be playing for the graphics, so we move onto sound. You know, Guts and Glory does feature a lot of stock and repetitive noises, but it actually works here compared to Planet Alpha because of how un-serious the game is. It’s like those old Tom and Jerry cartoons from MGM- it doesn’t matter how many times you hear those same pots and pans crashing or Tom emitting his iconic scream: it’s still entertaining as heck. And that’s the situation I find myself in with Guts and Glory. Sure the vehicles sound alike and every character has their own distinct yet repetitive outcry, but there’s also a level of amusement that never quite goes away.
With the score, though, I’m not as enthusiastic. See, HakJak made a seemingly-wise, but actually bad decision with the soundtrack, and that was to make it gleefully cheery. In theory, this would be a good choice since Guts and Glory is cynically blissful game: happy to throw you into some awful situations. But here’s the thing guys- when you choose to adopt a trial and error game system where players are encouraged to repeatedly die in order to formulate a consistent approach to the problem, the music has to actually be soothing. Because what happens is, when you get frustrated over the repeated deaths, the score starts to get grating very fast, which only adds to the frustration. Whereas when you have calming tunes in the background, it makes the entire situation much more bearable. One of the most famous examples of this is the “Stickerbush Symphony” song that plays during the “Bramble Scramble” level of Donkey Kong Country 2. A tough, yet memorable course where you can maintain your sanity courtesy of David Wise’s glorious synths.
Now, not every track in the Guts and Glory OST follows this template- during the later parts of the game, you actually do get some of those more-leisure melodies in the form of hard Jazz. But unfortunately, the vast majority is the former, so you will want to beat the levels as fast as you can, lest you fall into an irate cycle.
But is the gameplay really that frustrating-inducing? The answer is it depends on who you are as a gamer. The team at HakJak did a great job at creating an effective physics engine, which does make each course fun. Sure there are times where the ground feels a little slippery, but overall every vehicle controls well, whether you’re riding a bike or driving a motorcycle. Environments are well-realized, and there is a lot of genuine creativity on board here. I mean seriously, who else would have thought up a scheme where you’re dodging jeeps in the desert driven by kangaroos armed with crossbows? Or a theme park equipped with lasers and swinging timber traps? Or a ninja-styled obstacle course full of exploding teddy bears? Yes, there were times where I was literally biting my controller over some of the dumb scenarios or over-spaced checkpoints or this neglected game error where instantly pressing the boost button upon a bicycle respawn causes you to do an unintentional wheelie , but overall I was happy with the game….with two exceptions.
One was a level early on which I just could not beat (I guarantee you you will know what it is when you get to it), and the second was an entire series of levels dedicated to a terrible character, and that was Larry. Larry is a homeless man who you are required to play as for an arc set in the urban cityscape. He navigates through a rocket-propelled chair that is an abomination to control. If you thought the flying mechanics in LEGO Batman 2 were bad, you will be begging to go back to them after (attempting) to play as Larry. The biggest problem with him is that you can’t turn him with the joystick or mouse: he has to be rotated left, right, up and down by four different keys, which, as you can imagine, is a pain in the arse to do when you’re in flight. It honestly reminds me of the control layout for the original System Shock– why make things so complicated by mapping out different functions to different keys when it could all be tied to one place (the mouse)?
Larry was so bad, I admittedly ended up skipping the majority of his levels. That being said, if you get the hang of it, at best it’ll just give you another hour of gameplay. It took me about five hours to beat Guts and Glory (make it six if you count the hypothetical extra hour that the Larry part would give), which is a hair below the seven hours I require for a title that charges $15.00, as this game does on Steam. That being said, Guts and Glory could be an exception to the rule as there are a lot of community-created levels, similar to Super Mario Maker, where you can spend a lot more time doing crazy tracks conceived by fans. In addition to this, HakJak appears to be consistently updating their game, showing that they are dedicated to expanding upon it.
So overall, Guts and Glory could be worth it. If a Dark Souls meets Paperboy meets Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater meets Super Meat Boy mash-up sounds up your ally, I say go for it. For others, you will still get some entertainment value out of the title, I guarantee it. Just make sure it fits your personal pricing model.
Pros:
+Imaginative level design
+Old school cartoon throwback with the sound and gameplay
Cons:
-Annoying score
-Terrible outlier character (Larry)
-Some difficulty spikes
Rating – 6/10
Red Stewart
