🍺🗡Review: Party Hard (SWITCH) "You start asking yourself why they can't keep the bloody noise down" 🗡🍺 @tinyBuild #IndieGame #GameDev

Parties are fun. I know it, you know it.

Rockstar-turned-agony uncle Andrew WK knows it. "When it's time to party, we will party hard," and all that.

However, as you turn into a late-thirties curmudgeon, like me, you notice that when other people are having parties and you're not, it grates a lot. 

You start asking yourself why they can't keep the bloody noise down, it's nearly eleven o'clock, and other things your eighteen-year-old self would weep at hearing.

Of course, most people either stick a pair of earplugs in or ring the council. Not the protagonist of Party Hard, though. Your objective is to travel around different parties and kill all the guests. Hey, no-one pretended this was a complex game.

Your primary weapons are stealth and a big knife. Partygoers that discover your victims will call the police, but as long as you're not seen doing the deed then they'll leave you alone. If you're spotted you're carted off and the level restarts.

Killing one person at a time is no fun, though, especially when you're as resourceful as our guy. When you walk up to various bits of scenery, you see an icon that indicates you can set a trap to go off a little later. Whether it's poisoning a punchbowl or setting a speaker to explode, the traps are how you get the big kill numbers and bigger scores. Best of all, the guests and police have no idea it was you and leave you alone.

The level finishes when all the guests are dead, and the really high scores come from things like kill combos, hiding bodies or escaping the police. Then it's on to the next party to do it all again. As the game progresses, you can use items like a change of clothes to blend in, or the (really fun) smoke bomb, which lets you hack away at anyone within the cloud.

Graphically, Party Hard takes a lot of cues from Hotline Miami, with plenty of hot-pink neon and light-up dancefloors (some of which you can overload to rack up the kill count). The music is predictably synth-heavy, in keeping with the whole atmosphere.

The levels range from a typical college house party all the way through to an underground station. 

The music and scenery vary enough that each party feels different, although by the time you get to the last levels there's a feeling you've seen all Party Hard has to offer. 

Pinokl Games do their best to keep it varied, with a range of unlockable characters and a good number of achievements to shoot for. 

Summary

The game is good fun while it lasts, and there's something really satisfying about getting kills from a well-timed trap. 

If you've got some spare credit it's definitely worth a bash, although the RRP of £13.49 is a bit steep.

💧❄️ RATING: MELTING ❄️💧

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Recommended with reservations, one to consider if you are a fan of the genre)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)