LinuxGameCast Reviews – Charlie Murder

Your intrepid heroes get tatted up, brew some beer, and beat ever loving sh*t out of each other. Charlie Murder faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Charlie Murder
Webzone: Charlie_Murder
Devel: Ska Studios / Flibitijibibo
Engine: FNA
Price: 9.99 / CDN 10.99

Wazzat: It’s a punk rock apocalypse! Team up with your friends to lead embattled punk rock band Charlie Murder in their epic quest to save the world from rival death metalers Gore Quaffer and their legions of evil.

Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

V-

Multiplayer is still a hot mess.

J-

Thar be bugs. Oh yes

P-

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Shiny / Sounds

V-

Was never a big fan of the Salt and Sanctuary aesthetic but for some reason I can dig this.
It’s a hand drawn beat em up, sold.
Only real complaint is sometimes it’s a wee bit too easy to lose track of your character.
As we discussed Thursday, the soundtrack is definitely something I could have pumping in the background @ home.
Not saying it’s great, just inoffensive.
Outside of that, the punching / kicking / smashing noises are sufficiently squishy.

J-

Acceptable crust punk is acceptable
The aesthetic matches the narrative quite well. Plus I always dig hand drawn game art
Do you think they know?

P-

Not a big fan of the art style but there is no debating that it fits with the theme.
So it won’t get dinged chairs for that.
In fact, if I had to point out one issue with the visuals, besides losing track of your character as Venn mentioned, I’d say sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell whether your punches/kicks/spells will hit the enemy when they’re slightly above or below you.
What does ding it a chair is the repetitive background music in some of the stages.
And it’s loud too!
Since you’re making me mute the background music, you only get three chairs.

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Control

V-

J-

It can get a little unclear where the enemy hitboxes are in relation to you at times
But hey, Ethan knows his way around controllers, so everything magically works. And with correct prompts too!

P-

It’s FNA and it gives you the option to remap keys.
I never felt like the controls were an impediment to making progress in Charlie Murder.
Worked out of the box with The Mistress.

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FUN

V-

What I really like most about the original Serious Sam games is that they came from a time when you could give zero FKS and just make the game you wanted to play.
Fortunately the ease of self publishing has brought back a little bit of that magic.
Case in point, Charlie Murder.
It’s like battletoads, guitar hero, and a brawler had sex, yo.
And instead of a guitar playing frog with anger issues you end up with what I like to call a “FK around game”
And that’s basically any game that requires 80% (or less) of your attention while still keeping you hella engaged.
Charlie Murder Pants pulls this off by having a little something something for everyone.
You got your mindless brawling, upgradeable stats (and the ability to juggle them), crafting, and some legit strategy when utilizing your defensive and anarchy abilities.
You can always tell when developers had fun during a games creation because it bleeds into the finished product.
Charlie Murder… bleeds in spades.
Brass tax, if you’re looking for something to kill a little time while kinda sorta doing something else this is absolutely worth a look.

J-

It’s a competently done brawler with some nice flavour and a decent sense of humour
The combat is alright, if a wee flaky at times due to some attacks not lining up properly
Also, enemies like to corner fuck you, which can be less than fun
If Flibit could sort out the online multiplayer, I think this could easily get four chairs in the fun category
Not that it isn’t fun to beat the ever loving shit out of your teammates in order to force the games to sync up
Yeah, the multiplayer bugs are pretty bad, but I don’t feel that they detract much from the fun
The palate cleanser segments (guitar hero and vehicles) aren’t that difficult, but they do provide a nice break from the brawler action
- Jesus fuck though that kraken fight. You straight up need two people for it, otherwise it takes FOR FUCKING EVER
The character progression stuff is light enough that you don’t need to analyze the crap out of your choices, but gives you decent enough stuff to spice up the gameplay

P-

Took me about 9 hours to finish the game in normal mode, you can then keep playing in Chaos mode (that’s New Game+) but enemies become so strong, it’d be easier to tear through a punching bag with cotton candy gloves.
If you want to get the good ending in the first run, you either get a friend to equip the special items you need to summon the final boss proper, or you need to grind your way up to level 30/32 in order to unlock the skill you need to equip everything.
I’m not so sure I’m going to bother trying to go back to the Normal difficulty world just to see the good ending.
I might, but I don’t feel like it right now.
I’m not saying that to imply the game wasn’t fun.
Because it was fun, combat gets a little button mashy in some sequences and boss fights but I never felt like I wasn’t making an impact.
For all those times I’ve bitched and moaned about combat not feeling particularly meaty, Charlie Murder quells all my complaints in that regard.
It would’ve been even better if I didn’t feel like I had the need to grind in order to be able to get the good ending, or if the enemies didn’t feel so overpowered in New Game+.
In single player, of course. In Multiplayer that’s not the issue.
The big issue in Multiplayer is the amount of progress stalling bugs that kept Jordan from progressing through certain area transitions.

Total-

Final –