Heart is engine. Legs are power generators. You stop - you die. Strong opening words from Meatgrinder, the Duke Nukem and Clustertruck-inspired boomer shooter that's just launched a free demo on Steam. It has to be experienced to be believed. It's a frantic dash to the front of the queue, leaping over lorries, gas tankers, and murderous punks. It's like the highway scene from Matrix Reloaded distilled into a video game. It's Meatgrinder.
The premise is simple, you have to keep your BPM up or you start to lose health and eventually die. So, just keep moving, quickly. You can wall jump and dash to get around quickly. The problem is, everything is moving very bloody fast. Trucks continually race ahead as punks jump out of the trailers and shoot, kick, and swing crowbars at you.
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I'm a console player, so I don't have a fancy gaming PC or even much ability with a mouse and keyboard, but my cummy laptop and frail fingers still got me through to the first boss after just a couple of tries. The boss was a hummer with spikes and a missile launcher. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
Despite Meatgrinder's retro look and inspirations, it's not dated. It runs smoothly - even on my hunk of junk - and all the controls are incredibly responsive. Sending a punk reeling off a truck as they leap towards me, crowbar in hand, is immensely satisfying, and blasting an enemy's head off as a stream of blood spurts out makes me feel like I'm in a Tarantino game.
Meatgrinder only took developer Vampire Squid a year to create, but the demo feels polished. The simple gameplay makes it easy to focus on killing and moving as quickly as possible. Handy
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