😱 Carrion | Review | Nintendo Switch | "Carrion Screaming" 😱 @devolverdigital #IndieGames #GameDev

Carrion is a surprisingly addictive and satisfying ‘reverse-horror’ title that feels unique in its take on the genre.

Whilst there are games that cast you as an anti-hero or even full-blown villain, there aren’t many examples whereby you play an all-consuming, morphing beast that lurks in the shadows, a force of sheer terror. 
Game Title: Carrion
Platform Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Rating: ICE COOL

Carrion is a 2D game that blends stealth, puzzling and carnage in a neat package that will take around four hours and thousands of pints of blood to get through. 

Beginning as effectively a mouth surrounded swarming tentacles, you burst out of your underground containment unit and rampage through the labyrinthine facility, ever-expanding your mass and trying to escape these pesky snacks that occasionally fight back, or ‘people’ as some call them.

Whilst it’s not the first thing I tend to mention in my reviews, I have to draw attention to the sound design in Carrion. The skittering, squelching sound that the monster makes as it shifts around the facility is wonderfully horrific, calling to mind John Carpenter’s The Thing. 

The yawning, cavernous music is the perfect accompaniment, unsettling and ominous as you wreak havoc. Visually, the pixel animation is smooth and again, revels in gore as you throw around victims, chew them up and vomit bile, a trail of human detritus in your wake.

Whilst your monster can make easy work of unarmed scientists and yelping, cowering workers, the handgun-brandishing soldiers and more heavily-armoured units can cause serious problems, with your health draining rapidly with each blast of a flame-thrower or gunshot. 

With this in mind, stealth is often the more practical (and fun) option, sneaking around vents and waiting for the perfect moment to burst through, tearing and rending everything in the vicinity.

You aren’t just a mindless mass of tentacles, either. Pretty soon you’ll unlock key upgrades that allow you to fire spider-like webs to flick switches and cocoon enemies, temporary invisibility to bypass lasers or fool attackers, sudden boosts to smash through barriers and a few more tricks up your many, slithering sleeves.

The controls initially felt slightly twitchy, especially when in more close-quarters combat but it soon became clear that this is a design choice that adds to the primal presentation of your globulous form and makes you feel more of a rabid force of nature as you thrash around rooms, hurling enemies to and fro and feasting on their corpses as opposed to a more delicate and subtle form of control.

In summary, I’m thoroughly enjoying making my way through the facility and working out the environmental puzzles, interspersed with frantic, bloody combat. 

Carrion is a well-made and quite unique beast. I will say though that the thumbnail for the game - on Switch at least – does look somewhat vaginal, quite jarring when it was next to Animal Crossing on my games menu. 

I know which one gets my vote.

Right, I’m off to once again become a mindless (or is it?) creature with thousands of teeth and an insatiable appetite for human flesh.

❄️ RATING: ICE COOL ❄️

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)