Introduction
Double Kick Heroes is a rhythm game developed by HeadBang Club. It was released to Consoles and PC in 2018.
Review
The world has gone to hell in a handbasket, and the zombies have taken over the world! You and your rag tag band mates decide to put on a concert, only to see that there’s zombies everywhere! How’d they miss that? Shoot, beats me. So they hop in their car and drive off to figure out how it all began, and how to stop it!
The story is….the story is very lackluster. You meet some people who are big metal icons, like Marilyn Manson, except his name is now Marlene Branson. Plus Jack and Kyle of Tenacious D. Plus a character that I didn’t feel fit in well. All this while you figure out eventually you need to travel to hell to stop it all. Why? I don’t know. The devil is always the bad guy I guess. At the start of levels you get some dialogue between the band, and some of it is kind of funny, but a lot of it just falls flat. Plus there’s a whole lot of “fuck” dropped in there for some reason.
None of the characters are very likeable, and no one actually has any development. But I guess when it comes to rhythm games, it’s all about the gameplay. Let me tell you though, that I sucked. First and foremost I tried playing on Normal difficulty. But that got way too crazy to the point where my fingers were stumbling around, so I had to switch it down to Easy.
So the basis of the game is just like any rhythm game. Notes appear on the screen, and you press a button when it reaches a certain point. But in this, along with that, you shoot a gun every time you hit a note, thus killing the zombies behind you. Though you have to alternate between two of the face buttons on your controller, to kill zombies above your car, and below your car. If they get too close, you take damage, and can thus lose the level. So that was a cool aspect. On Normal, along with a normal button, eventually another line of buttons is added, for grenades. This is where I got fucked up. As the grenade buttons were the triggers, but my fingers just couldn’t figure that out. So I’d hit a face button, instead of the grenade button, and vice versa. But on the other end of the spectrum, Easy was just so boring. So I decided to be bored, instead of getting angry when my fingers couldn’t follow along.
Maybe I just don’t have any rhythm, but eventually there’s so many notes on screen, I was just mashing the controller hoping for the best. Even on easy, I found myself needing to hold the controller sideways to double tap the face buttons at the same time just so I could make it through. So I can’t imagine that, coupled with an extra button, for something like grenades. I didn’t even bother a higher difficulty either, because fuck all of that. As for the music choices in the game, they all come from underground bands. Or I’m so out of touch with metal music nowadays, I don’t know any of these bands. There were unfortunately only a few good songs to jam too. Those were usually the boss level themes. Even then, you can kill the bosses before you even hear the whole song!
The sound in the game was so completely unbalanced though. I tried everything in my power to hear the lyrics to the songs, but I could never get it balanced right. So eventually I just said screw it and went on with the game. Turning my tv up and down when it was needed. But a lot of the songs really weren’t good. They never seemed to actually have a good rhythm to them, or the lyrics were sung like a microphone was handed to a grumbling gorilla, so I could hardly ever make out a word. Now I love some screamo, but this? This was just not good. It’s not enough to have loud instruments and grumbles. You need rhythm and some semblance of understanding. Luckily the game didn’t stretch on very long, so I didn’t suffer for too long.
Rating
Pros:
- Some Silly Writing
- Unique Take On Rhythm Games
Cons:
- Music Wasn’t Great
- Story Was Lackluster
- I Just Plain Sucked
Summary
I went into this game not knowing what to expect. I needed a break from Undertale. It was there on GamePass. I googled and it said it was short. But I regret my decisions. I didn’t have fun. The story was bland. The music was pretty terrible, and I found out, maybe I just suck at rhythm games. Who knew!?
As a metal music fan though, just stay away from this. I can’t recommend it. Now let me go drive my car off a cliff lime the characters in this game should’ve done…..oh wait!
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Headbang Club
Developer Socials: Twitter
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