Charlie Murder is currently free until June 30th, 2014 as part of Xbox Live Games With Gold.
Recommendation: If you pick it up while it's free, obviously you should try it out to see if you like it. And since it's a true arcade title, it doesn't take up much hard drive space and it's quick to install. But I really don't see many promising perks in this game. I think you should try it for about an hour, and if you don't like it, turn around and don't look back.
Charlie Murder is a Beat 'Em Up, RPG style game that features a rock group punching zombies and throwing cars at ninjas. It's a quirky experience that does little to explain itself, but I think that's okay.
You also get tattoos. They give you extra abilities.
One thing that drew me to this game (other than the fact that it was free) was the promise of Co-op. I've previously discussed how important local co-op is to my gaming experience, and this worked fairly well. In many RPG style games, time spent in-menu dealing with items and skills can be extremely tiresome during a multiplayer game because only one person is able to deal with it at a time. Charlie Murder happily solves this problem by making the menu screen for each character localized. This means that the game doesn't pause when you want to level up and equip new items, but it means that your partner can continue kicking ass while you're deciding what color shirt to put on.
I was also strangely intrigued by the game's utter lack of explanation and description. You start out the game during a quick sequence in Hell, then you start killing zombies in the streets of an urban city. Why were you almost dead? Why are there zombies? Why am I controlling some big dude who can mysteriously hide a drumset inside his pants? None of these questions are even remotely answered, and I find that entertaining (They are eventually explained through the game, but at the beginning you're left blissfully ignorant of the details). Too many games shoehorn in an unnecessary and often boring storyline to accompany their gameplay. I say if it's not needed, then don't put it in just for the sake of putting it in. The method of flashbacks and background audio in the his game for relaying storyline was quite interesting.
The "Corpse vs Time" Graph is off the charts...
Honestly, the game was pretty off the wall, but the items were fun to look at, there's a whole crafting system around beer ingredients, and the special powers you could unlock through skill points definitely helped the game evolve. Unfortunately, the game was pretty standard as far as gameplay is concerned. The beat 'em up aspect really kind of fell flat for me. As I said, the powers helped, but the standard actions were boring and the enemies took a lot of rote punching. No flourish, no pizzazz, just waiting around for your enemies to fall down after repeatedly tapping a button.
Some of you who may not be fans of the genre may think that all beat 'em up games are like this, but if play classics like The Simpsons Arcade Game, or even the more modern Scott Pilgrim game, they don't have such boring action. And the stages are less drab. And the whole actual gaming experience just feels more fluid.
Charlie Murder, for all it's fun quirks and oddities, is unfortunately just a boring game that has some good thought behind it with poor execution.
If you pick it up while it's free, obviously you should try it out to see if you like it. And since it's a true arcade title, it doesn't take up much hard drive space and it's quick to install. But I really don't see many promising perks in this game. I think you should try it for about an hour, and if you don't like it, turn around and don't look back.
Scorecard:
Category
|
Score
|
Time Value
|
6
|
Money Value
|
10
|
Originality
|
7
|
Ryplayability
|
7
|
Fulfillment
|
6
|
Final Score
|
7.2
|
Let me know what you think of Charlie Murder!
Until next time,
Ryan
Images courtesy of Wikipedia
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