Party Hard Review

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]icture the scene. It’s late in the evening and you’re lying awake in bed. You’ve spent a long day studying (stay with me on this) and you’re exhausted. And yet you can’t get to sleep because of the thumping bass coming from next door’s all-night party. The clock strikes three. Do you: ignore it? Knock on the door and ask them to keep it down? Or don a mask, grab yourself a knife and embark on a ruthless killing spree until everyone at the party is dead?
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If it’s the last one, then Party Hard might just be the game for you. The player takes control of a nameless psychopath who, with the help of his trusty knife (and the odd man-eating panda), tears his way through twelve levels with the same objective: kill everyone who stands in his way.

With its minimal controls and easy one-button kills, Party Hard is ostensibly a simple slasher. However, treat it like a 16-bit rampage at your peril, as compromising on strategy will almost always lead to failure. Instead, the game rewards planning and patience over mindless stabbing; you’ll need to bide your time and pick off your victims one by one away from prying eyes if you want to succeed. Alternatively, players can exploit a variety of traps to dispose of pesky guests in larger volumes, from faulty cookers to the good ol’ fashioned ‘poison in the punch bowl’. Leave a trail of bodies and you can expect the police to show up in record time to investigate; get spotted committing a dastardly deed and you’ll have a chase on your hands.

Sleeping party-goers are easy targets. As are those who stand too close to household appliances…

The action’s framing device follows a similar straightforward ethos; a series of cutscenes see detective John West, lead investigator of the ‘Party Hard killings’, interviewed by a journalist who sounds increasingly gleeful as the details of the murders are revealed to him. This loose story pieces the cutscenes together with the action and does come with a few twists and surprises to keep the player interested, though it’s clear that the main function of the video segments is to introduce the individual levels and facilitate the gameplay, which for an arcade-style game like Party Hard, is certainly the right way to go. More so, in fact, when considering the frankly awful voice acting on display, which one can only hope is a deliberately parody of the hardboiled detective genre. Seriously, gravelly-voiced Inspector West actually describes seeing the body of his daughter with the line, “like a sledgehammer using my stomach as a welcome mat”.

Players can exploit a variety of traps to dispose of pesky guests in larger volumes, from faulty cookers to the good ol’ fashioned ‘poison in the punch bowl’

By contrast, the rest of Party Hard is pretty good, and that has quite a lot to do with the game’s quirky sense of humour, which is equal parts silly and dark. Repetitive mass murdering sprees might sound heavy going at first, but as the body count racks up you’ll soon come to realise that you can’t have slaughter without a healthy dose of laughter too. The sheer ridiculousness of the game’s concept will hit you periodically throughout playing, particularly each time the partygoers decide that it’s completely rational to just keep on dancing as the blood begins to pool around their feet, as opposed to running for the hills. Many of the traps you can rig are equally absurd; you’ll be left wondering who the hell would even consider bringing a bear trap to a house party, let alone who would voluntarily walk into the damned thing. In case that’s just not bizarre enough for you, the devs have been kind enough to sprinkle an assortment of strange characters in amongst the ravers throughout the various levels, with a dancing bear sporting a gold chain and Kanye inspired shutter-shades a particular highlight. And yes, you do have to kill the bear.

Yes, you do have to kill the bear.

Another lovely feature of the game is how self-consciously retro it is. Alongside the top down camera angle, pixelated characters and linear movements, there’s also a cameo from everyone’s favourite Italian plumber who jumps, rather fittingly, out from the toilet bowl and destroys ladders and other shortcuts which can be used to evade the cops. Indeed, Mario appears as just one a string of pop culture references throughout the game, with a personal favourite coming in the opening level: go into the bathroom, stand next to the shower and listen as the familiar theme from Hitchcock’s Psycho plays briefly over the pounding EDM-inspired soundtrack.

Party Hard is, by no means, perfect. The gameplay does tend to become repetitive after a while, and by far the most frustrating aspect of the title is its tendency to drag as the level wears on and the survivors are starting to wear thin. After eliminating the initial outlying targets and exhausting the level’s supply of traps, monotony threatens to kick in as you wait for the remaining few to leave the dancefloor and move to a quieter area so you can finally bring proceedings to a close. But, with most levels only taking around ten minutes to complete and the game allowing you to restart each stage instantly if you do get arrested, it’s possible to quickly fine-tune your approach over several attempts.

Verdict: Hitman planning meets Hotline Miami execution, with a truly commendable result. What Party Hard lacks in story and variety, it makes up for in strategic and silly fun.

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