Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Christmas Carnage

Christmas is so depressing, even
Santa drinks to cope.
Christmas is fast approaching, which means its time for a slew of Christmas games to burst forth from the great Xbox Live Indie Game hole in the sky. Christmas Carnage, created by Bandana Games, is officially the first game to break the 2012 "Christmas Game" seal, but how does it compare to the many other non-Christmas themed shooters?

What a lot of people don't know is that this is how penises
work too. If one ball goes out, the whole thing ceases to function.
The two main themes found in Christmas Carnage are Christmas and simplicity. Up to four players can participate at a time, and all you really do is fly around the screen as a fairy and shoot projectiles at the myriad of Christmas themed objects that fly at you from every direction. From presents to Christmas lights to gingerbread men and candy canes, every major element found on a table full of Christmas crap is presented here for you and your friends to destroy beyond recognition. For those of you who harbor an unfettered rage towards the holiday season, you'll find yourself at peace here. For everyone else, you might want to grab a child-based relative to play with you, because as an adult you won't really have much incentive to continue playing after you beat the game.


These screen shots are starting to disconcert me... why are
the fairies always in a perfect square? Was this play tested by a
Borg family!?
That's not to imply that Christmas Carnage is bad, because it is completely playable. The game has a few power ups for you to find that sporadically appear, and the enemies that will assault you come in copious bunches. But other than that, Christmas Carnage has no learning curve what so ever, which is why I suggest playing it with a younger brother or sister. They'll have an easy time enjoying themselves and probably be delighted by the Christmas paraphernalia dancing across the screen. The game does have a small degree of difficulty, but it shouldn't be much of a problem for an older player to help defend a younger gamer if need be.

The game also counts down how many days are left until Christmas as well as provide snarky comments at the outset of each level. The game also promises to reveal the true meaning of Christmas at it's conclusion, so you'll need to massacre 21 levels of enemies before you can find out what that is.

I remember when my dad took me out to chop down a Christmas tree.
They were all pre-decorated with ornaments which they hurled at us as we
tried to hack away at their legs and take one home. Wait. I think I'm getting
confused with the time we tried to kidnap an old man and use him as a Christmas
tree. Nevermind!
I do think Christmas Carnage is fun, but it doesn't have a whole lot of depth to it. If you have little gamers who you'd like to get pumped up for Christmas so that they explode with excitement on the big day after you've presented them with the genetically modified Monkey Pony you got them so you can record their reaction and forever immortalize on the Youtubes, Christmas Carnage will be fun for the entire gaming family. You can even wrap grandma's gnarled arthritis ridden paws around a controller and have her join in on the fray, because even she will be able to recognize the value of an 80 MSP game.

Nobody won the code I have for Space Crüesader because only Luchalma commented! Since I still have that code and now one for Christmas Carnage, if you leave a comment on this entry I'll pick a winner on Dec. 21st who will receive the codes for both games! Good luck!

1 comment:

  1. I know it's past the first but since no one has commented do I get to win those codes by default?

    ReplyDelete