Monday 26 September 2011

Anarchy Reigns, My Surprise Eurogamer Hit

I’ll admit that before the Eurogamer Expo, I had heard very little about Anarchy Reigns. The little I had heard, described it as a “Mental Brawler”, but I had no idea what that meant exactly?

“Mental” as in, the thinking gamers fighter? or “Mental” totally over the top, bat shit crazy? It’s definitely the latter.

The demo booth was setup with 4 PS3’s linked together for 5 minute 4 player all v all deathmatch brawls. Again I’ll admit that I nearly walked straight past the SEGA stand, until I heard the small crowd laughing and shouting encouragement to the players who were occupying the seats. 

When I got closer I noticed two things, 1: there was a character with a chainsaw on his right arm slapping another character senseless, blood exploding over the screen. 2: there was another character who appeared to be a robot that could transform into a small jet, very Robotech-esque… or transformers depending on your age

When that match ended I found myself at the front of the queue, and figured why not? let’s have a go.

Before starting the match I had to choose my character, since playing I have learned that 3 of the characters are from “Mad World” another over the top, bloody action game from SEGA on the Nintendo Wii, Jack Caymen (chainsaw guy), Big Bull (which I gather was the massive mechanical bull character), and Mathilda (purple haired woman, armed with a whip that changed into a massive spiked club)… I ended up choosing Mathilda

The SEGA rep gave a brief rundown of the controls, which appeared simple enough, Light attack = Square, Heavy attack = Triangle, Jump = X and Grab = O, with L2 modifying attacks to specials.

As soon as the match started the game became chaotic, but chaotic in a fun way, standing away from the other players and just watching the action was like watching an action packed anime on TV.

I watched on as a giant of a man in a bright orange pimp suit, complete with fur lined hat and fur coat , wailing away on a black clad ninja, failing to notice a man with a cybernetic leg, with what appeared to be a mini-gun poking out of his knee cap sneaking… well hardly sneaking, more like running full pelt at them both, before smacking the snot out of them.

The gameplay was fast and furious, but so easy to pick up and play, one of the highlights for me was finding out that holding light and heavy attack allows you to perform a charged running attack, in this instance my character took up a stance similar to an olympic sprinter on the starting blocks, the camera changing to allow me to target an opponent, the orange pimp in this case. As soon as the buttons were released I shot towards him  like a bolt of lightening.

The impact was beautifully destructive, the pimp exploded in a cloud of blood.. as did the ninja who had positioned himself behind the pimp.

The end of the match came quickly, but had to go into overtime… the score between 1st and 2nd place was too close.

60 seconds later it emerged that it was between me and the player on the 4th console, whilst I would love to say that I emerged victorious in front of a large crowd… I did not, I actually came in 2nd but there was only 200 points between us, or 1 extra kill.

Maybe I will meet that player again, I hope I do..

Video clip from the following match

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