Will Fight for Food: Super Actual Sellout:

Game of the Hour Review

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As established in my last review, I hate surprises. I think there’s no need for them at all, and that people shouldn’t be able to shock others with information or actions that were either known beforehand or pre-meditated. Recently, I’ve received a string of good games to review. Highlights including Ride, Mortal Kombat X (which has been patched on PC, so I recommend it to Steam users) and most recently the Crypt of the NecroDancer. All of these have contained surprises, some nice and some not so nice, but overall left me pleased. And just as I start to think that maybe the gaming market as a whole has gotten its act together, then, “Will Fight For Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour” drops into my lap.

No. Stop. My sides.

Before we start with the game itself, let’s just take a look at the title. The first part; “Will Fight For Food” tells us that it’s probably a fighting game, you probably control a character who’s down on their luck, so they have to resort to fighting to survive. “Super Actual Sellout”; Ok then, it tells us that the character in question probably did something he didn’t want to do for money. Perhaps that’s why he’s in the situation in the first place. Not a bad continuation. “Game of the Hour”; Now I know my buttons are being pressed. The most that any game should get away with is one subtitle maximum. Now Will Fight For Food indulges itself and presents two. Firstly, I think that subtitles only work for re-masters/re-releases and other games set in the already established universe. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance springs to mind (though even that’s a stretch considering Metal Gear Rising would have done fine. And “Revengeance” isn’t even a word). And lastly, has the game officially been named the “Game of the Hour”? If so, which hour? Game of the Year editions make sense since the game in question was obviously popular in the year it was released in. But Game of the Hour doesn’t make sense to me.

But enough about the title. How’s the game? Well, in a single phrase, not good. Will Fight For Food puts you in the control of former wrestler Jared Casey Dentin on his never-ending quest to do quests for people. There probably is a reason it’s all going down, but I didn’t catch it due to the disjointed nature of the storytelling. One minute you’re outside a stadium talking to other wrestlers, the next you’re in the ring itself before being teleported to a random street. There’s no sense of the flow of time within any of these jumps.
As previously stated, the point of Will Fight For Food is to help others with whatever problems they may or may not have. However, drumming up the enthusiasm to help these lazy cretins is a challenge within itself, as they offer little incentive. Various objects of clothing can be equipped to alter stats both positively and negatively, but these don’t actually affect the character’s appearance, which seems like a wasted opportunity for customization.

Will Fight For Food does try to give the player an incentive to talk to and help the townsfolk: the humour. Yes, this is another modern indie game that tries to sell itself on off-beat humour, awkward lines and terrible decisions made both by the protagonist and NPCs. I found myself zoning out for a lot of the dialogue sections, simply because they weren’t interesting enough to warrant my attention. I then discovered an actual positive to this game- the ability to kick the living crap out of anyone and everyone you come across. Tramps? Punch ‘em. Homeowners? Kim ‘em. Baseball players? Shoulder barge ‘em. Nerds? Punch ‘em, kick ‘em, and then shoulder barge ‘em into oblivion. This locks you out of a fair amount of content since a lot of the quests become locked after you give half the town a concussion. Still, it beats sitting through plenty of dead humour – literally.

Hit more people to make the game end sooner.

Speaking of fighting, the combat is woefully shallow. All the combat techniques I just mentioned is all you can actually do when fighting, making combat sections very repetitive very quickly. Will Fight For Food’s combat system is also incredibly easy to abuse. As long as you keep out of the general range of enemy attacks before shoulder barging them a couple times in a row, you won’t lose very easily. Playing on normal difficulty restores half your health at every checkpoint, should you screw up accidentally.

The only other genuinely redeeming factor of Will Fight For Food is the music that starts up whenever combat begins. This upbeat track keeps me entertained for about 10 seconds per fight before it loops. Perhaps 10 seconds is an exaggeration, but it isn’t far off. In short, the only (good) music in the game is on a ridiculously short loop. Plus if you aren’t listening to the shortest loop in the world, you’re listening to the wonderful sound of silence, as the game is strangely quiet and features no voice acting of any sort.

Recently I seem to have received a bit of a reputation for tearing games apart, showing no tact in how I approach negative aspects. Perhaps it is well deserved, and so for my latest articles I have been a little more careful with my words. But games that have negatives or drawbacks usually have plenty of positives to balance it out. When one of my positives is the ability to fight everyone, thus making the story (what seems to be a major selling point) a lot shorter, the game in question isn’t exactly a winner. I truly understand that games need a lot of time and effort to get working and that having someone sit behind a computer and mock your work isn’t the best feeling in the world. But when there’s little effort put into the music and the plot, or the game isn’t even enjoyable in its own right (i.e. broken but fun), then there must be something wrong. From what I understand, the title is stupidly long because this is some sort of remake of a previously released game. If this is a remake, or, in other words, attempt number two at selling the same game, someone, please explain to me why there’s spelling errors in the “Help” screen? Everyone makes mistakes; it’s only human. But if you’re planning to make money, real actual money off your product, would it be so hard to get someone to test it? Every article I submit is proofread before submitting, yet I don’t intend to make ludicrous amounts of money off each and every review, preview or news piece. Something to think about.

Will Fight For Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour: Super Duper Ultra Mega Edition: HD Remake Plus doesn’t float my boat or rock my world. It saddens me. In a time of everyone being able to fling whatever they want at the Steam Greenlight page in any condition they want, it’s disappointing to see that a few stragglers make it through the net. In my opinion, the game isn’t fun. It isn’t funny. It doesn’t look, play or sound good. And the fact that it currently has “Mixed” reviews, implying that there may be an actual reason to pick it up, just makes me want to sink even lower.

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