The Raid homage Acts Of Blood is Sifu’s jankier, snackier cousin

rockpapershotgun.com:

Calling a game ‘no frills’ or ‘no nonsense’ is always a back-handed compliment, because it sounds like you're saying it's a bit straightforward and simple. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying here. Acts Of Blood feels like a spiffy PS2 action brawler; a slightly tighter old Yakuza game, or a stripped-back Sifu. It’s snacky and a bit janky, but it’s also great coffee break fodder, assuming you want to spend your break breaking a selection of heavy objects over the crumbly skulls of ne’er-do-wells. I mean, they might have done some things well, I don’t know them. But they aren’t doing any well to my character in the game, so violence it is.

As you’ll see from the trailer above, Acts Of Blood channels the relentless martial arts beatdowns of films like The Raid. What’s a little less obvious, due to all the cuts, is how the combat doesn’t quite flow together as well as I’d hoped. It’s smooth enough to play, although there’s a fair few canned counter and finisher animations that don’t play especially nice with whatever the other enemies are doing at the time, resulting in a bit of janky disconnect. Still, I found myself won over by some very smooth performance, some lovely kick combos, and how fun it was to lob fire axes across the room for some very decisive kills.

You can see how you feel about this yourself, anyway, since there’s a demo on Steam here. Here’s the story setup:

In the bustling city of Bandung, Hendra's life is torn apart when his family is slain by his father's business rival. Left alone and seeking justice, the college law student finds no help from the corrupt legal system that protects the killers. Discovering a powerful group behind the attack, Hendra decides to take revenge himself, determined to make them pay for their actions.

Features include “Dynamic Brutal Combat” (yes to brutal, rain check on dynamic), “Various Melee & Firearm Weapons”, “Destructible Environmental Elements”, “Traditional Parkour” (you can slide on things), and “Outfit