As Jason has mentioned previously, before the days of the internet we had to rely on a few small photos from gaming magazines or the box art to make educated decisions when making a purchase. Even today when we have the option to check the internet for trailers and more than a handful of images we make mistakes. My most recent mistake was judging Creepy Road based off of a handful of images, never taking the time to really look into the game further. The darker cartoonish vibe of the cast drew me in from the very first images I stumbled upon on a random ad that cemented the title as something I HAD to get my hands on. The clowns that looked like they were a close cousin of Captain Spaulding from Rob Zombie’s Firefly family and the protagonist’s menacing, grin full of oversized teeth that would give Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a run for her money alluded to this being an ultra-violent trip into the backwoods that would have me rolling on the floor in laughter. Naturally, I was ecstatic when we were offered a pre-release code to review the title.

My first red flag popped up when I was redeeming the code and noticed the E for Everyone rating on the PlayStation Store. I assumed that maybe this was just an error and proceeded to boot the game that I felt was going to inject some much needed gore into my life. After a brief cut-scene introducing me to who I thought would be my new spirit animal Flint Trucker, a character on a quest to make it home to the love of his life Angelina, I was set loose to destroy the inhabitants of the game’s world with my trusty pistol. Without much exposition, I met my first adversary and was chomping at the bit for the glorious explosion of cutesy characters getting their face and innards blown into next week… only to have my heart sink to the floor when no blood, brains, or bones spewed from the carcass, but instead a poof of smoke in the shape of a skull.

Disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling I experienced due to this, but despite this setback, I trudged forward, hoping the gameplay would make up for the complete lack of proper violence. The game plays similarly to Metal Slug, requiring Flint to seek out bigger and better weapons, mowing down the varied cast of enemies while evading minor hazards. Flint is a simple man with gigantic teeth that doesn’t have much else on his resume aside from the token jumping and grenade throwing abilities that come standard in the side scrolling shooter genre, with an obvious misstep in leaving melee attacks on the sidelines. The gunplay works as it should, although it is a very hum drum affair that never evolves beyond the basic concept and doesn’t offer anything truly “fun” or innovative. The gameplay is hindered quite a bit by Flint’s limitation in shooting in the four cardinal directions (shooting down being much more of a chore than it should be) and the fact that the damage output is all over the place. Although most of the minor enemy forces will disappear like a fart in the wind at the slightest hint of damage, others from the same class or grouping will take three or more shots from the same gun at the same distance, making them uncharacteristically bullet sponge-y for the genre.

While the enemy forces are designed and animated extremely well, they all have the depth and attack patterns of a blind lemming. With the exception of a few more creative creatures, such as the cow with mini-gun utters, the foes will either make a mad dash sprint headfirst into your gun fire, hover over you only to drop at the most inconvenient time possible, or stand back taking pot shots, rarely taking cover or moving. The only time the game puts up much of a true fight is when you’re casually crossing the screen, as enemies have no qualms with shooting you off screen or jumping into battle without the slightest hint. The end result feels like shooting fish in a barrel, but only if the barrel was overflowing with starved piranha that took massive, uneven amounts of health in the event they touched you. Much like Flint’s varying amounts of damage, the same applies to the enemy forces which seem to take however much damage they feel is fair, like the federal government when taxing our paychecks, rarely coming to the same amount. This plays into the overall difficulty falling into the unfair territory, as the sparsely placed checkpoints found within the game world seem to have been decided by throwing darts at a wall opposed to basing them on the encounters found between them.

I’m not normally someone who chooses what to play based on the ESRB rating, but the overall tone of the game, coupled with the fact that one of the more obscure weapons (which I never had the pleasure of finding) is named the “Psychoshit” (guessing whoever reviewed this for the ESRB rating missed the loading screen detailing it) makes me think that this was originally intended for an adult audience and changed late into development to appeal to a wider market. While buckets of blood and gore don’t always make for a “good” game, if handled properly they can add some bonus points for comedic value and would have elevated this title from being mediocre at best to something that I would’ve recommended for Psychoshits and giggles. With this being said I would only recommend picking up Creepy Road if you’re a fan of the side scrolling genre and find it at a deep discount.

5 out of 10

Pros

• Creepy Cartoonish Animations and Design
• Wide Variety of Enemy Forces

Cons

• Uneven Tone
• Inconsistent DPS Output
• Poor Checkpoint System

Creepy Road was developed and published by Groovy Milk. It launched on PC in 2018, as well as NS, PS4 and X1 on March 1st, 2019, for $9.99. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Creepy Road, check out the developer’s site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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