![]() ![]() Whatever the specifics, demons are always the perpetrators. I’ve been shanked, shot, burnt, flattened, stabbed and exploded. The similarities are found in the small, flat and featureless arena that is the entire playing field, and the one-hit kills that will make your play-time on each attempt brief and tense. Where Devil Daggers is nightmarishly surreal and unnerving, Tormentor is like an explosion in a blood bank that takes out the neighbouring comic book store and guts factory for good measure. Visually, the two games have very little in common, beginning with that change of perspective but going straight through to Tormentor’s artstyle. Top-down Devil Daggers was the phrase that popped into my brain when I first played Tormentor X Punisher back at Gamescom last year. “Let’s fucking do this!” she yells at the beginning of every round. They are the snarling aggression of the marine character, as she tears through the hordes of hell. Some of these come from the person playing the game, some come from spectators, and there’s another variety that come from the game itself. Some are triumphant (FUCK YEAH), some are awestruck (Fuuuuuuuuuuck) and some are short, sharp exclamations of frustration or despair (fuck). Tormentor❌Punisher‘s vulgarity and brutality might not be for everyone, but it is one of the most clever and chaotic top-down shooters I’ve played.Tormentor X Punisher is projected onto a wall in a dark space in San Francisco and it fills the room with “fucks”. Yet like a masochist, you come back for more still thanks to the fast, frenetic, and fun gameplay loop. It begs to be replayed but will beat you down for doing so. Like Geometry Wars if it were made of flesh and bone, Tormentor X Punisher is an excruciatingly difficult, yet highly satisfying top-down shooter. This trial and error is downright harrowing as you are shooting, avoiding projectiles and enemies while discovering the boss’ weakness. Sometimes you figure it out, sometimes you flail until you do. But there’s a caveat to that, while they can be killed in one hit, there’s a trick to getting them to the point at which they can be killed. Everything dies in one hit: you, the regular enemies and even bosses. The bullet penetration in this game is like no other. I’ve noticed that you can set enemies on fire in groups and this helps earn crucial points. This helps with crowd control and if you accidentally kite yourself into a corner, this gives some breathing room. There are multiple power-ups, but the only one I’ve seen frequently is wallie, which bounces shots off walls. There are power-ups in the game, but I honestly haven’t seen many of them, mainly due to not surviving as long as I would have liked. When there’s a large group of enemies amassed behind you, the screen-shake gets in the way – something I wish could be disabled. Kiting enemies around a level for combo kills are what’s best for your overall score. You can walk over them to close them for some quick points, and while that kept me surviving longer, it didn’t have me earning more points as a whole. Pentagrams light up on the ground for a few seconds before demons materialize. The game does try to help you where appropriate. So thankfully, if you run out of primary ammo, there’s an audio cue to reload the shotgun as well as some text that gets lost against other text. There’s a lot of things on-screen at once, and minimizing that is to the game’s benefit. There’s not much UI to speak of, and rightfully so. The shotgun is used to reload your assault rifle, because of course it does. The default controls are left mouse for shooting an assault rifle, and the right mouse for firing a shotgun blast. ![]() The controls are simple, yet the art of evasion and shooting is a skill to be learned over time. And from there, you are playing the game. “LET’S FUCKING DO THIS!” the unnamed female protagonist shouts at the top of her lungs. Aside from a cartoon introduction that takes the playable character to Planet Fuck You, there’s little in the way of the action, which is at the forefront of what Tormentor X Punisher is – a non-stop thrillride of a top-down shooter. To say that Tormentor X Punisher is challenging, but there’s a nuance, and flow to TxP. This is like a more violent and brutal Smash TV. Tormentor❌Punisher is an extreme, top-down shooter that doesn’t give any fucks, and will gladly let you know it. ![]()
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