King of Meat certainly has the potential to become a popular pick-up and play title with friends, offering an escape from the chores of keeping up with other titles in modern gaming, but repetitiveness could become a problem.
The Amazon Games title, launching today in early access ahead of a full release on October 7, offers carnage and puns galore, alongside amusing immaturity that will leave you sniggering like a schoolgirl, but perhaps not enough to keep you occupied long-term.
Sheer Carnage From The Off
The premise of King of Meat is simple: you’re a new entrant in a game show, exploring dungeons packed with traps, obstacles, and enemies to provide entertainment for the watching audience. Essentially, think Takeshi’s Castle with a more lethal spin.
Each dungeon run includes enemies to defeat, traps to avoid, and/or puzzles to solve, often leaving you screaming at your friends who apparently can’t follow basic instructions and stand on the pressure plate they’re supposed to. The better your performance, the higher your rating, and the more gold you earn.
Gold is then spent to unlock new abilities, weapons, and cosmetics, with full creative freedom. I immediately selected a wooden horn and wobbly eyeballs to stick to my costume, showing my immaturity for all to see with the placement, and I enjoyed playing around with all the options available.
Once those chuckles ended, though, and more dungeon runs came, the repetitiveness was clear to see. Even though different dungeons provide different challenges, I didn’t find enough to set them apart from each other.
Create Your Own Mayhem
Given I was playing before release, though, that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. One of the biggest features King of Meat offers is the ability to create your own custom dungeons and publish them for others to play, and to test yourself on builds created by the community.
This has the potential to provide a greater challenge and more enjoyment, as do the higher difficulty levels that I was unable to reach, but it doesn’t quite feel enough, particularly given the $29.99 price point. Landing in a very packed period of releases, I’m worried King of Meat won’t be able to keep its head above water in a crowded market.
If the title were free to play, or available with a subscription service like Game Pass or PlayStation Plus, King of Meat could have find an opening in the market. Instead, as a fully-priced title, there’s a real danger it could struggle to make an impact—although I do hope it does, as it is an enjoyable game.
King of Meat
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